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Ari Phillips
/
July 16, 2026

Trump Administration proposes weakening pollution rules for the chemical plastics ‘recycling’ industry

If the proposal were implemented, pyrolysis units – which heat plastics waste at up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit – would no longer be categorized as incinerators under the Clean Air Act and would therefore not be required to meet limits for cancer-causing air pollution

News Briefs

July 22, 2026
Trump Administration gives 20 more facilities a break from hazardous air pollution rules

The Trump Administration is giving more petrochemical plants a pass on rules meant to better control hazardous and carcinogenic air pollution.

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July 22, 2026
Louisiana petrochemical plant agrees to $1 million settlement for pollution violations

Denka Performance Elastomers agreed to the payment to settle accusations by the Environmental Protection Agency that it had violated environmental laws.

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July 22, 2026
Floating gas power plant aboard moored ship in South Texas gets permit

State regulators have approved a company’s application to build a gas-fired power plant aboard a vessel permanently moored in the Brownsville Ship Channel.

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News Articles

Brendan Gibbons
/
July 9, 2026

Trump Administration’s embrace of biofuels likely to drive up fuel costs and increase pollution

In March, the Trump Administration updated the U.S.’s Renewable Fuel Standard to require more plant-based fuel to be used in American cars and trucks than ever before, drawing praise from soybean farmers and agribusiness groups. The new standard requires refiners and fuel importers to blend in record-high amounts of plant-based diesel – 60 percent more than last year. The change is the largest annual increase in the program’s history, according to commodities analysis group Argus. The administration also maintained an existing mandate to blend 15 billion gallons per year of corn ethanol into motor gasoline.

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Ari Phillips
/
July 1, 2026

Wave of gas plants for data centers threatens communities with pollution, costs, and water consumption

“The Power Behind AI,” a recent report by the Environmental Integrity Project, found that at least 74 natural gas-fired power plants are planned across the U.S. to provide energy for the rapidly growing data center industry. These proposed gas plants, which would be dedicated to serving data centers, are expected to release nearly 662 million tons per year of greenhouse gas pollution, the equivalent of 140 million cars and trucks driving for a year or the annual emissions from the entire nations of Australia or France. 

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Brendan Gibbons
/
June 25, 2026

Texas’s orphaned well count continues to grow, contaminating land and water and hurting taxpayers

As of April 2026, the number of orphaned wells – which are abandoned wells with no known or financially-solvent owners – increased by 37 percent compared to last year, reaching over 12,000 wells. The number of orphaned wells continues to grow as older wells are sold off to increasingly smaller companies with fewer resources that sometimes fail to plug their wells or go out of business. Current regulations also allow companies to postpone plugging their wells indefinitely.

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Ari Phillips
/
June 18, 2026

The Iran war has helped U.S. plastics manufacturers while hurting consumers

President Donald Trump on June 17 signed a preliminary agreement that could potentially end the conflict, but it’s not clear the deal will hold and global disruption is likely to reverberate for months even after the war eventually ends. The war has boosted profits for plastics manufacturers while adding to the costs faced by consumers already battered by rising costs. The wartime closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where about $20 to $25 billion ‌worth of petrochemical products pass through annually, sent prices for polyethylene and other plastic ingredients soaring.

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In Depth Reports

The Lone Star State’s Gas Plant Boom

A wave of 130 natural gas power plant projects in the Lone Star State, proposed in part to feed the artificial intelligence boom, could release as much greenhouse gas pollution as 27 million cars and trucks driving for a year, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project.

Pollution from Oil Refineries with Outdated Boilers and Heaters

The Environmental Integrity Project examined publicly available data and records for the 20 petroleum refineries in the U.S. that reported emitting the most greenhouse gases in 2023. Out of the refinery boilers and heaters with age information, 87 percent of these units (739 of 845) are outdated.

Plastic's Toxic River

The Environmental Integrity Project examined the records of 70 U.S. facilities that make plastics or the main chemical ingredients in plastics and found they discharged almost 12 million pounds in 2023 of total nitrogen and phosphorus.

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