EPA To Undo Approval Of Chevron Plastic-Based Fuels Likely To Cause Cancer

"The decision comes after a ProPublica and Guardian investigation revealed that the EPA had found that one of the fuels had a huge cancer risk"

"The US Environmental Protection Agency is planning to withdraw and reconsider its approval for Chevron to produce 18 plastic-based fuels, including some that an internal agency assessment found are highly likely to cause cancer.

In a recent court filing, the federal agency said it “has substantial concerns” that the approval order “may have been made in error”. The EPA gave a Chevron refinery in Mississippi the green light to make the chemicals in 2022 under a “climate-friendly” initiative intended to boost alternatives to petroleum, as ProPublica and the Guardian reported last year.

An investigation by ProPublica and the Guardian revealed that the EPA had calculated that one of the chemicals intended to serve as jet fuel was expected to cause cancer in one in four people exposed over their lifetime.

The risk from another of the plastic-based chemicals, an additive to marine fuel, was more than 1m times higher than the agency usually considers acceptable – so high that everyone exposed over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer, according to a document obtained through a public records request. The EPA had failed to note the sky-high cancer risk from the marine fuel additive in the agency’s document approving the chemicals’ production. When ProPublica asked why, the EPA said it had “inadvertently” omitted it."

Sharon Lerner reports for the Guardian and ProPublica September 30, 2024.