Exxon Mobil Settles Clean Air Act Cases With Feds, Louisiana

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Travis Lux,

Travis Lux

Published October 31, 2017 at 4:49 PM CDT

An Exxon Mobil chemical plant outside Baton Rouge, LA.

Exxon Mobil will settle air pollution cases with the federal government and the State of Louisiana.

The feds and the state of Louisiana claimed that Exxon Mobil violated the Clean Air Act by releasing excess amounts of harmful pollutants from eight of its chemical plants.

Five of those plants are in Texas. Three of them are in the Baton Rouge area. All of them make either plastic, or chemicals for plastic — according to EPA officials.

Under the settlement, Exxon will be required to pay a $2.5 million penalty. It will also have to make repairs to the eight plants. It’ll do things like install equipment that better captures pollutants — pollutants like benzene, which the EPA considers a carcinogen.

Those repairs are estimated to cost Exxon about $300 million and could take a couple of years to implement.

The settlement is not an admission of guilt.

Support for the Coastal Desk comes from the Walton Family Foundation, the Coypu Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and local listeners.