Two Northwest Indiana community groups have joined EarthJustice to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions to delay air pollution compliance in steel mills.
“The 2024 air standards — hard-won safeguards for fenceline communities — are being stripped away, as the agency grants emissions exemptions to steel mills and eliminates public input,” Lisa Vallee, organizing director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said in a Wednesday news release. “This is environmental injustice: they are sacrificing our communities, gutting our social safety nets, and taking away our future. We will not stay silent.”
Earlier this month, the EPA issued a final rule delaying air pollution protections for communities near steel mills, according to the Federal Register.
Current rules have required steel mills to reduce emissions since last April, but the agency’s new action delays compliance until April 2027, allowing pollution to continue at current levels.
According to EarthJustice, the EPA published the final rule without notice, which did not allow the public to object to the extension before it went into effect.
EarthJustice is a San Francisco-based nonprofit public interest environmental law organization that works with community groups nationwide.
EarthJustice Senior Attorney Adrienne Lee said in a Wednesday news release that it’s alarming for the EPA to delay protections without first accepting public input. The action is also inconsistent with the agency’s responsibility to human health and the environment, Lee said.
“Communities living near steel mills in states such as Indiana and Pennsylvania deserve better,” she said. “Each year, steel mills expose these communities to hundreds of tons of toxic air pollution which places them at increased risk of developing cancer and a variety of chronic health conditions.”
An October report from Industrious Labs found that most residents in Gary are in the top 10% nationally for being most at-risk for developing asthma and at-risk of low life expectancy. In 2020, Indiana had a lung cancer rate of 72.5 per 100,000 people, with Lake County as one of the state’s counties with the highest cancer mortality rates, according to the American Lung Association.
A 2016 JAMA Network report also found Gary as one of the top five U.S. cities with the lowest life expectancy at one point.
The EPA declined to comment on the legal action, saying in an email that it’s longstanding practice not to comment on current or pending litigation.
Dorreen Carey, president of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, said in the news release that EPA’s actions fail to protect Gary and surrounding Northwest Indiana communities’ residents. Carey called out U.S. Steel’s Gary Works facility specifically, saying pollutants have led to increased health issues in the city.
“The current outmoded and insufficient methods of hazardous air emission monitoring and control at Gary Works are not protective of human health and the environment,” Carey said. “Residents must have a voice in EPA decisions and rulemaking and EPA must do its job to protect the residents and the natural resources of Gary…”
A U.S. Steel spokesperson responded to the action in a statement Thursday.
“Environmental stewardship is a core value at U.S. Steel, and we remain committed to the safety of our communities as do our more than 3,400 Gary Works employees,” the statement said.
JTNWI and GARD have previously expressed concerns with U.S. Steel’s application for two-year exemptions from hazardous air pollutant rules for integrated iron and steel, coke and taconite iron ore process, according to Post-Tribune archives.
U.S. Steel previously told the Post-Tribune in a statement that it challenged all three rules because they were not supported by science or law and would impose significant costs while setting technically unachievable standards. Seeking these exemptions doesn’t mean U.S. Steel isn’t “supportive of revisions to regulations that are within (the EPA’s) statutory authority, based on sound science and are technically feasible,” according to Post-Tribune archives.
In March, the EPA announced corporations could apply for presidential exemptions to sections of the Clean Air Act. Exemption applications were due March 31, and if approved, can be extended for up to two additional years.
“Northwest Indiana is already home to some of the worst air pollution in this country,” a previous JTNWI statement said. “In this region, we suffer from a cumulative, generational impact of exposure to industrial toxins in communities like Lake County, Indiana. These exemptions are a free pass for these polluters at the continued cost of our health and safety. We’re adamantly opposed to this astonishing reversal of environmental law in no uncertain terms. Our communities and region are not expendable sacrifice zones for this administration or corporations.”
