Trump Exempts 12 Louisiana Plants from Pollution Rule

Twelve petrochemical companies in Louisiana have received two-year exemptions from President Donald Trump from complying with a 2024 rule aimed at cutting pollution and cancer risks for communities near industrial plants, a regulation they had labeled unnecessarily costly but which environmental activists had lauded as long-overdue.

The new proclamation cites technological limits, concerns over cost and national security impacts from supply chain disruptions to put off compliance until 2028 for major petrochemical companies operating in the Mississippi River region and Lake Charles area. Some advocates said they see the new exemptions as an interim move to delay implementation while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency undoes or lessens the requirements permanently.

Last year, environmental advocates hailed the rule as a major step in improving air quality for minority and poor communities that often bear the brunt of industrial pollution, though industry groups opposed them as too costly and unsupported by science.

Trump's proclamation issued July 17 grants the two-year exemptions to Shell, BASF, Dow, Union Carbide, Denka, Sasol, Westlake and a handful of other companies in Louisiana.

The proclamation doesn't always make clear to which facilities it applies for those companies. It also doesn't apply to all 51 Louisiana operations affected by the Biden-era pollution requirements, even though some companies that didn't get exemptions in Louisiana received them in other states, including Phillips 66 and Ineos.

State regulators said they knew some companies had sought the exemptions — the Trump administration had previously sought out requests from companies in March — and have been monitoring their status.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's secretary promised to enforce the rules on companies that have not received the exemptions with no changes in how the agency oversees their operations."

"I appreciate the administration carefully reviewing the Louisiana facilities mentioned and ensuring that companies here are following proper regulations,” DEQ Secretary Courtney Burdette said in a statement.

'Start to Live Again'

Sharon Lavigne, who runs the local community group RISE St. James, which advocated for the regulatory changes known as the HON rule, alleged the exemptions would lead to more death for people in communities in the Mississippi River industrial corridor. Lavigne had attended the ceremony in Washington to introduce the new rule.

"When we signed that HON rule, we had hope that our community would be able to start to live again," she said. "Why would they take away this HON rule? It doesn't make sense for us to go backwards instead of forward."

One Louisiana industry group said, however, that the exemptions simply offered companies time to comply without forcing shutdowns, supply disruptions and job impacts.

The rules, they said, posed difficult technical challenges and didn't offer realistic timelines to accomplish them when "there are simply not enough contractors or equipment currently available to facilitate this nationwide manufacturing effort."

"And while our members are making strides to meet these requirements, time is needed for facilities to implement solutions safely and effectively without jeopardizing public safety," said Hisa Turner, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Chemical Association.

Two national industry trade groups had asked the White House for a blanket exemption for all their members, documents show, which Trump hasn't granted. But some companies also filed their own individual exemptions, including Dow Chemical and its subsidiary Union Carbide Corp., in Texas and Louisiana.

At Dow in Plaquemine, for example, the company told the EPA that it would take up to three years to design and build new controls for small emissions of ethylene oxide from wastewater at its Glycol II unit.

In a March 31 exemption request, Dow officials said the unit makes ethylene oxide, which is used as a medical sterilizer but also an important additive in U.S. government jet fuel and aircraft deicing fluids. The company said it would have to shut the unit to meet the current deadline in the second half of 2026.

In a statement, Dow officials said the new exemptions for Dow and Union Carbide, which they termed deadline "extensions," are "appropriate and necessary to address technical challenges and to ensure the continued safe and efficient operation of these facilities."

"Safety and integrity are at the core of both companies’ operations, and they remain dedicated to reducing ethylene oxide emissions to levels that meet or exceed federal and state regulations," said Glynna Mayers, a Dow spokeswoman.

Officials with Denka Performance Elastomer, which ceased operations in May due to market conditions, escalating costs and the burden of complying with new regulations, welcomed the exemption but said they were continuing their shutdown process.

"We continue to safely transition the facility to a mothball status while exploring all available options for the future of the site, including a sale of the facility," officials said in a statement.

Biden's then-EPA administrator, Michael Regan, had formally proposed the rules a little more than two years ago in front of the then still operating Denka complex near LaPlace.

At the time, the Biden administration was making a push to rein in pollution for fence-line communities and raise the profile of environmental justice questions that have swirled for years around those areas with a largely minority makeup.

Leading up to that effort, over the past 15 years, EPA scientists had learned that ethylene oxide and chloroprene, an emission tied to neoprene production at Denka, were far more potent than earlier understood. Ethylene oxide has been classified as a carcinogen and chloroprene as likely carcinogenic.

The new requirements Regan adopted would cut combined emissions of more than 100 toxic chemicals, including ethylene oxide and chloroprene, by 6,200 tons per year. Those changes alone were expected to reduce long-term cancer risk from toxic emissions by 96% for fence-line communities, the EPA said last year.

The rule would have also cut a different class of emissions that contribute to smog, known as volatile organic compounds, by 23,000 tons per year, generating an estimated $767 million in savings through 2038 from reduced health impacts due to short- and long-term exposure, EPA documents say.

Coming into office this year after hammering the former administration over what he called economically disruptive regulatory overreach, Trump, through his EPA head, has already made sweeping moves. He has aimed to eliminate the consideration of the environmental justice in regulatory decisions and taken steps to cut EPA's science and environmental justice arms.

Along with the push to roll back regulations, his administration hopes to spur what it calls the "Great American Comeback."

'Buying Enough Time'

Nicholas Bryner, an LSU environmental law professor, said Trump has the power under the Clean Air Act to issue the two-year exemptions. But arguing that the technology doesn't exist and that U.S. national security interests are implicated is a "pretty tough standard" to meet, he said. He said he expected the exemptions to face lawsuits.

Adam Kron, supervising senior attorney with environmental group Earthjustice, said he sees the exemptions as an interim step in eventually doing away with the regulations, pointing to similar moves related to coal-fired power plants.

"It's basically the same goal, which is, you know, buying enough time to roll back these rules, Kron said.

The Biden EPA estimated the HON rule's suite of control improvements and fence-line monitoring requirements would have cost industries $1.8 billion through 2038, regulatory filings say. The EPA argued that wouldn't pose a big impact to company bottom lines or supply chains.

The agency estimated in regulatory filings then that the changes would have boosted the cost of key products from those industries by one-tenth to one-half of a percent and caused generally minimal supply disruptions due to costs representing less than 1% of the multinationals' annual sales.

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