According to court documents, the Biden administration may have put its boot down on a supposedly nonpartisan science review to further its environmental justice agenda and shut down a major chemical plant.
Filings reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal that the administration may have gone as far as manufacturing a paper trail to boost its lawsuit against synthetics manufacturer Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE).
“In stunning testimony late last year, Michael Morton — who serves as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 science liaison to the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) in Washington, D.C. — admitted that he didn’t author a key July 2021 email sent from his email address,” Fox New Digital reports. “That email called off a scientific review of health risks associated with chloroprene emissions which are at the center of an ongoing federal lawsuit with vast economic implications.”
During a November deposition, Morton told DPE attorneys, “I didn’t write that.”
“I didn’t say that,” he insisted. “For – for that part, I didn’t – I don’t know that, so I don’t know who wrote that”
If true, the testimony, along with “revelations from additional information made public in recent months,” could, according to Fox News Digital “derail” the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against DPE.
If successful, the DOJ’s lawsuit, filed in February 2023, “could threaten the future operations of the company’s major manufacturing facility in LaPlace, Louisiana, and further set a precedent broadly threatening the multi-billion-dollar U.S. petrochemical industry,” according to to the outlet.
The DOJ’s federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of the EPA to force DPE’s LaPlace facility, known as the “Pontchartrain Works Site,” to reduce its chloroprene emissions.
LaPlace is the only U.S. plant that produces neoprene, a synthetic rubber that is commonly used in wetsuits, medical technology, and military equipment.
According to the EPA, chloroprene “is a chemical used in the production of neoprene” and it is “classified as an likely carcinogen by several agencies, including EPA.”
The emissions present an “imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare,” the lawsuit claims, as it poses a cancer risk to the residents of Saint John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, where the neoprene plant is located.
DPE hasn’t “moved far enough or fast enough” to reduce the emissions, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said following the filing.
“When I visited Saint John the Baptist Parish during my first Journey to Justice tour, I pledged to the community that EPA would take strong action to protect the health and safety of families from harmful chloroprene emissions from the Denka facility,” he stated.
“Less than one month later, the Justice Department filed a motion for preliminary injunction in the case, essentially asking the court to enforce a shutdown of DPE’s neoprene facility if the company failed to immediately implement substantial emissions reductions,” according to Fox News Digital. “Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said the motion ‘shows our determination to address environmental justice concerns.'”
Months later, DPE stated in a response motion that the DOJ’s actions are “tantamount to a shutdown order that would have catastrophic consequences for DPE.”
It would, the company argued, lead to “complete loss of revenue streams, substantial loss of work force, supply chain disruptions and contractual impacts, and regulatory challenges.”
The crux of the EPA’s lawsuit is a study it published in 2010 that was based on 25-year-old studies of female mice, DPA noted. The 2010 conclusion was that chloroprene is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” It “led to the strict emissions standard of 0.2 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter air that the EPA is seeking to enforce on DPE’s facility in LaPlace,” according to Fox News Digital.
Data from the Lousiana Tumor Registry reveals that St. John the Baptist Parish recorded one of the lowest cancer rates of any region in Lousiana, DPA attorneys argued.
“The company also characterized the Biden administration’s efforts against it as politically driven, unsupported by real-world science, and outside its legal authority under the Clean Air Act,” Fox News Digital states, adding that “DPE pointed to how its LaPlace facility has sharply curbed its chloroprene emissions and complied with environmental permits.”
The outlet reports:
The EPA appeared to relent in April 2021 when its Region 6 branch based in Texas, but covering Louisiana and other southern states, nominated chloroprene for a review to revisit its assessment of the chemical’s health risks. But EPA’s ORD office eventually refused to pursue the review, citing the July 2021 email from Morton, the Region 6 science liaison who recently testified he didn’t pen that email.
“We continue to seek additional chloroprene emission reductions from the DPE facility in LaPlace, Louisiana in order to continue to reduce the risks that chloroprene emissions from the DPE facility present to the surrounding community,” read Morton’s email, which was sent to senior EPA ORD official Kris Thayer.
“The cancer inhalation risk estimate is among the factors that the EPA and Louisiana DEQ are using to determine the extent of additional emission reductions needed from the DPE facility,” it concluded.
Metadata of Morton’s email, presented in court filings by DPE lawyers, showed it was originally authored by ORD officials.
“The revelations suggest that, to walk back the nomination of chloroprene, ORD cited an email purportedly from Region 6, but which it appears to have actually crafted and sent to itself using Morton’s email address,” according to Fox News Digital. “If EPA had moved forward with the nomination of chloroprene and engaged with new research, though, its eventual lawsuit targeting DPE’s LaPlace facility may have been derailed.”
One thing is for certain: closing down Louisiana’s multi-billion-dollar petrochemical industry would be devastating for the state.
“Overall, the multi-billion-dollar petrochemical industry in Louisiana is a key driver of jobs and investment in the state,” Fox News Digital reports. “The industry is also a central reason why the state is the third-largest consumer of petroleum and largest consumer of petroleum per capita in the nation, according to the Energy Information Administration.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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