EPA Mulls Withdrawing Approval For Chevron’s Plastic-Based Fuels

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to withdraw and reconsider its approval for Chevron to produce 18 plastic-based fuels, including some that an internal agency assessment found to be highly likely to cause cancer, Sharon Lerner reported for ProPublica.

The EPA had granted a Chevron refinery in Mississippi the green light to produce the chemicals in 2022 under a "climate-friendly" initiative. I Photo: Chevron Facebook

In a recent court filing, the agency said it "has substantial concerns" that the approval order "may have been made in error."

The EPA had granted a Chevron refinery in Mississippi the green light to produce the chemicals in 2022 under a "climate-friendly" initiative, as ProPublica and The Guardian reported last year.

An investigation by ProPublica and The Guardian showed that the EPA had calculated that one of the chemicals, intended to serve as jet fuel, was expected to cause cancer in 1 in 4 people.

The risk from another plastic-based chemical, an additive to marine fuel, was more than 1 million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable, with everyone exposed expected to develop cancer, a document showed.

The EPA failed to note the sky-high cancer risk from the marine fuel additive in the agency’s document approving the chemical’s production. When ProPublica asked why, the EPA said it had "inadvertently" omitted it.

Although the law requires the agency to address unreasonable risks to health if it identifies them, the EPA’s approval document, known as a consent order, did not include instructions on how the company should mitigate the cancer risks or other health threats posed by the chemicals, other than requiring workers to wear gloves.