EPA Proposed Revival of Obama-Era “Environmental Justice” Rule
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General
AUSTIN (News Release) – Attorney General Paxton joined an Oklahoma-led comment letter sent to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan that lays out numerous problems with a new and onerous proposed rule.
EPA’s proposed rule is an attempt to revive an Obama-era “environmental justice” regulation that could increase energy costs and make our country less safe. If adopted, EPA’s “Risk Management Program” would far exceed its statutory authority by forcing a broad range of large chemical facilities and industries—which includes petroleum refineries, chemical manufacturers, water and wastewater treatment systems, chemical and petroleum wholesalers and terminals, food manufacturers, packing plants, cold storage facilities, agricultural chemical distributors, midstream gas plants, and others—to adopt costly new requirements to minimize “climate change risks.”
This political move by the Biden Administration not only hurts American energy, but it also poses serious national security concerns. The proposed rule would require public disclosures of sensitive information about certain facilities, including the precise location of dangerous chemicals. As the letter notes, this requirement creates “obvious value for nefarious actors.”
“Moreover, the Proposed Rule imposes burdensome new regulatory requirements that do not lead to improvements in preventing accidental releases or minimizing the consequences any such releases,” the letter reads. “The changes EPA proposes would potentially apply to numerous facilities . . . . On this broad spectrum of facilities, EPA seeks to impose additional Risk Management Plan requirements that incorporate ‘climate change risks’ and impacts into the regulations and expand the application of so-called ‘environmental justice,’ neither of which is an appropriate basis for regulating under the statutory provisions at issue in this proposed rule.”
To read the full letter, click here.
