By: Cynthia Palmer, Senior Analyst for Petrochemicals, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: March 10, 2026
About: EPA Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OLEM-2025-0313
To: Environmental Protection Agency
I’m Cynthia Palmer, Senior Analyst for Petrochemicals at Moms Clean Air Force. I oppose EPA’s plans to dismantle the modest but critically important protections afforded by the RMP chemical disaster rule.
I’m testifying on behalf of my best friend and bridesmaid, Ursula, who grew up in southeast Texas and died from a malignant cancer when her children were in pre-school. We will never know if her death was pure “bad luck” or whether it had something to do with the toxic exposures in growing up amid these belching incident-ridden petrochemical fortresses.
What we do know is that the release of volatile, explosive, and reactive toxic chemicals can upend lives in the worst possible way, exposing children and their families to potent carcinogens like dioxins, ethylene oxide and formaldehyde, asphyxiants like hydrogen cyanide, and corrosive pulmonary agents like chlorine and hydrogen fluoride.
Chemical fires, leaks and explosions happen in the U.S. every couple of days, and the smallest members of our society are the most vulnerable. These chemicals can wreck havoc on the bodies of babies and children—whose brains and nervous systems are undergoing rapid and delicate developmental phases, and whose immune systems are too immature to offer any protection from these insidious chemicals.
What did these children do to deserve these life-altering exposures? Why is EPA doing away with commonsense and even life-saving protections like backup power systems during blackouts, evaluations of safer technologies, stop-work authority, or the sharing of emergency planning information with local schools and families. One in three children go to school in an RMP chemical disaster worst-case scenario zone.
Please look out for the children. Air pollution from burning fossil fuels is only getting worse, putting floods, wildfires, and hurricanes on steroids, and triggering chemical leaks, toxic industrial fires, and explosions. And yet your EPA is feverishly rushing to dismantle protections from chemical disasters—and from all toxic chemicals: PFAS, mercury, formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, and on and on and on.
Who in their right mind would want to weaken the rules?
We are asking you to strengthen the RMP chemical disaster rules, not to gut the protections.
Thank you.