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On September 26-28, 2022 the EPA held a set of public hearings on proposed changes to its Risk Management Plan rule, which regulates approximately 12,000 facilities that use or store hazardous chemicals nationwide. Our members, staff, and partners turned out in force to speak in favor of strengthening the rule to prevent chemical disasters. Here’s what they had to say:

In christening a new office of environmental justice, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan proclaimed on Sept. 24 that “underserved and overburdened communities are at the forefront of our work.” A stern test of that proclamation began just two days later. On Sept. 26, the EPA held the first of three virtual listening sessions on the Biden administration’s proposal to strengthen its chemical disaster rule. Many safety measures were gutted by the Trump administration’s EPA, which was run by coal and chemical industry lobbyists. During the Trump administration, polluters were relieved of the need to tell the public what chemicals they store, to conduct analyses of safer technologies, to seek third-party audits after accidents, or conduct root-cause analyses of any underlying, systemic reasons an accident occurred.

When Dora Williams started wearing a mask last spring to stop the spread of the coronavirus, she noticed a side effect: She could breathe more easily. The 73-year-old retiree has spent most of her life in a 5-mile stretch of Delaware known as the Route 9 corridor. Home to several historic African American communities, the area is circled by interstate highways, a chemical manufacturing plant and other industrial facilities, which residents like Williams say have contributed to persistent health problems. “My granddaughter said to me, ‘When Covid is gone, we’ll still be wearing masks.’ I said, ‘Yeah, we will,’” said Williams, a soft-spoken community activist with Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice. Last year, President Biden’s home state became the first in the country to set up a committee to carry out the Justice40 Initiative, the president’s signature environmental justice policy calling for 40 percent of federal benefits from climate and energy programs to reach disadvantaged communities. How Delaware implements the plan may set a national precedent, considering that the fate of Justice40 — which was announced through an executive order — and its effects on the energy sector hinge in part on states.

A letter was sent today by over 70 elected officials from 16 states and territories, including 5 from Delaware, to EPA Administrator Michael Regan urging meaningful reform of the federal policy that is intended to prevent chemical disasters.“As a New Castle resident, it is terrifying to hear about huge releases of cancer-causing chemicals in our backyard. Even worse, we don’t find out about them until hours or weeks later due to lack of community notification, so we can’t take action to protect our families,” said Miss Dora Williams, a volunteer with Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice. "The EPA must do more to hold companies like Croda accountable and prevent chemical disasters from happening again." Williams lives along the Route 9 corridor, an area in New Castle, Delaware that is overburdened by the cumulative impacts of pollution from several industrial facilities, legacy contamination and a history of disinvestment due to racism.