By Gustavo Andrade, Organizing Director
The numbers are out on the Trump tax cuts, and some of them are staggering: Top polluting companies paid nothing (!) in taxes on billions of dollars of profits last year. According to a new report issued recently by the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy (ITEP, itep.org) a total of 91 corporations paid ZERO taxes in 2019.
Here are some notable examples, along with a rounded estimate of their profits in 2018:
You can find the report here: Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law
If you find this new information shocking, well, so do we! At a time when resources to investigate and treat pollution-related illnesses throughout the country are so scarce, the very people responsible aren’t even paying in their fair share.
These big polluters are just some of the 91 companies who didn’t pay taxes last year. Others mentioned in the report include giants like IBM, Facebook, Eli Lilly and others. Check it out for yourself at: https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-in-the-first-year-of-the-trump-tax-law/
Tag: environmental health
Categories
What is Under the Surface?
By Liz Goodiel
Across the country, there has been a growing awareness for communities affected by water and soil samples contaminated with hazardous substances, including lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, arsenic, and more. The presence of such dangerous chemicals have disrupted the lives of residents, children and susceptible individuals that come involuntarily into contact with them on a daily basis. The concern comes when communities operate as normal with no knowledge of what could potentially be sitting below the surface.
In 2018, a community on the western side of Atlanta discovered unhealthy levels of lead in their soil. The contamination was discovered when Emory University’s PhD student Sam Peters, conducted an investigation on the presence of heavy metals in the soil of residential gardens. As the research project grew, Emory students tested the soil for the presence of lead, in addition to a number of other heavy metal and found levels of lead exceeding the EPA’s residential screening level. Maintaining a personal garden is very popular on the west side of Atlanta, with over 160 families participating in the practice. Residents have in fact been encouraged to garden as a way to provide low-income families with a source of healthy and sustainable food options.
Two years later, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken to testing and digging up contaminated soils for cleanup. Located west of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the lead investigation covers 368 properties over a span of 35 city blocks. Although it has not been confirmed, the EPA has speculated that the source of the contamination is the result of properties having been constructed on top of slag, a by-product of smelting, or the melting of metals, that leaves behind an array of heavy metals.
According to the EPA, lead exposure can lead to long-term nerve damage, increased blood pressure, reproductive problems, and hearing and vision impairments. Among children, lead poisoning can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, liver and kidney damage, developmental delays, behavioral problems and in extreme cases, death. The question that arises from the discovery of such high levels of lead in the soil is how long people have been exposed to the dangerous chemical through the consumption of gardened produce, children playing on top of contaminated soil and everyday proximity inhalation.
The question that also arises is how far the contamination can actually be spread and how many additional families could be affected? As part of the EPA cleanup project, many residential trees have been removed, resulting in increased instances of flooding. Although there are plans to replace removed trees and shrubs, flooding could spread the lead contamination to areas outside the site’s boundaries. Families outside the boundaries could potentially be at risk of contamination if they have not already been contaminated.
Soil and water contamination continues to be a growing concern across the country from operating or abandoned facilities, landfills, mining operations, pipelines, etc. Community members and susceptible populations (children, the elderly, pregnant women, etc.) are consistently exposed to the dangers of hazardous pollutants. Areas such as Atlanta, Georgia, Flint, Michigan and Asheville, North Carolina, to name a few, continue to work for the clean up of their communities. It is important to continue to encourage the appropriate and accurate testing of water and soil samples that people are exposed to on a daily basis and to monitor and enforce the safe cleanup of all communities.
Families within the Atlanta area are continuing to sign up for the testing of their properties and to have their children tested for possible lead poisoning.
For more information or questions on lead testing please contact our Science Director, Stephen Lester at slester@chej.org.
Photo credit: Curtis Compton for AJC
On Friday, January 30, a judge ruled that Harris County can proceed with its lawsuit against Exxon Mobil. The lawsuit was filed on August 1, 2019 after a chemical fire in Baytown, Texas. Harris County itself was taken to court by the state’s attorney general’s office over the case that Harris County must first receive “explicit approval from county commissioners” before filing a lawsuit. Read More.
Exxon Mobil chemical plant explosion
Attorneys general from 14 states filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Environmental Protection Agency over its rollback of Obama-era chemical plant safety regulations.
“The Trump EPA is gutting critical safeguards against explosions, fires, poisonous gas releases, and other accidents at these facilities, putting New Yorkers in harm’s way,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. Read more.
Not too long ago, a local leader in a community in Nevada asked if I could review a set of water testing data. The sample was taken from a water storage tank that provides drinking water to the town where she lives. The town had painted the inside of the storage tank, but now the water has a strong chemical odor and four volatile chemicals were found in the water sample.
The concentration of all four chemicals in the water was below the federal drinking water standards and as far as the town was concerned, the conversation was over. The water was safe to drink. But is it really? What’s the basis for saying this?
Federal drinking water standards are based on exposure to a single substance in isolation of any other risks and reflect only a limited exposure, typically one day, from a single route of exposure, ingestion. But this is not how people are typically exposed which is to multiple chemicals at the same time. The federal standards do not address the cumulative risks posed by exposure to multiple chemicals over time. Further, these standards fail to address potential synergistic effects which are adverse health effects that are greater than would be predicted or expected based on exposure to individual chemicals alone or in combination.
Consequently, estimating risks posed by exposure to multiple chemicals in drinking water using federal drinking water standards underestimates the true risks people face drinking and using this water on a regular basis. Scientifically, we do not know how much these other factors add to the risks a person faces when drinking water with multiple contaminants. Even though each of the four chemicals in this example were found at concentrations below the federal drinking water standards, this does not mean that there is no risk when consuming or using this water. It does mean that science cannot inform this question.
Yet you hear all time when tests results are interpreted by government agencies that there is no cause for alarm. The standards are used like the proverbial line in the sand. On the one side, people are safe, and on the other, there’s endless debate over what the numbers mean. In truth, it’s not that simple.
In this case, each of the four chemicals found in the water affect the central nervous system and the liver. This means that these organ systems are all targeted simultaneously by each of these four substances. The health impact on the central nervous system (CNS) and the liver resulting from exposure to all four of these substances at the same time is difficult to judge because there is little or no information on exposure to multiple chemicals simultaneously. In addition to these targeted effects on the nervous system and the liver, these chemicals pose other specific health risks whether its skin irritation, the ability of the body to fight infection, or damage to the kidney or the heart. In many cases, some chemicals are considered carcinogens, that is, exposure increases the risk of developing cancer. The EPA’s health goal for exposure to all suspect carcinogens in drinking water is “zero” indicating that any exposure to this substance increases the risk of developing cancer over time. But EPA adjusts the health goal to reflect the realities of setting a drinking water standard at a concentration of “zero.”
In addition, because all these substances are volatile, they will evaporate into the air when a person takes a shower. One study compared the risk posed by taking a 15-minute shower versus normal consumption of drinking water and found that the risk of taking a 15-minute shower was greater than drinking the water (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0048969785903493?via%3Dihub). This risk is not included the federal drinking water standard.
While the concentration of these substances in the water may be below the federal drinking water standards, there is significant uncertainty about the cumulative risks posed by simultaneous exposure to these four volatile chemicals in drinking water, especially over time.
This is just one example of how difficult it is to interpret the results of water testing. This situation is quite common, whether it’s contaminants in drinking water, chemicals in ambient air or contaminants in soil. Interpreting air and soil testing is even more difficult because there are no federal standards that define what levels are acceptable and what are not. Instead, EPA uses guideline values that are not enforceable and subject to political whims.
CHEJ can you interpret the results of any testing results you’re concerned about. Contact us if you have test results you need help interpreting.
Categories
Malaysia: Don’t Dump Your Trash Here
Malaysia has announced that it will no longer be accepting containers of trash from wealthier countries, including France, the United Kingdom and the United States. At a press conference on Monday, Malaysian Prime Minister Yeo Bee Yin stated, “If people want to see us as the rubbish dump of the world, you dream on.” The country has put a foot down against the exportation of trash to developing countries and has since returned 150 containers of trash back to their originating countries. Read More.
“Of 20 key officials across several agencies, 15 came from careers in the oil, gas, coal, chemical or agriculture industries, while another three hail from state governments that have spent years resisting environmental regulations.” Read NYT Story.
At the New Hampshire Women’s March, Naomi Klein took the stage and spoke about why climate change — and many of the natural disasters occurring as a result — is a feminist issue. “We have seen in the aftermath of all of the disasters that I’ve mentioned, that rates of domestic violence increase — that femicide, the killing of women increases — so of course, all of these issues are interrelated,” she said. She continued, saying that we need to recognize the work that many women do in these situations. “The other thing that we see is that women on the ground in these disaster zones are actually first responders. That it is nurses who are saving lives, that it is home care workers and teachers who are saving lives, saving the lives of the people they care for, of the kids that they teach in their schools.” Read more.
Opinion NYT In Texas and across the country, the E.P.A.’s gutting of the Chemical Disaster Rule is a matter of life or death.
By While families across the country celebrated Thanksgiving with their loved ones, more than 50,000 people in Port Neches, Tex., were forced to evacuate from their homes and spend the holiday in makeshift shelters. The reason? Two explosions at the Texas Petroleum Chemical plant sent flames into the sky, injured eight people, and released plumes of butadiene, a carcinogen, into the air.
The disaster erupted six days after the Trump administration gutted Obama-era regulations meant to improve safety at 12,000 chemical plants around the country.
It’s too soon to say whether these now abandoned rules would have made a difference in Port Neches. But there is no question that the communities that surround these thousands of plants are less safe now.
This regulatory rollback gives chemical plants across the country a free pass, in pursuit of greater profits, to operate in a way that endangers families and workers.
There are over 2,500 chemical facilities in the Houston area. Manchester, the neighborhood where Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services works, is among those most affected by this negligence. There are 30 chemical plants and waste sites in the Manchester area that report to the Environmental Protection Agency. When an explosion happens, nearby neighborhoods, mostly Latinx and people of color, are exposed to this toxicity.
And these toxic blasts are not infrequent. The last chemical explosion in Houston to garner national attention was in March at the Intercontinental Terminals Co., a few miles east of Manchester. This explosion led to high benzene levels in the air, school closures and community shelter-in-place orders for days: stay where you are, turn off air conditioning. Some advisories told people to put a plastic tarp over their windows, sealed with duct tape, to prevent air from coming in.
Federal regulations were supposed to protect us. For years, organizations like United Steelworkers, Greenpeace and dozens of other community and environmental organizations pressured the E.P.A. to make chemical disaster prevention a priority.
The turning point happened in 2013 when an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Tex., 200 miles northwest of Houston, killed 15 people and injured over 260.
Later that year, President Barack Obama signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to create a task force. What emerged was the Chemical Disaster Rule, a proposal to improve plant safety and protect surrounding communities, which the former E.P.A. administrator Gina McCarthy approved one month before President Trump took office.
Two months later, the Trump administration blocked the regulations from taking effect, and now the E.P.A. has released a final rule that eviscerates the Obama-era requirements. The agency rescinded major accident prevention provisions, including requirements to consider safer technology, audits of accidents by outside parties and “root cause” analyses of accidents.
While Texas has the largest number of chemical facilities in the country, Illinois, California, Iowa and Louisiana are riddled with them, too. As The Houston Chronicle has documented, no state is spared from having at least one facility that could have toxic or flammable chemical accidents with consequences that extend beyond the site.
The E.P.A. calls these communities — areas that could be affected by a release from a chemical accident — “vulnerable zones.” One in three children in America attends a school in a vulnerable zone. This means that over 19 million children are at risk of exposure to the harmful chemicals that these plants use, store and can emit when they produce plastics, pesticides, adhesives and other products.
Our neighborhoods in Houston are a case in point. The oil and gas facilities and chemical plants along the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel have turned the air in Harris County into a public health hazard, significantly increasing the likelihood of residents’ developing cancer and respiratory problems — and shortening the lives of children. Children living near the Houston Ship Channel are 56 percent more likely to develop leukemia than those who live more than 10 miles away.
To me this issue is personal. Yes, explosions from chemical facilities can be deadly. But the long-term impact of exposure to toxic chemicals also kills. In 2016, I was found to have hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare autoimmune system disorder that arises from breathing in dust or toxins repeatedly. The doctors blamed indoor air, but I am convinced that exposure to chemicals in Houston led to my condition. In this town, there’s little distinction between the air indoors and what’s outside.
When traveling — I am now at the U.N. Climate talks in Madrid — I bring a portable oxygen machine in case I need it. I am unable to walk long distances, and I move slowly because of my shortness of breath. Public speaking is difficult, as is any exertion. My life expectancy is not long (10 years, one doctor told me). I hope it is more.
In my family, lung diseases are the norm. My diagnosis came the same year that my father, Gregorio V. García, died of lung cancer at 79. He worked in the Asarco Refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex., and was a member of United Steelworkers for 30 years. Workers in these refineries are the first exposed to toxic substances. Many, like him, have died of cancer.
Plants like the nearby Valero facility emit a slew of poisonous chemicals like benzene and hydrogen cyanide into our neighborhoods. Far too often, they fail to meet Clean Air Act requirements.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, I felt what it was like to breathe in a concentrated amount of toxic air. On the day of the worst flooding, my husband and I drove his pickup truck into Manchester to document what was happening at the Valero refinery. We saw water running from Valero into Hartman Park, where children gather to play baseball and soccer, and down the streets we knew well. As we drove, we had to cover our nose and mouth with our hands. My lips turned numb. The odor was so strong that it made me nauseated.
Three days later we found out that we had driven into one of the largest benzene spills. Benzene is clear, colorless and flammable. To date, this spill has not been adequately addressed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
In Houston, we struggle to get chemical facilities to follow the law. We ask our state to protect us from chemicals that no one should breathe. Now the federal government is ending safeguards that the E.P.A. only a few years ago said the industry needed to protect the lives of workers, emergency medical workers and communities like mine.
My life should not be a pawn for leveraging industry profits. Nor should those of my neighbors and their children. Families and workers in these neighborhoods deserve to be safe.
As disasters continue to happen, we — those most affected, those who breathe and live and play in toxicity — condemn the E.P.A.’s decision to repeal the Chemical Disaster Rule. We are denied basic health protections simply because the industry does not want to invest in our safety.
Families and workers across the country should not have to pay the ultimate cost of this administration’s refusal to do its job: our lives.
Ana Parras is a co-executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (@tejasbarrios).
Categories
2020: A year for environmental action
The year 2020 is projected to be one of action and change for environmental policy, the climate and communities. The Grist has compiled a collection of some of the top environmental justice stories to follow in the upcoming year that have a focus on protecting communities that have been unfairly impacted by pollution. Environment developments are occurring on both the national and local levels in the form of new policies and regulations, crucial court cases and community projects. Read More.