CONTACT: DKC News, MomsCleanAirForce@dkcnews.com
WASHINGTON, DC– The U.S. Senate is expected to vote today on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would give some of the nation’s worst polluters a free pass to emit unlimited amounts of carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals into the air.
“Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation that would roll back Clean Air Act protections for the first time in history,” says Moms Clean Air Force Director of Federal Policy Melody Reis. “The legislation would allow the nation’s most toxic polluters to permanently turn off their pollution controls and release unlimited amounts of the most insidious air pollutants known to humankind — chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, and brain damage. If enacted, this legislation would return us to a time before the Clean Air Act existed when industrial polluters could release limitless amounts of carcinogens without accountability. This is cynical, dangerous, and deeply irresponsible. We need Congress to protect our children, not to make them sick.”
“West Virginia is home to some of the worst polluting petrochemical facilities in the country,” says Moms Clean Air Force West Virginia Field Organizer Candi Hurst. “Many of these facilities emit large amounts of toxic chemicals into our air, endangering the health of children and families. It is outrageous that some in Congress are considering allowing the most toxic polluters to permanently shut off their air pollution controls. This includes such notorious polluters as the Union Carbide facility in Institute, West Virginia. This facility along with hundreds of other toxic polluters across the nation would then be able to blanket communities with unlimited amounts of the world’s most potent cancer-causing pollutants, including dioxins, lead, mercury and more. Our children deserve to breathe clean air and to grow up healthy.”
BACKGROUND: In 2024, EPA issued a rule to re-affirm that refineries, chemical plants, and other large emitters of the most dangerous pollutants must follow strict pollution control standards (known as Maximum Achievable Control Technology standards). The EPA rule is the Reclassification of Major Sources as Area Sources Rule. The CRA resolution that the Senate is expected to vote on today, S.J. Res. 31, would invalidate this rule and allow heavily polluting facilities to stop controlling the seven most hazardous air pollutants – which are toxic in fractions of a gram and have been linked to cancer and other serious harms – forevermore. The CRA resolution would enable facilities that spew these seven super-toxics to “reclassify” from “Major Sources” to “Area Sources.” Then, as “Area Sources,” most of these facilities would no longer have to comply with pollution controls, monitoring, and reporting requirements. LEARN MORE.