The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency’s own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking.
Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk.
But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.
The carcinogenic claims I read in the article would apply to “gasoline” just as much as the unnamed, undefined, “evil villain chemical(s)” described. The article is heavy on FUD, but very light on fact.
It’s an EPA report, specifically about plastic-based fuels that give people cancer, reported by more than one credible news source and corroborated by an EPA veteran.
Giving people cancer does not make a chemical an “evil villain”, but a fuel company known to abuse human rights and destroy the environment with carcinogens developing and the EPA approving fuels that they have determined give people cancer 100% of the time over repeated exposure is something that should be stopped, or if the EPA has made a mistake, made clear and retested.
This article is heavy on data and precedent, your comment is not.
It is not an EPA report. It is a sensationalist article on ProPublica. Do not conflate the two.
Dude it is absolutely an EPA report, the chemicals are all named with their IDs, and ProPublica got experts in the field to corroborate the data.
What more do you want?
The original post is not an EPA report. The original post is a ProPublica article. The ProPublica article is not written to inform, but to inflame.
To form a meaningful opinion, we also need the utilitarian value of this mystery chemical, and we need to know how its risks compare to those of similar products.
Again. ALL of the carcinogenic claims made in the ProPublica article about the mystery chemical(s) are equally true of “gasoline”. They refer to the chemical as “boat fuel”; all the boats I have been on have burned either gasoline or diesel. Is this mystery chemical “gasoline”? Something with the same utilitarian value and risks as gasoline? ProPublica tells us the risks of this mystery product, but doesn’t give us the context of other products.
I understand ProPublica wants me to be pissed off. What I don’t understand is why ProPublica is pissed off. Are they supporting an environmentalist agenda? Are they supporting one of Chevron’s competitors producing a similar product? Are they a right-wing group trying to shut down a government agency for incompetence? Are they a left-wing group fighting against regulatory capture? Are they just trolling us for the lulz? Until I understand why they want me to be pissed off, my pitchfork is staying in the barn, and my jimmies will remain unrustled.
Missed the report and the EPA/Chevron corroboration?
Here’s the report from the article you didn’t read:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23886219-integrated-risk-assessment-for-chevron-waste-plastic-fuels
That is a 203 page report. You didn’t read it. All you know about it are the cherry picked segments that ProPublica is using to get you pissed off. You don’t know why ProPublica is trying to get you to be pissed off any more than I do.
You want me to be pissed off about the EPA report, you need to show me a summary written to inform rather than incite. I don’t respond well to blatant, unrepentant propaganda.
Oh, and whatever your problems are with reading, try not to project your inadequacies onto others.
You have been provided with a summary of the EPA report. That’s literally what the article is.
You’re being rationally and clearly informed by a credible news organization about carcinogenic fuels that, according to the EPA, will directly and indirectly certainly cause cancer.
“Gasoline” is a carcinogenic fuel that directly and indirectly certainly causes cancer under the “continuous exposure” circumstances described in the article. Nothing in the article actually distinguishes between “gasoline” and the mystery chemical mentioned. Substitute “gasoline” in for every nebulous reference to plastic fuel or boat fuel, and all of the facts discussed in the article are still true.
Whatever truth there is to the article is overshadowed by the propaganda. The only valid conclusion we can make from the article is that ProPublica wants us to come out with our pitchforks without actually telling us why.
You are incorrect, the EPA report specifically asseses waste plastic-based fuels developed by Chevron. The EPA assesses those plastic-based fuels as definitely cancer-causing.
What are you referring to specifically when you keep saying propaganda as if you were using the word correctly?
If you find the same report for “gasoline”, you will see that it shows substantially identical risks, including the “definitely cancer causing” risks.
What is it about the risks from this unnamed fuel product that actually distinguishes it from the risks of “gasoline”?
The propaganda I am referring to is the article’s insinuation that the risks from this particular chemical are substantially higher than for other chemicals used for similar purposes. The EPA report does not show a higher risk, and the ProPublica article does not provide an apples-to-apples comparison. For all we know, the cancer risk from gasoline could be double or triple that of the unnamed chemical. Neither the article nor the EPA report on the unnamed chemical actually allows us to make a reasonable comparison either way. You could be condemning a fuel that is safer than gasoline.
Obviously, we wouldn’t want to drink this unnamed chemical, or rub it all over our bodies. We wouldn’t want to shower, bathe, or swim in it, but the same is true of gasoline, diesel, jet-A, kerosene, propane, heating oil, bunker fuel, and any number of other fuel products. The article does not explain why we should be outraged over this one particular substance, and not any of the other substances that all carry substantially identical carcinogenic risks.
True, gasoline would not be approved today by the EPA’s own rules as it is a carcinogen. That’s how fucked our environment is.
That doesn’t mean that gasoline is not a dangerous substance, it just means that it has been grandfathered into the regulatory structure because of predates the EPA.