The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to revoke and review Chevron’s approval to produce 18 types of plastic-based fuel, including some that the agency’s internal assessment says may cause cancer.
In a recent court filing, the federal agency said it “has serious concerns” that the approval order “may have been made in error.” EPA gives Chevron’s Mississippi refinery the green light to produce chemicals in 2022 as part of climate friendly initiative designed to boost oil alternatives, as ProPublica and The Guardian reported last year.
An investigation by ProPublica and The Guardian found that the EPA estimated that one of the chemicals intended for use as jet fuel could cause cancer in 1 in 4 people have been exposed during their lifetime.
The risk from another plastic-based chemical, a marine fuel additive, was more than 1 million times higher than the agency normally considers acceptable — so high that Anyone who is continuously exposed over a lifetime is expected to develop canceraccording to a received document through a public records request. In the agency’s document approving the chemical’s production, the EPA did not note the sky-high cancer risk from the marine fuel additive. When ProPublica asked why, the EPA said it “inadvertently” missed it.
Although the law requires the agency to address unreasonable health risks when it discovers them, the EPA approval document, known as a consent order, contained no instructions on how the company should reduce the risk of cancer or a host of other threats health that chemicals create. except that workers must wear gloves.
After ProPublica and The Guardian reported on Chevron’s plan to make chemicals from discarded plastic, a community group outside a refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, sued the EPA in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. group, Concerned citizens of Cherokeeasked the court to invalidate the agency’s permit to use the chemicals.
For months, as ProPublica and The Guardian asked questions about the plastic-based chemicals, the EPA defended its decision to allow Chevron to produce them. But in Art the petition was submitted on September 20the agency said it would reconsider its earlier position. In a statement attached to the petition, Shari Barash, director of the EPA’s Division of New Chemicals, explained the decision as based on “potential deficiencies in the order.”
Barash also wrote that the agency used conservative methods in evaluating the chemicals that led to an overestimation of the risk they posed. The EPA’s petition says the agency wants to reconsider its decision and “further consider the limitations” of the risk assessment, as well as “alleged deficiencies” identified by environmental groups.
Last week, the EPA declined to provide an accurate estimate of the true risk posed by the chemicals, citing pending litigation. The EPA also did not respond to a question about why it did not admit that its approval may have been made in error for months when ProPublica asked about it.
Chevron, which has not started producing the chemicals, did not respond to a question about their potential health effects. The company sent an emailed statement saying, “Chevron understands that the EPA has told the court that the agency overestimated the hazard under these permits.”
As ProPublica and The Guardian pointed out last year, making fuel from plastic is in some ways worse for the climate than simply making it directly from coal, oil or gas. That’s because almost all plastic comes from fossil fuels, and the extra fossil fuel is used to generate heat that turns discarded plastic into fuel.
Kathryn O’Brien, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which represents Cherokee Concerned Citizens in the lawsuit, said she is concerned that after revoking approval for the chemicals, the EPA could reauthorize them, leaving her clients at risk.
“I would say it’s a victory for due diligence,” O’Brien said of the EPA’s plan to withdraw its approval. “We are certainly watching for a new decision that would re-approve any of these chemicals.”
