Speaker 1: Excellon Mobile has agreed to pay more than three hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars to resolve air pollution violations tied to eight
Speaker 1: chemical plants in Texas and Louisiana, one of two environmental
Speaker 1: settlements with oil companies announced by the Trump administration on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: The cases are among the most notable environmental enforcement actions
Speaker 1: by the Trump administration, with at least one target that
Speaker 1: hits close to home. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, of course,
Speaker 1: was chief executive officer at Exxon until late last year.
Speaker 1: Joining us is Pat Parento, a professor of environmental law
Speaker 1: at Vermont Law School. Pat Scott Pruett, the head of
Speaker 1: the e p A, is leading the efforts to roll
Speaker 1: back Obama era environmental regulations, including the first limits on
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. So does this settlement
Speaker 1: surprise you, No, it doesn't surprise me. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: see the EPA and the Justice Department have reached an
Speaker 1: agreement with Excellent to correct the violations at these facilities.
Speaker 1: But it has to be noted that these are cases
Speaker 1: that have been in the works for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: Um So, as much as anything, it's the work of
Speaker 1: the Obama administration that produced this result. I think proved
Speaker 1: and company deserve credit, uh for continuing with those kinds
Speaker 1: of enforcement cases. Hope we see some more, but I
Speaker 1: don't think i'd overstate yet the commitment to environmental enforcement
Speaker 1: until we see a little more. Well, Pat, what what
Speaker 1: is it that Exxon did wrong here that they're now settling. Well, they,
Speaker 1: like other companies that run these refineries, UH, flare off
Speaker 1: a lot of the gas, the excess gas, and it
Speaker 1: includes volatile organic compounds, some of which are quite toxic.
Speaker 1: And of course, in Texas, where these refineries are concentrated, UH,
Speaker 1: there's some pretty severe health consequences to local communities, many
Speaker 1: of which are low income communities that are suffering from
Speaker 1: from the pollution from these facilities. So it's a flaring problem.
Speaker 1: And the controls that Exxon has now committed to spend
Speaker 1: upwards a three million dollars on are designed to actually
Speaker 1: capture these gases rather than flare them off. And of course,
Speaker 1: some of the gases include methane, which which is actually valuable,
Speaker 1: so reducing some of the waste by controlling the flaring
Speaker 1: actually makes some business sense as well. Pat Pruitt is
Speaker 1: pursuing what he calls up back to basics agenda. He
Speaker 1: says he'll prior prioritize action on traditional pollutants. What does
Speaker 1: that mean exactly? Well, this is an example of going
Speaker 1: after traditional pollutants. Follloutile organic compounds are ubiquitous through many
Speaker 1: different industrial sectors. It's, i would say, one of the
Speaker 1: major air quality problems that we have, along with O zone,
Speaker 1: fine particulates and others. So there's a real long list
Speaker 1: of these kinds of conventional pollutants and I hope that
Speaker 1: Mr Pruitt is is sincere in going after them. And
Speaker 1: of course that takes resources. It takes staff. You can
Speaker 1: just imagine and with eight facilities, that the number of inspections, monitoring,
Speaker 1: report gathering, analysis that went into these cases. That takes people,
Speaker 1: boots on the ground, if you will. Pru It has
Speaker 1: put in a budget that would drastically reduce e p
Speaker 1: a S on the ground capabilities in the enforcement areas.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, once again there's a bit of
Speaker 1: inconsistency here. On the one hand, we hear the administrator
Speaker 1: committing to strong enforcement, but on the other hand, we
Speaker 1: seem reducing the capability of the agency to actually do that. Well.
Speaker 1: One other area that I think it's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: is if you're there's obviously a pushing e p A
Speaker 1: under under Mr pruittt to avoid taking action against UH
Speaker 1: carbon you know, in the atmosphere and things that you know,
Speaker 1: global warming type things. Um, is there a way for
Speaker 1: him to steer the agency to only go after traditional
Speaker 1: pollutants without also looking at carbon issues or can they
Speaker 1: really be separated out that cleanly? No, they can't be
Speaker 1: set rated out, either technically or legally, because the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has ruled that e p A has a mandatory
Speaker 1: obligation to regulate carbon from these facilities their oil refineries
Speaker 1: in the cases that we're talking about, but many others,
Speaker 1: power plants, cement plants, and so forth. And unless UH
Speaker 1: e p A changes it's endangerment finding, and which is
Speaker 1: very unlikely and would certainly be challenged in court. Um,
Speaker 1: e p A really doesn't have the discretion not to
Speaker 1: regulate carbon from these facilities. And of course the Clean
Speaker 1: Power Plan was designed to shift away from a lot
Speaker 1: of the most polluting UH industry power plants. I should
Speaker 1: say that would have the benefit of reducing a lot
Speaker 1: of the health effects of more conventional pollutants as well.
Speaker 1: So by not really regulating and shifting away from coal
Speaker 1: fired power plants, you're also allowing these other air quality
Speaker 1: problems to continue. Patent about forty five seconds. But tell
Speaker 1: us a about the second agreement announced with Denver based
Speaker 1: PDC Energy. Well, that one involves, uh, a very modest
Speaker 1: fine of about two million or so dollars. That's really
Speaker 1: kind of a token, uh penalty that that will not
Speaker 1: have a great deterrent effect. Um. And it's done in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the state of Colorado, so there's some cooperation
Speaker 1: involved with that, which is a good thing. But but
Speaker 1: by itself, it's not a major enforcement action. I would
Speaker 1: say it's not going to have a significant effect on
Speaker 1: the industry. All right, thanks so much as always. Pat Parento,
Speaker 1: professor at Vermont Law School. Coming up on Bloomberg Law
Speaker 1: and investigation by forty five states and d C into
Speaker 1: an alleged price fixing conspiracy among makers of generic drugs,
Speaker 1: now targeting executives at two of the drug makers