Trump’s DOJ Drops Environmental Justice Lawsuit Against Chemical Plant in ‘Cancer Alley’

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has agreed to drop an environmental justice case against the Denka petrochemical plant in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.”

The Biden-era lawsuit sought to curb chloroprene emissions that are harming surrounding majority-Black communities like Reserve, Louisiana.

Filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the lawsuit stated that Denka’s chloroprene emissions posed “an imminent and substantial endangerment” to public health, reported The Hill.

“The endangerment is imminent because Denka emits chloroprene at levels that are producing unacceptably high risks of cancer to the people, including children, that are regularly exposed to the Facility’s emissions,” the lawsuit said. “Hundreds of children attend school near the Facility and currently breathe the air there.”

The administration of former President Joe Biden filed the litigation in February of 2023, The Guardian reported. The lawsuit targeted Japanese company Denka Performance Elastomer — whose rubber is used to make products such as wetsuits and laptop sleeves — as well as the firm’s previous owner, American chemical giant DuPont.

The action was a central part of the Biden EPA’s efforts to tackle environmental justice issues impacting disadvantaged communities. After long delays, a trial had been set to begin next month.

Trump’s efforts to cut EPA and DOJ staff sent waves of doubt through the Reserve community, who had been hoping the lawsuit would help reduce residents’ exposure to toxic pollution coming from the plant.

“It’s obvious that the Trump administration doesn’t care anything for the poor Black folk in Cancer Alley,” said 84-year-old Robert Taylor, a Reserve resident who has lost multiple family members to cancer, as reported by The Guardian. “[Trump’s] administration has taken away what protections we had, what little hope we had.”

According to filings made available Friday, the DOJ met with lawyers for both defendants, with all agreeing to dismissal of the case.

The DOJ said the dismissal complied with an executive order targeting “wasteful government” and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs with the purpose of eliminating “ideological overreach” and restoring “impartial enforcement of federal laws.”

The department claimed overreach by the Biden EPA for using the emergency powers authority of the Clean Air Act without alleging Denka had violated “any regulatory air quality standard.”

“The Trump Administration’s plan to dismiss this case should raise alarm bells for communities across the country and is a clear signal that the administration is not serious about enforcing the laws on the books that ensure we have access to clean and safe air and water,” Jen Duggan, Environmental Integrity Project’s executive director, said in a written statement, as The Hill reported.

The chloroprene long-term exposure limit set by the EPA is 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter, but air quality monitoring surrounding the Denka plant has shown readings that are frequently dozens of times higher than that threshold.

The lawsuit emphasized the risk posed to children who live near the plant, as well as those attending a nearby elementary school. It said average air monitor readings near the school from April of 2018 to January of 2023 showed that children under the age of 16 could surpass EPA’s excess risk rate for cancer within two years of exposure.

“We are going to fight them and prepare ourselves to keep going. We were preparing for the worst, and I don’t know how it could get any worse now that the government has totally abandoned us, it seems,” Taylor said.