Trump's Administration Drops Lawsuit Against Louisiana Plant

The Trump administration is about to drop a lawsuit against a synthetic rubber factory in Louisiana. This factory is accused of increasing cancer risks for residents living nearby. Most of these residents are Black. The factory is located near an elementary school, about 30 miles from New Orleans. The Biden administration had previously targeted this factory as part of their environmental justice efforts. They wanted to improve conditions in places hit hard by industrial pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sued the Denka Performance Elastomer plant. They claimed that the plant was emitting too much of a toxic chemical called chloroprene. The Trump administration is reversing these efforts. They have already put around 170 environmental justice-focused staffers on leave. Dropping this lawsuit takes pressure off the company. The company has been fighting federal lawsuits and investigations for years. The plant produces neoprene, a synthetic rubber used in many products like wetsuits and laptop sleeves. The plant was bought by the Japanese company Denka a decade ago. It was previously owned by DuPont. The Department of Justice sued the company in 2023. They accused the company of emitting too much chloroprene, which can be especially harmful to children. A judge had planned a trial for April. The EPA under Biden had also issued a rule to reduce industrial pollution. This rule gave Denka a quick deadline to lower its emissions. The company complained that they were being singled out. They said other manufacturers were given more time to comply. The company also said they had significantly reduced their emissions in recent years. They won an extension of their deadline. The EPA also investigated Louisiana air regulators. They found that state health officials didn’t do enough to inform the public about the plant’s cancer risk. But the EPA dropped that investigation in late 2023. A federal judge agreed and reduced the EPA’s authority to pursue environmental discrimination in Louisiana. The Denka plant is located in an industrial stretch of Louisiana. This area is known as Cancer Alley because of the high incidence of cancer among residents. The area has about 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical operations. It accounts for about 25% of the petrochemical production in the United States. Michael Regan, the EPA administrator under Biden, visited the area in 2021. He told residents that if federal and state officials had been upholding environmental protections, conditions wouldn’t be so bad. Robert Taylor, a local resident and co-founder of the advocacy group Concerned Citizens of St. John the Baptist Parish, called the plan to drop the lawsuit terrible. He said it was a reversal from the Biden administration, which he said had done great things to help fight harmful emissions. The federal government’s lawsuit said air monitoring shows that long-term concentrations near the Denka plant are as high as 15 times the amount recommended for long-term exposure to chloroprene. Moving to dismiss the case is part of the Trump administration’s broader moves to abandon communities hit hardest by air pollution. It also promotes unbridled industrial expansion.