Tell the EPA: Refinery Towns Need a Sheriff
Millions of people live in the shadow of oil refineries and are forced to breathe air that sickens and kills—especially our vulnerable children.
Too many are exposed to uncontrolled chemical releases every day, including the nine refinery disasters that have been federally investigated by the Chemical Safety board in the last 10 years alone.
The oil industry knows the dangers and is fighting new protections against reducing toxic emissions, even though stronger pollution controls exist and are in use at many of the nation’s refineries.
Please join with us in supporting efforts to ensure refineries clean up their act and our air.
The EPA needs to finalize a plan to protect communities, particularly children, from unacceptable cancer and other health threats, posed by polluting oil refineries. We need your help to ensure EPA strengthens health protections and reduces toxic air by standing up to Big Oil.
Tell EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that she must stand up to Big Oil and protect every community's right to breathe clean, healthy air.
Dear EPA Administrator McCarthy,
Now is the time to show your commitment to overburdened communities and vulnerable children by strengthening the national air toxics standards for refineries.
[Your comment will be added here]
I support reducing toxic air emissions and strengthening protections from our nation's oil refineries to prevent cancer and save lives. The EPA has taken an important step and should finalize emission limits and monitoring requirements that truly protect the health of fenceline communities.
Now, the agency must use its full legal authority to reduce the emissions of these toxic chemicals from refineries based on the most up-to-date scientific understanding of the impacts of refineries' hazardous air pollution on public health--especially for children and communities of color. I strongly urge strengthening the proposed rule and resisting industry pressure to delete important new requirements like fenceline monitoring that must be part of the final rule.
The EPA must make sure the final rule has a real-world impact on the ground. These include stronger fenceline monitoring using the most current real time technology. The highest level of reductions of toxic emission and the safest available technology. The EPA needs an updated risk assessment approach which finally accounts for real-world impacts to children and overburdened communities.
There is an opportunity now to make our air cleaner and communities safer. EPA and President Obama can leave a legacy that reduces the harm to children living in the shadows of our nation's oil refineries.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
