EPA final­izes crack­down on tox­ic air pol­lu­tants from chem­i­cal plants

The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency pub­lished a final rule Tues­day crack­ing down on tox­ic air pol­lu­tion from chem­i­cal and plas­tics plants, seek­ing to reduce expo­sure to two can­cer-linked chem­i­cal com­pounds, eth­yl­ene oxide and chloro­prene, while also giv­ing plant own­ers slight­ly more time to com­ply.
Once imple­ment­ed, EPA offi­cials said, the final rule will achieve a near­ly 80% reduc­tion in emis­sions from eth­yl­ene oxide and chloro­prene, two tox­ic com­pounds linked to cer­tain types of can­cers, includ­ing lym­phoma, leukemia, breast can­cer, and liv­er can­cer. 
In total, offi­cials said, the rule will slash 6,200 tons of tox­ic air pol­lu­tion annu­al­ly from U.S. chem­i­cal and plas­tics plants, reduc­ing the num­ber of peo­ple at ele­vat­ed can­cer risk from the air tox­i­cs by rough­ly 96%.
The EPA’s rule also extends cer­tain report­ing require­ments for facil­i­ties that pro­duce, store, or emit the tox­ins ben­zene, 1,3‑butadiene, eth­yl­ene dichlo­ride, and vinyl chlo­ride, in addi­tion to eth­yl­ene oxide and chloro­prene.
Facil­i­ties that han­dle these chem­i­cals will now be …