Overnight Energy & Environment

Energy & Environment — EPA raises discrimination concerns in ‘Cancer Alley’

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk 10/13/22 08:22 PM CDT

The EPA is saying that Louisiana may have discriminated against Black communities facing air pollution, Saudi Arabia is pushing back against the Biden administration’s OPEC+ rhetoric and the city of Washington, D.C., is suing a chemical company.

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Subscribe here.

EPA: State of Louisiana may have discriminated

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a Wednesday letter said Louisiana may have discriminated against Black communities who live near air pollution sources in the state.

The EPA’s probe focuses on residents in the state’s Industrial Corridor, sometimes referred to as “Cancer Alley” due to higher-than-normal cancer rates. EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited the area last year.

In the letter to the leaders of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and Department of Health (LDH), the federal agency specifically raised concerns about residents who live near a facility that emits chloroprene, which the agency says is likely to cause cancer.

The letter said that LDEQ’s “actions and inactions” may have subjected Black residents living or attending school near the facility in question to discrimination.
Specifically, it said that the department didn’t appropriately act on the facility’s permit renewal, failed to appropriately apply nondiscrimination requirements and failed to provide accurate information to impacted residents.

The takeaway: “There appears to be a causal link between LDEQ’s actions and inactions in administering its air permitting program and the adverse and disproportionate distribution of the cancer and toxicity risks from chloroprene exposure, by race,” the letter said.

The letter was first reported by The Lens, a local news outlet, but was later circulated by environmental groups.

Responses:

“It was a letter of concern, it was not a finding,” said LDEQ spokesperson Greg Langley. “We will continue to engage with the EPA to try to resolve any issues and we remain committed to being protective of human health and the environment.”
“The arrogance of our state agency not to deal with the serious environmental health problems related to this plant, it’s just outrageous,” said Darryl Malek-Wiley, a senior organizing representative with Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice and Community Partnership Program.

The letter comes as the Biden administration seeks to address disproportionately high levels of pollution faced by communities of color.

Saudis push back on US’ OPEC statements

Saudi Arabia has dismissed criticism from the U.S. about the OPEC+ decision to cut oil production.

In a statement on Thursday attributed to the Saudi foreign ministry, an official said the decision to cut oil production was solely based on “economic considerations” and that all members of the OPEC+ coalition unanimously agreed to the decision.

The statement said U.S. criticism of the decision was “politically motivated.”

The OPEC+ announcement earlier this month that it will cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day has led to fury among Democratic lawmakers.

Democrats and some Republicans argue the move will raise gas prices in the U.S. while offering a cushion to Russia, another major oil producer, as it fights a war in Ukraine.

The White House has signaled it will reexamine the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia given the decision.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Thursday pushed back on the Saudi foreign ministry statement, saying it “can try to spin or deflect, but the facts are simple.” He said that other OPEC+ nations have communicated to the U.S. privately that they disagree with the Saudi decision “but felt coerced to support” it.

“In recent weeks, the Saudis conveyed to us – privately and publicly – their intention to reduce oil production, which they knew would increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions. That is the wrong direction,” Kirby said in a statement on Thursday. “We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed.”

OPEC+ MOVE MAY MEAN RECESSION, IEA SAYS

Oil supply cuts from a group of nations known as OPEC+ may be the “tipping point” for a global economy nearing recession, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned.

“The OPEC+ bloc’s plan to sharply curtail oil supplies to the market has derailed the growth trajectory of oil supply through the remainder of this year and next, with the resulting higher price levels exacerbating market volatility and heightening energy security concerns,” the organization said in its new oil market report.

“With unrelenting inflationary pressures and interest rate hikes taking their toll, higher oil prices may prove the tipping point for a global economy already on the brink of recession,” it continued.

The IEA is made up of 31 member countries and formed in the 1970s to respond to global oil supply disruptions. Earlier this year, member countries including the U.S. coordinated releases from their oil reserves in an attempt to bring down fuel prices.

DC alleges water contamination in lawsuit

Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine (D) on Thursday announced a lawsuit against chemical manufacturer Velsicol, alleging the company contaminated waterways in the city and harmed the health of residents in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

The complaint alleged that no later than 1959, Velsicol was given private lab studies indicating that a chemical called chlordane, included in a pesticide compound the company manufactured, caused birth defects in animals, and by the early ’70s knew that tests linked it to liver cancer.

The lawsuit argues that despite this internal knowledge, Velsicol conducted an aggressive campaign to assuage concerns about the chemical’s safety, including threatening to sue the publisher of “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s seminal 1962 book on the environmental impact of pesticides.

The Hill has reached out to Velsicol for comment.

The company viewed D.C. as a major market due to termite infestations and placed hundreds of ads in local newspapers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the suit alleged. Research in the late 1980s indicated the Potomac and Anacostia rivers contained triple the amount of chlordane recommended for human consumption, and in 1989 these levels prompted the city to warn against eating carp, catfish or eel caught in the river.

Chlordane’s persistence in the environment has led its effects to linger for years, and as recently as 2016, about 55 percent of D.C. waterways were “impaired” under water quality standards for chlordane levels, according to the complaint. Racine’s office estimated chlordane monitoring will cost the city about $1.2 million annually “for the foreseeable future