Response to Trump Administration’s Plan to Relax Public Health Protections for Oil Refineries and Other Industries

WildEarth Guardians joined a coalition of environmentalists objecting to the Trump administration’s new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy that relaxes environmental compliance rules for petrochemical plants and other big polluters during the coronavirus crisis. Specifically, the EPA said they will “provide enforcement discretion under the current, extraordinary conditions.”

In a letter sent to EPA Assistant Administrator Susan Bodine, WildEarth Guardians and coalition partners said “It is not clear why refineries, chemical plants, and other facilities that continue to operate and keep their employees on the production line will no longer have the staff or time they need to comply with environmental laws.”

“Relaxing pollution controls in the midst of a deadly health crisis is an obscene new low for the Trump administration,” said Rebecca Sobel, Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner for WildEarth Guardians.  “While the pandemic worsens, the administration is propping up polluters in poisoning clean air, instead of focusing on the health and safety of Americans. We are all in this together, and now is the time to protect people, not polluters.”

Read the press release.

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