Rep. Clay Higgins Wants EPA Chief Imprisoned For Regulating Pollution While Black

WHAR CHAIN GANG?!

Morgan Woodward as Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke. Aka the role model for every two-bit power-mad sheriff since 1967.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana), the nastiest thing to come out of Louisiana since the state’s petrochemical industry, took a brave stand in defense of his fellow toxic emissions last week, with a tweet calling for EPA Administrator Michael Regan to “be arrested the next time he sets foot in Louisiana,” because the EPA last week rolled out tough new limits on cancer-causing pollutants spewed by chemical plants across the country. It’s a big fuckin’ environmental deal, it really is.

During an April 5 speech in Philadelphia previewing the new regulations, Regan said, “I’m excited to say that in the coming weeks, we’re going to announce a really strong regulation addressing those chemical plants in Cancer Alley," using the nickname for an infamous 85-mile industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge where cancer cases are far higher than in the rest of the nation. Fifty-one of the 200 plants that will need to clean up are located in Louisiana, and about that many are in Texas, next door.

A normal politician might celebrate the EPA’s estimate that the new regulations will reduce elevated cancer risk by 96 percent for people living near chemical plants that emit dozens of carcinogenic chemicals, particularly ethylene oxide and chloroprene. Instead, Higgins wanted to send Regan away to Louisiana’s maximum security prison, Angola.

Gee, we wonder what part of this screenshot of the Times-Picayune story set Higgins off so badly?

Could it have been the headline, “'Really strong' pollution reduction measure planned for Louisiana, EPA head says”? Or maybe the fact that an announcement that will affect Louisiana was made in the Yankee enclave of Philadelphia? Or possibly the fact that the photo, from 2023, shows Regan, who is Black, speaking in front of one of the state’s worst chemical plants as if he had any kind of authority?

Wow, Higgins was steamed! He tweeted,

“This EPA criminal should be arrested the next time he sets foot in Louisiana. Charge his ass with extortion. LARS 14:66. I’d charge him a count for every Louisiana employee he’s threatening. Send that arrogant prick to Angola for a few decades.”

Rep. Higgins, a cancer ally who has been in Congress since 2017, has apparently not yet been briefed on the EPA’s authority to regulate harmful pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Worse, he appears not to know that even Black men are allowed to serve as agency heads these days, even if he thinks they look “arrogant” in a photo.

To be sure, the new regulations will have an economic impact in addition to causing less cancer, and that’s the other reason Higgins is so mad. Yeah, there may be fewer cases of cancer among the poor Black people living in Cancer Alley, but what about all the money that chemical companies will have to spend to bring their operations into compliance? Are a few tens of thousands of unimportant people’s lives and health really worth the disruption?

As NPR reports, the regulations will be especially terrible for one good decent job-creating polluter, Denka Performance Elastomer in St. John the Baptist Parish, right in the middle of Cancer Alley. The company is America’s sole producer of chloroprene pollution, from its production of neoprene, “a synthetic rubber used in things like beer koozies and wetsuits.”

Won’t someone think of the beer koozies and wetsuits?

Chloroprene exposure levels near the plant are some 400 times the amount the new rules allow. A 2016 report determined that the Denka plant’s emissions contributed to the highest cancer risk anywhere in the USA.

In addition to the new rule, the EPA and Justice Department sued Denka last year, alleging its emissions present “an imminent and substantial endangerment” to people in surrounding communities. That suit has not yet gone to trial, and we can’t determine whether Rep. Higgins called for any of the prosecutors to be sent to break rocks on a chain gang.

NPR notes that the Denka plant is right next to an elementary school whose students are predominantly Black, some of whom may even be arrogant.

Community activists have praised the new rules as long overdue; Sharon Lavigne, fonder of the environmental action group Rise St. James in a neighboring parish, said the federal government largely ignored pollution in mostly-Black communities before Regan became the head of the EPA:

"In St. James Parish, there is a 10-mile radius where a dozen petrochemical facilities operate near the homes of Black residents," Lavigne said. "This is environmental racism."

The new rules will also require real-time air monitoring along the boundaries of chemical plants, which Lavigne said will improve notification of the nearby communities, allowing “the opportunity for us to have input on the steps taken to ensure compliance and reduce air pollution.” As of yet, Ms. Lavigne remains free, despite this clear threat to extort chemical plants into not killing her family with toxic air.

While plants that emit ethylene oxide will have two years to meet the tougher standards, which will require significant improvements to their equipment, Denka faces a 90-day compliance order, with a chance to apply for an extension. Pity poor Jason Hutt, an attorney who represents Denka, who is very sad about the prospect of reducing carcinogenic pollution that’s been harming residents for decades:

"It would be really nice if we could get back to the science and not the politics of the situation," Hutt said, "because there's a lot of people's livelihoods and jobs that are at stake in this outcome."

The EPA's rule, Hutt said, would shutter the Denka plant because the company won't be able to comply with the standards fast enough. That translates, he said, to more than 100 local jobs lost, as well as tax revenue. Denka has also been in a long battle with the EPA, disputing the health impact of chloroprene, arguing the agency is regulating based on "faulty science."

Honestly, it’s really arrogant and selfish of people in St. John the Baptist Parish to think that their children’s health matters more than 100 jobs, to say nothing of the potential damage to the beer koozy industry.

Better lock ‘em all up.

[NPR / EPA / NOLA.com / ProPublica]

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