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“The fatal and shocking incidents communities have faced in recent days demonstrate the urgent need to implement and build on existing regulatory safeguards so communities near chemical facilities are protected from chemical disasters. But, instead of protecting workers and families from death, injury, and illness, Trump’s EPA is putting communities at greater risk of harm by weakening the nation’s primary defense against chemical facility incidents. The Risk Management Program (RMP) protects against catastrophic industrial chemical releases, fires, and explosions through preventative safety measures. The Trump administration is attempting to weaken this rule. Every chemical incident, every life lost, and every evacuation is one too many. Each chemical emergency makes clear the need to strengthen, not dismantle, protections against chemical disasters before more workers, families, and communities are harmed.” 

For a year now, the Chemical Safety Board, a small independent agency that investigates chemical spills and other disasters has faced elimination under President Trump’s budget cuts.That hasn’t stopped the board from taking on the Trump administration. The agency is now opposing an attempt to roll back new chemical disaster rules that were introduced under former President Joseph R. Biden and aimed to prevent accidents at thousands of industrial facilities. The Chemical Safety Board has been taking the lead in investigating accidents, including a chemical leak at a plant in West Virginia last month that killed two people. Maya Nye, who grew up about a mile from the plant and whose family was forced to shelter in place as the emergency unfolded, described the accident as one of many over the years across the industrial corridor along the Kanawha River near Charleston, a hub for chemical manufacturing that residents call “Chemical Valley.” “We’ve been kicking and screaming for years calling for improvements, protections under these rules. And now it feels like we’re taking 10 steps back,” said Dr. Nye, who is federal policy director for Coming Clean, a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies to prevent disasters and reduce toxic pollution.

Wayne County, Mississippi, in a quiet southeast corner of the state, is home to about 20,000 people surrounded by forest and farmland. But Wayne distinguishes itself in two ways: it is home to a Sipcam Agro plant that processes the toxic herbicide paraquat. Within the U.S., the plant is the largest single emitter of paraquat. Wayne County also sees high rates of Parkinson’s disease deaths, in the top 7% of all U.S. counties that reported Parkinson’s deaths between 2018 and 2024. Troves of evidence have long linked paraquat to Parkinson’s, the world’s fastest-growing – and incurable – neurodegenerative disease. In March, Syngenta announced it would stop producing paraquat. But Syngenta’s exit doesn’t mean paraquat will stop entering the U.S. Instead, other companies and other facilities – like the one in Wayne County – will fill the gap, likely increasing the amount of paraquat they handle.

Workers, lawmakers and environmental advocates gathered  this week to speak out against a proposed federal rule that would roll back protections for people who live near hazardous facilities across the country. “This is just the latest example of how this administration will do whatever it can to put industry profit over the health and safety of workers, first responders and communities that allow those companies to exist in the first place,” US Rep. Paul Tonko, a Democrat from New York, said during a March 25 press event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The event was organized by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, an alliance of community, environmental, and labor organizations working to strengthen federal regulations to prevent chemical disasters.

In 2024, the federal Environmental Protection Agency attempted to address the risk of chemical leaks through a rule called the Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention. It promised a modest course correction, requiring dangerous plants to investigate past accidents, plan for climate-fueled disasters, give workers more power to halt unsafe operations, and, in some cases, switch to safer chemicals or processes. But last month, Trump’s EPA proposed gutting most of those safeguards before they ever took effect, moving to strip away requirements for safer technologies, climate and natural disaster planning, third-party safety audits, and strong worker participation in decision making. “For fenceline communities and facility workers, this rollback is a declaration that our lives are deemed acceptable sacrifices,” said Ana Parras, executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, a group that has worked in several national coalitions around chemical safety.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed weaker regulations for the nation’s most hazardous chemical facilities, drawing opposition from community, environmental justice, labor and environmental health groups. “This rollback will cost lives,” said Michele Roberts, National Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. “EJHA affiliates refuse to continue to sacrifice their families’ health and safety for the profits of corporate polluters.”