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Appeals court affirms ExxonMobil’s $14.25 million penalty for Baytown complex violations

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Thursday, December 12, 2024

Energy & Environment The overwhelming court decision to reject ExxonMobil’s appeal put an end to a more than decade-long legal effort pushed forward by environmental groups in Texas and California, and Exxon’s several attempts to dodge responsibility for the violations. ExxonMobil Baytown RefineryThe Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a $14.25 million penalty against oil giant ExxonMobil following thousands of environmental violations at a Baytown petrochemical complex. The overwhelming court decision to reject ExxonMobil’s appeal put an end to a more than decade-long legal effort pushed forward by environmental groups in Texas and California, and Exxon’s several attempts to dodge responsibility for the violations. A lawsuit asserting the Baytown complex committed more than 16,000 Clean Air Act violations was filed in 2010 by Sierra Club and Environment Texas. During an eight-year period, the Baytown refinery and chemical plant complex released more than 10 million pounds of pollution exceeding standards, according to a judge’s ruling. Environmental advocates called Wednesday’s ruling a victory in the ongoing litigation. The decision protects people who live in places heavily inundated with industrial pollution like the Houston Ship Channel, Neil Carman, a clean air program director at the Sierra Club, said. “Exxon’s Baytown refinery-chemical complex is the largest polluter on the Houston Ship Channel, impacting the air quality of hundreds of thousands of citizens,” Carman said. The penalty is the largest ever imposed by a court in a citizen-initiated lawsuit to enforce the Clean Air Act, according to Environment Texas. “This ruling affirms a bedrock principle of constitutional law that people who live near pollution-spewing industrial facilities have a personal stake in holding polluters accountable for non-compliance with federal air pollution limits, and therefore have a right to sue to enforce the Clean Air Act as Congress intended,” Josh Kratka, one of the lead attorney on the case said in a statement. In a concurring opinion, seven judges argued they would have gone a step further by reinstating U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner’s decision to impose a $19.95 million penalty. In 2020, a three-judge panel rejected most arguments Exxon made in its appeal of the original $19.95 million fine. The appellate court sent the case back to Hittner to make additional findings, according to Environment Texas. In 2021, Hittner affirmed the environmental groups’ findings of thousands of instances of illegal flaring and pollution releases, imposing the $14.25 million penalty that was affirmed by the court of appeals on Wednesday. Exxon’s 3,400 acre Baytown refinery is located about 25 miles east of downtown Houston, and tens of thousands of people live within a three mile radius of the complex. “Ordinary citizens harmed by industrial pollution should be able to take polluters to court to deter future violations in the way Congress had unequivocally intended citizens to do,” David Nicholas, a lead attorney with Environment Texas and Sierra Club said in a statement. “The Fifth Circuit’s decision has affirmed this principle.”

The overwhelming court decision to reject ExxonMobil's appeal put an end to a more than decade-long legal effort pushed forward by environmental groups in Texas and California, and Exxon's several attempts to dodge responsibility for the violations.

Energy & Environment

The overwhelming court decision to reject ExxonMobil’s appeal put an end to a more than decade-long legal effort pushed forward by environmental groups in Texas and California, and Exxon’s several attempts to dodge responsibility for the violations.

entrance sign
ExxonMobil Baytown Refinery

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a $14.25 million penalty against oil giant ExxonMobil following thousands of environmental violations at a Baytown petrochemical complex.

The overwhelming court decision to reject ExxonMobil’s appeal put an end to a more than decade-long legal effort pushed forward by environmental groups in Texas and California, and Exxon’s several attempts to dodge responsibility for the violations.

A lawsuit asserting the Baytown complex committed more than 16,000 Clean Air Act violations was filed in 2010 by Sierra Club and Environment Texas. During an eight-year period, the Baytown refinery and chemical plant complex released more than 10 million pounds of pollution exceeding standards, according to a judge’s ruling.

Environmental advocates called Wednesday’s ruling a victory in the ongoing litigation.

The decision protects people who live in places heavily inundated with industrial pollution like the Houston Ship Channel, Neil Carman, a clean air program director at the Sierra Club, said.

“Exxon’s Baytown refinery-chemical complex is the largest polluter on the Houston Ship Channel, impacting the air quality of hundreds of thousands of citizens,” Carman said.

The penalty is the largest ever imposed by a court in a citizen-initiated lawsuit to enforce the Clean Air Act, according to Environment Texas.

“This ruling affirms a bedrock principle of constitutional law that people who live near pollution-spewing industrial facilities have a personal stake in holding polluters accountable for non-compliance with federal air pollution limits, and therefore have a right to sue to enforce the Clean Air Act as Congress intended,” Josh Kratka, one of the lead attorney on the case said in a statement.

In a concurring opinion, seven judges argued they would have gone a step further by reinstating U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner’s decision to impose a $19.95 million penalty.

In 2020, a three-judge panel rejected most arguments Exxon made in its appeal of the original $19.95 million fine. The appellate court sent the case back to Hittner to make additional findings, according to Environment Texas. In 2021, Hittner affirmed the environmental groups’ findings of thousands of instances of illegal flaring and pollution releases, imposing the $14.25 million penalty that was affirmed by the court of appeals on Wednesday.

Exxon’s 3,400 acre Baytown refinery is located about 25 miles east of downtown Houston, and tens of thousands of people live within a three mile radius of the complex.

“Ordinary citizens harmed by industrial pollution should be able to take polluters to court to deter future violations in the way Congress had unequivocally intended citizens to do,” David Nicholas, a lead attorney with Environment Texas and Sierra Club said in a statement. “The Fifth Circuit’s decision has affirmed this principle.”

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Scientists Drill Nearly 2 Miles Down to Pull 1.2 Million-Year-Old Ice Core From Antarctic

An international team of scientists say they’ve successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet, penetrating nearly 2 miles to Antarctic bedrock to reach ice that's at least 1.2 million years old

An international team of scientists announced Thursday they’ve successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet, penetrating nearly 2 miles (2.8 kilometers) to Antarctic bedrock to reach ice they say is at least 1.2 million years old.Analysis of the ancient ice is expected to show how Earth's atmosphere and climate have evolved. That should provide insight into how Ice Age cycles have changed, and may help in understanding how atmospheric carbon changed climate, they said.“Thanks to the ice core we will understand what has changed in terms of greenhouse gases, chemicals and dusts in the atmosphere,” said Carlo Barbante, an Italian glaciologist and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, the project to obtain the core. Barbante also directs the Polar Science Institute at Italy's National Research Council.The same team previously drilled a core about 800,000 years old. The latest drilling went 2.8 kilometers (about 1.7 miles) deep, with a team of 16 scientists and support personnel drilling each summer over four years in average temperatures of about minus-35 Celsius (minus-25.6 Fahrenheit).Italian researcher Federico Scoto was among the glaciologists and technicians who completed the drilling at the beginning of January at a location called Little Dome C, near Concordia Research Station.“It was a great a moment for us when we reached the bedrock,” Scoto said. Isotope analysis gave the ice's age as at least 1.2 million years old, he said.Both Barbante and Scoto said that thanks to the analysis of the ice core of the previous Epica campaign they have assessed that concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, even during the warmest periods of the last 800,000 years, have never exceeded the levels seen since the Industrial Revolution began.“Today we are seeing carbon dioxide levels that are 50% above the highest levels we’ve had over the last 800,000 years," Barbante said.The European Union funded Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) with support from nations across the continent. Italy is coordinating the project.The announcement was exciting to Richard Alley, a climate scientist at Penn State who was not involved with the project and who was recently awarded the National Medal of Science for his career studying ice sheets. Alley said advancements in studying ice cores are important because they help scientists better understand the climate conditions of the past and inform their understanding of humans’ contributions to climate change in the present. He added that reaching the bedrock holds added promise because scientists may learn more about Earth’s history not directly related to the ice record itself.“This is truly, truly, amazingly fantastic,” Alley said. “They will learn wonderful things.”Associated Press writer Melina Walling contributed from Chicago. Santalucia reported from Rome.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Chemicals
Climate
CO2

Health experts rally for ‘call to arms’ to protect children from toxic chemicals

In new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, leading researchers to propose action to protect kidsChildren are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals and recommends a series of aggressive actions to try to better protect children. Continue reading...

Children are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals and recommends a series of aggressive actions to try to better protect children.The paper is a “call to arms” to forge an “actual commitment to the health of our children”, said Linda Birnbaum, a former director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the paper.In conjunction with the release of the paper, some of the study authors are helping launch an Institute for Preventive Health to support the recommendations outlined in the paper and to help fund implementation of reforms. A key player in launching the institute is Anne Robertson, vice-president of Robertson Stephens Wealth Management and a member of the family that built RJ Reynolds Tobacco.The paper points to data showing global inventories of roughly 350,000 synthetic chemicals, chemical mixtures and plastics, most of which are derived from fossil fuels. Production has expanded 50-fold since 1950, and is currently increasing by about 3% a year – projected to triple by 2050, the paper states.Meanwhile, noncommunicable diseases, including many that research shows can be caused by synthetic chemicals, are rising in children and have become the principal cause of death and illness for children, the authors write.Despite the connections, which the authors say “continue to be discovered with distressing frequency”, there are very few restrictions on such chemicals and no post-market surveillance for longer-term adverse health effects.“The evidence is so overwhelming and the effects of manufactured chemicals are so disruptive for children, that inaction is no longer an option,” said Daniele Mandrioli, a co-author of the paper and director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy. “Our article highlights the necessity for a paradigm shift in chemical testing and regulations to safeguard children’s health.”Such a shift would require changes in laws, restructuring of the chemical industry and redirection of financial investments similar to what has been undertaken with efforts to transition to clean energy, the paper states.The paper identifies several disturbing data points for trend lines over the last 50 years. They include incidence of childhood cancers up 35%, male reproductive birth defects have doubled in frequency and neurodevelopmental disorders are affecting one child in six. Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed in one in 36 children, pediatric asthma has tripled in prevalence and pediatric obesity prevalence has nearly quadrupled, driving a “sharp increase in Type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents”.“Children’s health has been slipping away as a priority focus,” said Tracey Woodruff, a co-author of the paper and director of the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) program on reproductive health and the environment. “We’ve slowly just been neglecting this. The clinical and public health community and the government has failed them.”The authors cite research documenting how “even brief, low-level exposures to toxic chemicals during early vulnerable periods” in a child’s development can cause disease and disability. Prenatal exposures are particularly hazardous, the paper states.“Diseases caused by toxic chemical exposures in childhood can lead to massive economic losses, including health care expenditures and productivity losses resulting from reduced cognitive function, physical disabilities, and premature death,” the paper notes. “The chemical industry largely externalizes these costs and imposes them on governments and taxpayers.”The paper takes issue with the US Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1977 and amendments, arguing that even though the law was enacted to protect public health from “unreasonable risks” posed by chemicals, it does not provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authorities needed to actually meet that commitment.Instead, the manner in which the law is implemented assumes that all manufactured chemicals are harmless and beneficial and burdens government regulators with identifying and assessing the chemicals.“Hazards that have been recognized have typically been ignored or downplayed, and the responsible chemicals allowed to remain in use with no or limited restrictions,” the paper states. “In the nearly 50 years since TSCA’s passage, only a handful of chemicals have been banned or restricted in US markets.”Chemical oversight is more rigorous in the European Union, the paper says, but still fails to provide adequate protections, relying heavily on testing data provided by the chemical industry and providing multiple exemptions, the paper argues.The authors of the paper prescribe a new global “precautionary” approach that would only allow chemical products on the market if their manufacturers could establish through independent testing that the chemicals are not toxic at anticipated exposure levels.“The core of our recommendation is that chemicals should be tested before they come to market, they should not be presumed innocent only to be found to be harmful years and decades later,” said , a co-author who directs the program for global public health and the common good at Boston College. “Each and every chemical should be tested before they come to market.”Additionally, companies would be required to conduct post-marketing surveillance to look for long-term adverse effects of their products.That could include bio-monitoring of the most prevalent chemical exposures to the general population, Mandrioli said. Disease registries would play another fundamental role, he said, but those approaches should be integrated with toxicological studies that can “anticipate and rapidly predict effects that might have very long latencies in humans, such as cancer”. Clusters of populations with increased cancer incidences, particularly when they are children, should trigger immediate preventive actions, he said.Key to it all would be a legally binding global chemicals treaty that would fall under the auspices of the United Nations and would require a “permanent, independent science policy body to provide expert guidance”, the paper suggests.The paper recommends chemical companies and consumer product companies be required to disclose information about the potential risks of the chemicals in use and report on inventory and usage of chemicals of “high concern”.“Pollution by synthetic chemicals and plastics is a major planetary challenge that is worsening rapidly,” the paper states. “Continued, unchecked increases in production of fossil-carbon–based chemicals endangers the world’s children and threatens humanity’s capacity for reproduction. Inaction on chemicals is no longer an option.”Landrigan said he knew the effort faces an uphill climb and could be particularly challenging given the incoming Trump administration, which is widely expected to favor deregulation policies.“This is a tough subject. It’s an elephant,” he said. “But it is what needs to be done.”This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

Chemicals
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Government

Ancient Romans Breathed in Enough Lead to Lower Their IQs, Study Finds. Did That Toxin Contribute to the Empire’s Fall?

Using Arctic ice core samples, researchers estimate silver mining and smelting released enough lead during the Pax Romana to cause a 2.5- to 3-point drop in IQ

At the same time as the Romans were building the Colosseum, they were also breathing in high amounts of toxic lead from silver mining and smelting operations. Hussain Didi via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 Did lead poisoning contribute to the fall of the Roman Empire? It’s a question historians have long debated, since the Romans sweetened their wine with lead acetate and sipped tap water that flowed through lead pipes. Now, new research suggests the Romans were also breathing in large amounts of lead from silver mining and smelting operations. The toxic metal polluting the air likely got into children’s blood, leading to “widespread cognitive decline,” researchers write in a new paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lead in the air might have caused an estimated 2.5- to 3-point drop in IQs throughout the Roman Empire, per the research. The new paper doesn’t solve the mystery of whether lead poisoning played a role in Rome’s downfall. But it does add new evidence to the debate. “I’m quite convinced lead was one of the factors that contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire, but it was only one factor,” says Bruce Lanphear, a health scientist at Simon Fraser University in Canada who was not involved with the study, to NBC News’ Evan Bush. “It’s never just one thing.” Researchers say their findings also represent the first documented example of human-caused industrial pollution in history. To estimate lead pollution levels in ancient Rome, researchers turned to ice core samples taken from Greenland and Russia. For decades, scientists have been using large drills to penetrate Arctic ice sheets and extract columns of ice up to 11,000 feet long. These columns function like frigid time machines: As snowflakes fall, they capture chemicals and particles from the air. When the snow touches down in the Arctic, it compresses and solidifies into thin layers of ice—with those chemicals and particles still trapped inside. By studying these layers, scientists can effectively peer back in time. “You built up this layer cake year after year of environmental history,” study co-author Joe McConnell, a climate and environmental scientist at the nonprofit Desert Research Institute in Nevada, tells NBC News. The team looked at layers of Arctic ice that corresponded to the period between 500 B.C.E and 600 C.E. They saw an increase in lead pollution around the year 15 B.C.E., which lines up with the early years of the Roman Empire. Lead levels remained high until 180 C.E., which marks the end of a period of relative peace known as the Pax Romana. During the roughly 200-year stretch of the Pax Romana, the Romans were extracting and smelting a lot of silver to make coins. These processes are known to emit large amounts of lead into the atmosphere. “If you produce an ounce of silver, you’d have produced something like 10,000 ounces of lead,” McConnell tells the New York Times’ Katherine Kornei. Using the lead levels they found in the ice samples, the researchers were able to work backward and estimate how much lead the Romans must have been spewing into the air. Atmospheric modeling suggests between 3,300 and 4,600 tons of lead were released each year during the Pax Romana, per the New York Times. The scientists estimate that lead pollution was the worst in areas next to mining and smelting operations, reaching concentrations of at least 150 nanograms per cubic meter of air. The toxins would have also spread across Europe—they estimate average concentrations of lead air pollution were greater than 1 nanogram per cubic meter over the continent. Next, they used modern data to estimate how much lead would have built up in the blood of ancient Roman children. They were then able to extrapolate how these accumulations might have affected their IQ. The researchers focused on children in particular, because kids are especially vulnerable to the health consequences of lead exposure. Today, global health experts agree that no amount of lead is safe for kids. The heavy metal can build up in the body and cause health problems. In addition to lowering IQ, lead accumulation in children can lead to slowed growth, anemia, hearing problems, hyperactivity and behavior and learning problems. “We have actual data on IQ scores in kids with different blood-lead concentrations,” Deborah Cory-Slechta, a neurotoxicologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who was not involved with the paper, tells the New York Times. Roman children likely had an extra 2.4 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood from the empire’s air pollution. That correlates to a drop in IQ of between 2.5 and 3 points. Factoring in background lead exposure, their blood levels of lead may have been as high as 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, the researchers estimate. And that doesn’t take into account other sources of lead exposure, so the team’s findings are probably an underestimate, reports NBC News. For reference, American children had around 15 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood during the 1970s, before lead paint and leaded gasoline were banned. Those levels likely resulted in a 9-point drop in IQ, per the New York Times. “A 2.5- to 3-point reduction in IQ may not sound like much but it was across the entire population and would have persisted for the nearly 180 years of the Pax Romana,” McConnell tells the Guardian’s Ian Sample. “I leave it to epidemiologists, ancient historians and archaeologists to determine if the levels of background atmospheric lead pollution and health impacts we have identified … were sufficient to change history.” But even factoring in these new findings, some experts remain skeptical that lead poisoning caused the Roman civilization to collapse around 476 C.E. “While the magnitude of exposure and the correlated blood lead levels were enough to negatively affect the cognitive function of that population, this is still a far cry from causing the downfall of the Roman Empire,” says Amy L. Pyle-Eilola, a pathologist at the Ohio State University who was not involved with the research, to New Scientist’s Christa Lesté-Lasserre. Caleb Finch, a neurobiologist at the University of Southern California who was not involved with the research, remains similarly unconvinced. “The conclusion of ‘widespread cognitive decline’ from an estimated three-IQ point decrease does not match the huge productivity of the Roman Empire, when lead production was maximal,” he tells Science’s Taylor Mitchell Brown. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Chemicals
Climate
Health

Exxon Mobil sues California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta over plastic recycling claims

Exxon lawsuit accuses California's attorney general, the Sierra Club and others of defaming the oil giant with negative comments about plastic recycling.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil has filed a defamation lawsuit against California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, claiming Bonta falsely accused the company of deceiving the public about the potential for plastic recycling.The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, amounts to a counterpunch against a suit Bonta filed against Exxon Mobil last September accusing the company of greatly exaggerating the extent to which plastics can be recycled by portraying them as universally recyclable.Exxon claims that accusations by Bonta and environmental groups have damaged its reputation with customers.“With apparently no appreciation for the irony of their claim, Mr. Bonta and his cohorts are now engaging in reverse greenwashing,” according to the complaint, which also names environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation. “While posing under the banner of environmentalism, they do damage to genuine recycling programs and to meaningful innovation,” the lawsuit says.The legal battle underscores a widening rift between California and oil companies. Plastics are a product of the petroleum industry, created by processing chemicals found in hydrocarbons.Bonta‘s suit against Exxon goes beyond issues of consumer deception to address plastic manufacturing itself. Plastic waste is increasingly recognized as a serious global pollution problem. The Bonta suit seeks financial penalties “for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution upon California’s communities and the environment.”Bonta alleged the company “falsely promoted all plastic as recyclable” while the recycling rate of plastics in the U.S. is below 10%. Exxon has disputed those claims. The battle against Big Oil has become a hallmark of the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom. He’s accused oil companies of price gouging, although state efforts to prove it have thus far born no fruit. Newsom coaxed the state Legislature in two special sessions to create a price gouging investigation unit and to require oil refineries to keep extra stocks of gasoline on hand to prevent price spikes when refineries shut down for maintenance.The governor is seeking to keep gasoline prices down as the state increasingly squeezes its oil refineries with its electric vehicle mandate. In 2020, Newsom ruled that automakers increase sales of new zero-emission vehicles over time until 2035, when state policy will ban sale of new traditional gasoline and diesel fueled cars and light trucks.At the same time, California is increasing financial penalties on the state’s oil refineries through its Low Carbon Fuel Standards program.The Big Oil battle raises questions about future gasoline supply and prices at the pump if more oil companies abandon the state. In October, Phillips 66 announced plans to shut down its Los Angeles-area refinery, although it will retain its service stations here. The oil company said market conditions, not recent state policies, drove the decision.

Chemicals
Pollution
Waste

Environmental groups sue FDA over agency’s refusal to restrict phthalates

Agency has either ignored petitions or ruled against taking action against chemical that presents serious health risksA coalition of environmental groups has sued the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the use of highly toxic phthalates in plastic food packaging because the chemicals have been found to leach at alarming rates and present a serious health risk, especially for developing children.The suit is the latest salvo in an ongoing eight-year battle in which advocates have pressured the FDA to ban the chemicals’ use in food packaging, but the agency has sided with industry that opposes the calls. Since 2016, the FDA has either illegally ignored petitions or rejected demands to revoke a 40-year-old authorization for the chemicals that is based on long-outdated science. Continue reading...

A coalition of environmental groups has sued the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the use of highly toxic phthalates in plastic food packaging because the chemicals have been found to leach at alarming rates and present a serious health risk, especially for developing children.The suit is the latest salvo in an ongoing eight-year battle in which advocates have pressured the FDA to ban the chemicals’ use in food packaging, but the agency has sided with industry that opposes the calls. Since 2016, the FDA has either illegally ignored petitions or rejected demands to revoke a 40-year-old authorization for the chemicals that is based on long-outdated science.The health groups in a statement called the FDA’s refusal to restrict the chemicals “unconscionable”.“The FDA is knowingly putting millions of people in the US at risk of life-altering health problems by continuing to greenlight uses of phthalates that contaminate our food,” said Katherine O’Brien, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of the suit’s lead plaintiffs. “FDA’s decision defies decades of science and the agency’s core purpose of keeping the food supply safe.”The FDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Phthalates are a class of nearly 30 chemicals used as plasticizers in plastic containers, kitchen utensils and food preparation materials, among other uses. Researchers have found them in most food samples tested in recent years, and very low levels of exposure are linked to birth defects and pre-term birth. They are thought to cause developmental harms for fetuses and children, especially the reproductive system and brain – kids who have been exposed risk reduced IQ, and boys risk genital defects and infertility.Phthalates are also particularly dangerous because they have been found to mimic the human body’s hormones.The European Union has banned or restricted some phthalate compounds in food contact, but few regulations exist in the US. However, three types of phthalates have been banned for use in kids’ toys in the US because children were ingesting the chemicals.The lack of regulations is due in part to industry pressure on the FDA, public health advocates allege. The American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents chemical makers, has attacked research on phthalates’ ubiquity and dangers, and argues that not all phthalates present a risk. Claims that they do create “unnecessary public alarm about our nation’s food safety”, the council wrote in a statement.The FDA has largely agreed with that view. The coalition that filed the lawsuit first petitioned the FDA to revoke authorizations for phthalate use in food contact in 2016. It highlighted decades of scientific evidence linking the chemicals to health risks, especially for kids.The FDA did not respond to the petition for five years, violating the law, which requires a response within six months. The groups in 2021 sued the FDA, forcing it to respond. In 2022, the agency denied the petition, arguing that industry had already abandoned food contact use for most phthalates.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe groups filed an appeal to reconsider, but the FDA upheld its decision in October 2024, allowing phthalates to continue to be used without restrictions. The agency wrote that it “found that available information does not support grouping all 28 phthalate chemicals into a single class assessment”.Public health advocates say the agency is echoing industry talking points.“The FDA has decided to ignore years of research and failed to take action to protect our health from these chemicals widely known to cause harm, allowing business as usual for companies who profit from their use,” said Maria Doa, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, a co-litigant.The new suit asks a judge to order a ban on the chemical class.In the meantime, people can protect themselves by avoiding food in plastic containers, using glass containers in the kitchen, avoiding plastic kitchenware and eating fewer processed foods.

Chemicals
Food
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Suggested Viewing

Toxic Business

A documentary on the profits international chemical companies are gaining in Africa at cost of the health of small-scaled-farmers and consumers.International chemical companies sell high toxic agro-chemicals in Kenya, which are banned since long in Europe. They are banned because their ingredients cause cancer and have a major negative impact on the nature and environment. Anyhow – in developing countries like Kenya those toxic chemicals are sold without any regulations through small agro-shops all over the country. The small scaled farmers do believe in the promises of better and safer harvest those companies give. Today, the use of pesticides even inside the villages is already a daily business. Furthermore many of them already depend on hybrid seeds, old and resistant seeds supplants. Most of the consumers do not have the knowledge, how dangerous those agro-chemicals are: the WHO announced that annually 346.000 people die, caused by accidentally poisoning with those chemicals, 2/3 of them within developing countries.In the face of world food, industry is trying to push its way into the markets. On the contrary, statistics and alternative farming methods in East Africa show that it no longer needs chemicals and hybrid seeds to feed the world, but a general rethinking.

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Unacceptable Risk: Dr. Margaret Kripke on Cancer and the Environment

Unacceptable Risk tells the story of a prominent cancer researcher who rethinks her assumptions about the causes of cancer and the true burden of environmentally-induced cancers.

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We Trees

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Sprayed

An exploration of what happens when whole communities get exposed to toxins: Naled sprayed on Miami residents to fight Zika virus, Agent Orange sprayed on the Vietcong, and release of GMO mosquitoes in Brazil with pyriproxyfen added to drinking water to fight dengue. What are the results for nature and humanity? We meet Agent Orange survivors at Vietnamese detoxification and rehabilitation centers, parents of babies born with microcephaly from Zika virus, and Florida residents dealing with efforts to kill mosquitoes carrying Zika virus. Perspectives of doctors, scientists, and politicians are balanced with voices of ordinary citizens and victims to explore concerns about the potential impact on current and future generations.

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The Story of Plastic

A searing expose uncovering the ugly truth behind the global plastic pollution crisis. Striking footage shot over three continents illustrates the ongoing catastrophe: fields full of garbage, veritable mountains of trash; rivers and seas clogged with waste; and skies choked with poisons from plastic production and recycling processes with no end in sight. Original animations, interviews with experts and activists, and never-before-filmed scenes reveal the disastrous consequences of the plastic flood around the world – and the global movement rising up in response.

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