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A coalition led by environmental justice organizations filed a suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today for refusing to issue long-overdue rules to prevent hazardous-substance discharges that threaten public health and contaminate waterways. Across the United States, more than 100,000 facilities make, store, or use hundreds of hazardous chemicals linked to reproductive, developmental, and neurological harm – including benzene, hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid, hydrogen cyanide, and hydrochloric acid. “For generations environmental justice communities have lived next to some of the most hazardous facilities in the country that threaten the bodies of water our families rely on to survive. Now more than ever we must prioritize creating safe and healthy places where all of our children can thrive and grow.” said Michele Roberts, National Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. “The EPA’s do-nothing approach leaves us one incident away from a catastrophe.”

he U.S. Steel plant where two workers were killed and 10 injured in an explosion on Monday had a history of chemical accidents — but it was one of hundreds of high-risk chemical facilities that were recently hidden from the public after demands from the chemical industry. The Trump administration, at the behest of the powerful chemical lobby, has been working to gut oversight of so-called Risk Management Program facilities, chemical plants that are considered at the highest risk of deadly explosions. In April, two months after an explicit request from industry, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scrubbed a tracking tool listing such facilities from its website. “This isn’t U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works’ first incident,” Maya Nye, the federal policy director of Coming Clean, a chemical watchdog group, told The Lever. “Any time the same facility has repeated disasters, that’s a regulatory failure.”

Legislative language moving through Congress, intended to prevent farmers, consumers, and workers from holding pesticide manufacturers accountable for the harm caused by their toxic products, is being opposed by a broad coalition of farmers, beekeepers, consumers, environmentalists, and workers, with the release of a joint statement opposing a dramatic change in a fundamental legal right.  The document, Protect the Right of Farmers, Consumers, and Workers to Hold Pesticide Companies Accountable for Their Harmful Products, is joined by 51 organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders representing tens of thousands of members and communities. The legislation is hidden in a provision of the Appropriations bill (Section 453) that has passed through the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is headed for a vote in the full House, followed by the U.S. Senate. 

Bakelite Synthetics, the only major source of formaldehyde emissions in Jefferson County, will have more time to comply with Biden-era pollution control requirements following a Trump proclamation. The plant neighbors the Riverside Gardens community, where residents have raised concerns about chemical emissions and other hazards in the past. "This would be the perfect time for this city to strengthen that permit in an effort to reduce our exposure to any of the chemicals coming from Bakelite," Eboni Cochran, a longtime environmental justice advocate with Rubbertown Emergency ACTion, or REACT, said in a text message. "There are solutions," Cochran said. "The city just needs to have enough will and courage to protect its residents."

Living in a healthy environment means that you can trust that your basic living conditions – air, water, food, shelter, and the things in your built world – will not make you sick. Living in a healthy environment means that, no matter your identity, you trust the safety of public spaces, and do not fear bodily harm in your home, workplace, or street. The Trump Administration is systematically dismantling the conditions of a healthy and safe environment. 

Today, Coming Clean, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance, and other members of the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters sent a letter urging members of Congress to oppose White House proposal to eliminate the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). The CSB is an independent nonregulatory federal agency that Congress created pursuant to federal law after deadly chemical disasters in Bhopal, India and Institute, West Virginia. It is the only federal agency charged with investigating the root causes of industrial chemical disasters; issuing reports to Congress, EPA, and OSHA; and making recommendations to prevent future disasters. This year alone, there have already been over one hundred chemical incidents in the U.S

Eliminating the CSB will come at a cost to the safety of plant workers and neighboring communities, especially along the Gulf Coast, where the bulk of the U.S. petrochemical industry is concentrated, said former CSB officials and environmental groups. “Closing the CSB will mean more accidents at chemical plants, more explosions and more deaths,” said Beth Rosenberg, a public health expert who served on the CSB board from 2013 to 2014. On average, hazardous chemical accidents happen once every other day in the U.S., according to Coming Clean, an environmental health nonprofit. Coming Clean documented 825 fires, leaks and other chemical-related incidents between January 2021 and October 2023. The incidents killed at least 43 people and triggered evacuation orders and advisories in nearly 200 communities.