(AP) — For more than a year, the Environmental Protection Agency investigated whether Louisiana officials discriminated against Black residents by putting them at increased cancer risk. Federal officials said they had found evidence of discrimination and were pressuring the state to strengthen oversight of air pollution from industrial plants.
Now, a draft agreement obtained by The Associated Press shows that Louisiana health officials were open to stronger oversight, including looking at how new industrial plants could harm Black residents.
But the federal government dropped its investigation in June before it got any firm commitments from Louisiana. Advocates said it was a missed opportunity to improve the lives of people who live near refineries and chemical plants in an industrial stretch of the state commonly called “Cancer Alley.”
Experts say the Biden administration, facing a federal court challenge to the investigation, may have worried that a loss would limit its investigative power. But activists expressed concern that dropping the investigation weakened the administration's fight against environmental discrimination.
Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former head of EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement, reviewed the draft agreement Louisiana health officials edited and sent to the agency, reflecting the state of negotiations in late May.
“It’s just a shame that it’s basically, you know, gone," he said.
Schaeffer added that community members are even less likely to see stronger regulations now that Louisiana voters elected Republican Jeff Landry as governor. As attorney general, Landry fought the EPA’s investigation.
After receiving complaints from environmental groups in 2022, the EPA opened a civil rights investigation into state regulators. Officials scrutinized the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, which reviews industrial permits, and the Louisiana Department of Health, which supplies information about health risks.
Among its initial findings late last year, EPA said state officials let a Denka polymer plant expose residents and children at a nearby elementary school to chloroprene, increasing their cancer risk, and health officials didn’t do enough to inform the public about that risk.
As part of the investigation, the EPA wanted to strike a deal with the state that would overhaul the review of industrial air pollution from factories there. The state had to agree to any changes.
The new document shows health officials were willing to analyze how new sources of pollution would make it more dangerous to live near existing industrial sites and detail how residents of different races and income levels would be affected.
That information can be powerful for activists who want to challenge permits, Schaeffer said.
Health officials, however, also proposed deleting significant parts of the EPA’s proposal, according to Deena Tumeh, an Earthjustice attorney who represented groups that asked the EPA to investigate. Health officials, for example, wanted the unilateral power to decide if and when they had to do the EPA-proposed analysis.
Tumeh called that idea “nonsensical” since state officials were already being scrutinized for allegedly ignoring health risks. Tumeh also criticized state officials for changing the language so they wouldn't be forced to do anything if an analysis found a new project would hurt people.
Officials also crossed out an EPA proposal that Louisiana appoint a scientific integrity official and that the state agree to make decisions supported by “the best available science.”
“They don’t take environmental health risks seriously,” Tumeh said of the Louisiana Department of Health after reviewing its edits.
The AP reviewed a draft agreement edited by state health officials and sent to EPA in May, reflecting negotiations at the time. It has not reviewed any draft agreement that would show what Louisiana's environmental agency might have been willing to accept.