A hard-won rule to cut chemical plant pollution is being unraveled

In 2024, the EPA under Biden finalized the HON rule, requiring roughly 220 petrochemical plants to slash emissions of six hazardous pollutants, including ethylene oxide and chloroprene, and to close a long-standing exemption for shutdown-and-startup emissions. The agency projected the rule would cut 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution annually and reduce cancer risk near covered plants by 96 percent, a signature protection for communities in Louisiana's Cancer Alley, where St. John the Baptist Parish has the nation's highest air-pollution cancer risk.

Since early 2025, the Trump administration has granted more than 70 temporary exemptions to petrochemical facilities, invoking a Clean Air Act national-security provision environmental lawyers say has never before been used this way. The EPA says it will propose a rewrite of the rule this fall, one expected to significantly scale back its protections.

The HON rule was one of nine Biden-era air toxics regulations covering industries from steelmaking to tire manufacturing; all nine are now being rescinded, revised, or reconsidered. Residents like Tish Taylor, who stood behind Regan at the 2024 signing, describe the reversal as replacing a validating gift with what she called a death sentence.

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