![](https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/nacaa-internal-banner-1024x210.jpeg)
October 8-14, 2022
In this week's issue:
- EPA Announces Upgrades and New Data for EJScreen (October 12, 2022)
- Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Calls on EPA to Reduce Risks of Accidental Releases at Refineries (October 11, 2022)
- ICAO Adopts Aspirational Goal of Decarbonized Air Transport by 2050 (October 7, 2022)
- Proposed Reconsideration Rule Addressing Fugitive Emissions in NSR Permitting Published in Federal Register (October 14, 2022)
- EPA Investigation Raises “Significant Concerns” of Civil Rights Violations Associated with Louisiana Air Permitting Program (October 12, 2022)
- Bills Would Expand DOJ Environmental Justice Efforts (October 7, 2022)
This Week in Review
![](https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/US-Capitol-7-533x328.jpeg)
EPA has announced improvements to EJScreen, the agency’s environmental screening and mapping tool focusing on environmental justice (EJ), which include new updated data and features on the platform. These updates (EJScreen 2.1) include more information for the U.S. territories (e.g., environmental, demographic and index data) and supplemental EJ indexes. The supplemental indexes are in addition to the 12 environmental indicators and corresponding EJ indexes that were already on EJScreen. They are designed to help highlight vulnerable communities and include a five-factor demographic index (percent low-income, percent limited English-speaking, percent less than high school education, percent unemployed and low life expectancy). These supplements are intended to provide an additional perspective on possible community vulnerability. The EJScreen updates also include threshold maps that allow users to look across all twelve indexes at once, providing a cumulative perspective; the newest available 2016 – 2020 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census; and other enhancements to the methodologies and calculations used on the platform. EPA is offering training for EJScreen 2.1 on October 19, 2022, as well as open office hours on November 2, 2022 for users to ask questions.
For further information: https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen and https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen/ejscreen-office-hours-training
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a report that calls on EPA to take steps to reduce the risk of serious accidental releases at refineries and evaluate risks related to hydrofluoric acid (HF). The report was in response to the CSB’s investigation of a massive fire and explosion at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery in Philadelphia, PA in June 2019, during which over 5,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid were released. Specifically, the CSB is calling upon EPA to require petroleum refineries to conduct a safer technology and alternatives analysis as part of their Process Hazard Analysis under EPA’s Risk Management Plan rule (under Section 112[r] of the Clean Air Act) and evaluate the practicability of any inherently safer technology. Additionally, the CSB is recommending that EPA evaluate HF under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to determine if it is a high-priority substance for risk evaluation and, if so, conduct a TSCA risk evaluation and implement risk mitigation requirements EPA identifies.
For further information: https://www.csb.gov/csb-releases-final-report-into-2019-pes-fire-and-explosion-in-philadelphia/
After two weeks of “intensive diplomacy,” the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), at its 41st Assembly, adopted a long-term global aspirational goal (LTAG) for air transport of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Achieving the LTAG will require a combination of various carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction measures, such as accelerated adoption of new and innovative aircraft technologies, streamlined fight operations and increased production and use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Upon adoption of the LTAG, Salvatore Sciacchitano, President of the ICAO Council, said, “[ICAO member] States’ adoption of this new long term goal for decarbonized air transport, following the similar commitments from industry groups, will contribute importantly to the green innovation and implementation momentum which must be accelerated over the coming decades to ultimately achieve emissions free powered flight.” Also at the 41st Assembly, member States emphasized the important role of sustainable financing and investment support in attaining the LTAG and expressed full support for the new ICAO Assistance Capacity-building and Training for Sustainable Aviation Fuels Programme.
For further information: https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/Pages/States-adopts-netzero-2050-aspirational-goal-for-international-flight-operations.aspx
EPA published in the Federal Register (87 Fed. Reg. 62,322) a proposed rule that addresses how fugitive emissions are treated when determining whether a proposed change at a stationary source is considered a “major modification” subject to New Source Review (NSR) permitting requirements. Fugitive emissions are defined by Clean Air Act regulations as emissions which could not reasonably pass through a stack, chimney, vent or other functionally equivalent opening. The proposed rule would require all existing major stationary sources to count fugitive emissions toward total emissions when determining whether a change is a major modification. The proposal is the result of EPA’s reconsideration of a 2008 rule requiring only certain types of industrial source categories to include fugitive emissions in the total emissions calculation (including, among others, petroleum refineries, large fossil-fuel fired steam electric plants and Portland cement plants). After the 2008 rule was finalized, the Natural Resources Defense Council submitted a petition for administrative reconsideration to EPA, as well as a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. EPA agreed to convene reconsideration proceedings, and in the interim period, issued a series of administrative stays that prevented the 2008 rule from taking effect (except for a brief period in 2009). In addition to requiring all sources to count fugitive emissions toward major modification thresholds, the proposed reconsideration rule would remove a regulatory provision established in 1980 that exempts certain stationary sources from substantive major NSR requirements if the only reason a change is considered a “major modification” is due to the inclusion of fugitive emissions. Comments on the proposed rule are due by December 13, 2022.
For further information: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-10-14/pdf/2022-22259.pdf and https://www.epa.gov/nsr/proposed-reconsideration-fugitive-emissions-rule
An initial investigation by EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR) into civil rights complaints involving the state of Louisiana “strongly suggests” that Black residents have been subject to adverse and disproportionate health impacts as a result of Louisiana’s management of its air permitting and health risk mitigation programs. In a 55-page “Letter of Concern” to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), OEJECR provides the results of its initial fact finding and analysis of issues raised in three complaints accepted for investigation under federal civil rights laws. The complaints focus on the Denka facility in LaPlace, Louisiana; the Formosa facility proposed to be sited in St. James Parish; and the 85-mile “Industrial Corridor” along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (often referred to as “Cancer Alley”). EPA has not concluded its investigation but offers recommendations to LDEQ and LDH as part of a negotiation process aimed at resolving the complaints. Among other things, EPA recommends that LDEQ conduct cumulative impact analyses of pollution from the Denka and proposed Formosa facilities, as well as additional monitoring, and that it establish air pollution limits along the entire Industrial Corridor to reduce aggregate emissions of carcinogens that have a mutagenic mode of action.
For further information: https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/EPA-OEJECR-Ltr-to-LDEQ-LDH-10-12-22.pdf
House and Senate Democrats proposed legislation this week that would give a more robust environmental justice role for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The bills include H.R. 9124, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-CA) and a companion in the U.S. Senate introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA). The proposed “Empowering and Enforcing Environmental Justice Act” builds on the recent announcement by the Department to create a new Office of Environmental Justice. The bill would make this new office permanent and authorize $50 million in grant funding to assist state and local governments with environmental enforcement efforts. Additionally, the DOJ’s new Environmental Justice Office would specifically coordinate with other federal agencies and state and local governments on environmental justice matters. It will also manage a Senior Advisory Council made up of different components at DOJ to advise the Natural Resource Division’s Assistant Attorney General on matters of environmental justice. The bill would also create a new Section for Environmental Justice within the Environment and Natural Resources Division at DOJ to bring cases for violations of environmental laws in low-income communities and communities of color burdened by pollution. This Section would initiate legal action to enforce environmental laws that impact environmental justice & civil rights; ensure enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to investigate civil rights complaints related to environmental justice, advise state, local, and federal agencies on the creation of legally enforceable permits, and work with state & local governments on environmental litigation.
For further information: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/9124