Over the past 18 months, we have never asked for money to support our efforts against Exxon’s air and water permits. Money needed for flyers, to rent the community center, to boost our Facebook posts, and anything else has been provided by individuals at their cost.
The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has now provided legal counsel to the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) and its local members to challenge the air permit through a Contested Case Hearing (CCH). A small but effective non-profit corporation, EIP spends 92% of all funds on direct program costs to enforce environmental laws. Their name may sound familiar to area residents. That’s because they helped in stopping the Las Brisas pet coke plant planned for the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.
But, they need our help. Technical expertise is needed to assess the true impact of the emissions from the Exxon facility. We already know the emissions of Ammonia, Benzene, 1,3-Butadiene, Ethylene, and Formaldehyde will far exceed the state’s health-based effects screening levels (“ESLs”) that are established to better protect public health. But, Exxon has kept much of their modeling of projected emissions and processes out of view from the public. Claiming “confidentiality”, Exxon is allowed to keep this information secret unless a CCH is requested. A CCH requires them to reveal these secrets to EIP and its experts. Then we will know the whole truth.
Let EIP know we thank them and support their efforts against Exxon and SABIC by making a donation. Your donation will have a direct impact on our fight against Exxon and SABIC’s “World’s Largest” ethane cracker/plastics plant planned for the Gregory-Portland area. Click this link or EIP logo below to head to the donation page.
Note: When you make a donation, there is a drop-down menu labeled “Designation”. Select “Texas Exxon plastics plant opposition”.
If you would like to learn more about EIP, please visit their site here.
The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization that advocates for effective enforcement of environmental laws. Comprised of former EPA enforcement attorneys, public interest lawyers, analysts, investigators, and community organizers, EIP has three goals:
- To illustrate through objective facts and figures how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and harms public health;
- To hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; and
- To help local communities obtain the protections of environmental laws.
We act as a watchdog because we have to. State and federal agencies charged with protecting the environment often are squeezed by limited resources and political interference from well-funded lobbyists hired by the industries they are required to regulate. We help level the playing field by giving communities the legal and technical resources they need to claim their rights under environmental laws.
Political influence should play no role when the government decides whether to enforce laws which keep cancer-causing benzene out of the lungs of children, for example, or deadly coal soot particles out of the bloodstreams of the elderly.We do this by advocating for fair enforcement of environmental laws and regulations; writing and distributing reports and data; taking legal actions against big polluters and government agencies, when necessary; and by teaching communities how to participate in the public process regarding important state and federal environmental decisions.