Either by legal action or election results, the run of politicization of science that has marked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory regime on emissions looks to wither away, bringing relief to a major Louisiana industrial concern punished for political reasons.
As of the middle of last week, things weren’t looking great for Denka Performance Elastomers in LaPlace, the country’s only producer of neoprene. For over a decade, Denka and its predecessor have been in the crosshairs of the EPA that alleges production of neoprene emits too high levels of chloroprene that supposedly causes cancer. The EPA has tried to impose emission strict standards even as the company has instigated a huge decrease in these amounts.
That battle escalated in a rule proposed in April and made final in May that broadly changes the emission regime, but specifically for Denka creates a level that the company has said is impossible to meet by an Oct. 15 deadline. It has gone to court to suspend this implementation.