"The agency says companies should get two extra years to start. A new report shows that workers and nearby residents of the Clairton Coke Works in Pennsylvania are exposed to dangerous air."
"Public health advocates urged the Trump administration to protect residents and workers by sticking to a Biden-era timeline for reducing benzene and chromium emissions at the perimeter of steel and coke plants in Pennsylvania and other states rather than continuing to delay compliance rules.
A report released Thursday by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project said emissions of benzene, a carcinogen, from U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works were up to eight times higher at the fenceline of its plant near Pittsburgh than a California health standard. And it said a six-month average of chromium concentrations on the fenceline of another U.S. Steel plant at Gary, Indiana, were twice as high as recommended by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
EIP used the California thresholds because many states do not have standards for benzene and chromium in ambient air, and federal risk levels for the substances are less protective. The Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration set “action levels” for benzene and chromium above which steel and coke plants would be required to reduce emissions to protect public health.
But the July deadline for plants to start monitoring for those pollutants at their fencelines was not implemented by the Trump EPA, which said it intends to give companies two additional years. The figures in the new report are from preliminary testing required by the Biden administration."
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