The EPA Faces Questions About Its Approval of a Plastic-Based Fuel With an Astronomical Cancer Risk

by Sharon Lerner (ProPublica) The Environmental Protection Agency is facing a lawsuit filed by a community group and questions from a U.S. senator over the agency’s approval of fuels made from discarded plastic under a program it touted as “climate-friendly.”

The new scrutiny is in response to an earlier investigation by ProPublica and the Guardian that revealed the EPA approved the new chemicals even though its own scientists calculated that pollution from production of one of the plastic-based fuels was so toxic that 1 in 4 people exposed to it over their lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals, and it’s higher than the lifetime risk of cancer for current smokers.

On Friday (April 11, 2023), a community organization sued the EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., over the agency’s decision to allow a Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, to produce the fuels derived from plastic waste, including the one that could subject people nearby to a 1-in-4 lifetime cancer risk. Cherokee Concerned Citizens, which represents residents in a housing subdivision close to that refinery, is asking the court to invalidate the EPA’s approval of the new chemicals.

Earlier in the week, the chair of the U.S. Senate subcommittee that oversees chemical safety questioned the head of the EPA over the agency’s approval of those fuels. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, told EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a letter sent on Wednesday that he found what ProPublica and the Guardian discovered “especially troubling.”

Katherine O’Brien, an Earthjustice senior attorney who represents the community group, said the law requires the EPA to address “unreasonable risks” presented by chemicals. The agency can impose specific limits or requirements that companies must follow and, when necessary, prevent them from making or using a chemical. “The community should not be subjected to additional emissions of novel toxic chemicals, particularly where EPA found that the chemicals will pose jaw-dropping risks to human health,” O’Brien said.

An EPA spokesperson on Friday declined to comment about the lawsuit. When asked about the fuels in February, a spokesperson for the agency said that the 1-in-4 cancer risk calculation was “a very conservative estimate with ‘high uncertainty,’” meaning that it erred on the side of caution in calculating such a high risk.

The spokesperson at that time explained that the EPA included plastic-based fuels in a program focused on biofuels because the initiative also covers fuels made from waste. As of February, the program had approved 34 fuels; 16 of them were made from waste. All 16 of the waste-based fuels were subject to consent orders, documents that the EPA issues when it finds that new chemicals or mixtures may pose an “unreasonable risk” to the environment or human health. Consent orders spell out the risks and specify the agency’s plans for mitigating them.

In a written statement, Chevron told ProPublica and The Guardian in February that the company had followed the EPA’s process under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates chemicals. The statement said, “We are taking steps to address plastic waste and support a circular economy in which post-use plastic is recycled, reused or repurposed.”

Chevron also recently created a webpage that it says answers questions raised by the community about the February article. On it, the company describes its new fuels as “part of an advanced sustainable recycling program” and notes that it has not begun to produce them. The website also describes the 1-in-4 cancer risk as “based on EPA’s initial risk screening.”

The Chevron website also says that the cancer risk “was taken out of context and doesn’t reflect how it would actually be done given the processes and safeguards we use every day at the refinery to ensure we do everything safely or not at all.” The company website says Chevron did a trial of the process about a year ago and found that “the refinery functioned normally” and emission levels “remained normal.”

The senator also asked for a list of all the new waste-based fuels approved and all consent orders issued under this program. READ MORE