“All of us at Moms are appalled and disgusted,” said Moms Clean Air Force Director and Co-founder Dominique Browning, kicking off our recent webinar, Fueling Disaster: How Rescinding the Endangerment Finding Would Worsen Petrochemical Disasters.
Ten days remain to submit public comments to EPA about their unprecedented proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding, the legal and scientific foundation of the agency’s ability to regulate climate emissions. So we gathered experts to discuss how extreme deregulation would put floods, droughts, and hurricanes on steroids and usher in a future of catastrophic chemical disasters—specifically at facilities using fossil fuels to produce petrochemicals and plastics.
“This EPA is morally bankrupt,” said Dominique. There’s still time to fight back against Administrator Lee Zeldin’s push to abandon EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment and cater to the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. The webinar concluded with easy-to-follow information on submitting comments before the September 22 deadline.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is Essential for Our Families’ Health
Here are three takeaways from webinar panelists Cynthia Palmer, Moms’ petrochemical expert, Dr. Leo Trasande, Director of NYU’s Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards and professor in pediatrics and environmental medicine, and Jo Banner, Co-founder of The Descendants Project, an organization dedicated to justice for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans living in the river parishes of Louisiana, which have now become known as Cancer Alley due to toxic petrochemical buildout in the area.
1. “There’s a bright red line between extreme weather and petrochemical dangers.”
Cynthia Palmer recently published an analysis on the implications that rescinding the Endangerment Finding would have on petrochemical disasters and pollution. “Plastics are made from oil, gas, and coal combined with toxic chemicals … and are the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions. By 2040 as much as 19% of global greenhouse gas emissions will come from plastics,” Cynthia shared.
Every step of the petrochemical supply chain releases pollutants that heat the climate and intensify weather events. In turn, extreme weather events often trigger chemical disasters. “It’s a self-reinforcing loop of destruction,” said Cynthia. When storms surge, chemicals are released into the air and waterways, and pipelines carrying explosive fuels crisscrossing the country can spew toxic chemicals when flooded. “The highest risks of these events fall on the lowest income families and people of color residing in the Southeastern U.S.” she noted.
Without the Endangerment Finding, there will be more petrochemical incidents triggered by extreme weather.
2. “Kids are vulnerable; they have developing systems.”
The Trump administration has recently unleashed a number of attacks on programs that protect the health and safety of people in the U.S. Rolling back protections for human health and for climate pollution that causes disasters will harm children most of all. Studies on the impact of petrochemicals on our bodies have shown they can impair childhood development, interfering with lungs, brain, and hormone systems in a way that reverberates for the entire life span.
“Children have higher exposure than adults [to these chemicals] in air, water, and food. Children have higher oxygen and other needs per pound of body mass. They inhale at a higher rate, and that gives them higher exposure. They carry higher body burden compared to adults,” said Dr. Trasande, author of Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future … and What We Can Do About It.
Petrochemicals used in everyday products like can linings and receipts (bisphenols) and to soften plastics (phthalates) can disrupt the hormones that underlay every body function from temperature to metabolism to sex. “When we are talking about hormone-disrupting chemicals, we are talking about synthetic chemicals that exist in human experience … that are competing in some cases with our natural hormones, hacking those molecular functions, and rewiring development,” said Dr. Trasande, who has documented $249 billion a year in disease costs in the U.S. due to chemicals used in plastics. “These are chemicals used increasingly in materials in our lifestyle in many ways as we focus on climate change,” he noted. Fossil fuel companies are looking for an off ramp as demand for oil and gas fuels decreases, and that’s increasingly plastic production.
3. “People living close to petrochemical facilities experience the first and worst impacts of chemical disaster, but it’s coming to everyone.”
Jo Banner refers to her home a “sacrifice zone”—the stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge referred to as Cancer Alley, dotted with 200 industrial facilities, many of them related to plastic production. Childhood leukemia and other cancer rates are outsized there. “We’re seeing multi-generations dealing with cancer. You hear the grandparents, parents, and the child have cancer too. These are the realities,” she shared.
This hits schoolchildren hard. They’re attending school sick or with a sick relative at home and also dealing with climate issues. “They may be relocated from their home because of hurricanes and have to somehow learn in these types of conditions. Sometimes the schools will be on or close to the fence line of huge plants,” she said, adding, “School is supposed to be safe.” During extreme storms, the community worries about the stability of the industrial infrastructure all around them. As a result, children in Cancer Alley have lower test scores.
Jo has a clear message for Administrator Zeldin: “You can’t escape this. It may feel like we get the pollution worse, but it doesn’t mean you don’t get it second. It is coming to you… What’s the saying? If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you at night. We are seeing people facing a lot of nighttime right now.” This is not the time to allow more climate pollution.
If Jo’s words—or Cynthia’s or Dr. Trasande’s—make you want tell EPA we need the Endangerment Finding to continue protecting us from petrochemical pollution, here’s how. Make sure to send your comment before the September 22 deadline.
Watch the Fueling Disasters webinar in full here.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is Essential for Our Families’ Health