Editor’s note: This letter, addressed to Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and other U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, also was submitted to The Times Leader as a letter to the editor.

Dear Ms. Freedhoff and Mr. Goffman:

I am writing to request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop approving fuels and projects that attempt to turn plastic waste into fossil fuels, including as part of the agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard Program. Plastics are not a renewable resource.

Further, the EPA should immediately rescind all agency approvals and federal funding that allow for the Chevron Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi to turn plastic waste into fuel.

A major expose published by ProPublica on Feb. 23, 2023, revealed that the Chevron refinery was approved to emit a massive amount of toxics into the air — enough that a staggering 1 in 4 people exposed to this pollution over a lifetime could eventually develop cancer.

This is 250,000 times greater than the levels of pollution that the EPA would typically approve. How can this be allowed to stand? This is unacceptable and a perversion of congressional intent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through this alternative fuel program.

It is ironic that on the same day that the EPA announced $550 million to advance environmental justice we also learned that the EPA approved a Chevron refinery to release a gargantuan amount of toxic substances into the atmosphere in an environmental justice community.

The health consequences will disproportionately impact Black, low-income communities because of the population that lives within three miles of the facility.

Sixteen of the 34 fuels approved by the EPA, to date, are made from waste. It is time to reverse course. Creating fuel from waste is not good for environmental quality and is especially risky when plastics are part of that waste.

The ProPublica article quotes a Chevron spokesperson who said, “We do take care of our communities, our workers and the environment generally.” If this was true, Chevron would not endanger the people of Pascagoula with cancer-causing air pollution from a facility that will create jet fuel from plastic waste.

I would appreciate an opportunity to speak with you about both the situation at the Chevron facility and the unfortunate decisions allowing plastic waste to be turned into fossil fuels. I can be reached at judithenck@bennington.edu. Thank you.

Judith Enck

President, Beyond Plastics

Former EPA Regional

Administrator

Bennington, Vermont