CORPUS CHRISTI CITIZENS GROUP CAUTIONS EPA THAT CITGO POLLUTION SETTLEMENT UNLIKELY TO WORK, ASKS TO PROVIDE INPUT

Court Urged to Address Concerns About Ineffective Additives, Lengthy Postponements

January 25, 2005

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX A local group, Citizens for Environmental Justice (CFEJ), is asking a federal court to address its concerns about a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed settlement with Citgo that is unlikely to reduce area refinery pollution by stated deadlines, thereby allowing Citgo to postpone or avoid altogether urgently needed environmental clean-up steps. EPA asked the court to enter its proposed consent decree on Friday without addressing concerns raised by local citizens living around Citgo’s refineries.

The CFEJ request for local citizen input is not unique. In a very similar proceeding, a federal court in California is requiring the EPA to address similar concerns raised by local citizens and labor unions regarding a proposed settlement with Chevron.

A CFEJ letter submitted on January 14, 2005 to Thomas Sansonetti, assistant attorney general, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Thomas Skinner, acting assistant administrator, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Mayor Richard Greene, regional administrator, U.S. EPA Region 6, Dallas, TX lays out citizens’ concerns with the proposed Citgo settlement. CFEJ urged the EPA and Justice Department to respond to these concerns before entering a consent decree in the matter of United States of America v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., H-04-3883, D.J. Ref. 90-5-2-1-07277. On January 21, 2005, EPA and the Justice Department asked the court to enter the Citgo consent decree without responding to CFEJ’s letter. As a result, CFEJ has asked the court to allow it to present its objections to the settlement.

"People of color and low income have been environmentally overburdened for several decades,"said Suzie Canales, chair of Citizens for Environmental Justice. "We want EPA to answer our questions before this consent decree is finalized. This settlement will relieve Citgo from liability for years of violations. We want to make sure it will lead to actual environmental improvements in our community."

The proposed EPA-Citgo settlement would cover petroleum refineries in Lemont, Illinois, Lake Charles, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as asphalt refineries in Savannah, Georgia and Paulsboro, New Jersey and addresses years of noncompliance with the Clean Air Act at these facilities. CFEJ is a community organization whose members are residents of Corpus Christi, Texas. Members of the organization also work and attend church near Citgo’s Corpus Christi refineries.

The CFEJ letter reads, in part: "… it appears that with Citgo, EPA is yet again proposing a settlement that includes the same flaws as its earlier settlements. The Citgo settlement, like previous refinery settlements, requires the selection, testing and use of chemical additives to reduce pollution until such time as Citgo installs required pollution control equipment. Yet it appears that the use of chemical additives at refineries has largely failed to reduce pollution … The obvious question is: Why is EPA relying on the use of chemical additives to reduce emissions in the Citgo settlement when its own experience shows that the use of such additives simply does not work?"

In June 2004, the EPA Office of Inspector General (IG) released a report analyzing EPA’s Oil Refinery Initiative settlements. The IG report found that prior settlements have not resulted in the environmental benefits promised by EPA. The IG also concluded that EPA has failed to perform its obligations under those settlements in a timely manner, which has "delayed company implementation of projects designed to reduce emissions and compromised compliance with consent decrees."

On December 12, 2004, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published an investigative story regarding EPA’s refinery settlements that raised questions CFEJ says should be answered before the Citgo settlement is allowed to go forward. The Star-Telegram found that: (1) the environmental reductions promised by the past refinery settlements have not materialized; and (2) the deadlines in the agreements have been repeatedly extended without notice or opportunity to comment by the public or the courts. EPA has acknowledged that the newspaper’s conclusions are correct.

One big problem with the Citgo settlement, says CFEJ, is the potential for unlimited postponements of action by Citgo. The letter states: "Because we live near Citgo’s refineries and our families are affected on a daily basis by the pollution released, the speed with which Citgo reduces its emissions under the proposed consent decree is extremely important to us. As noted above, some of the deadlines in the decree appear to be longer than those in other refinery decrees. Further, we are concerned that EPA’s history of granting extensions to refinery decree deadlines means that we really have no idea when we will see pollution reduction benefits from the consent decree … it appears that EPA can allow an unlimited number of extensions to the deadlines in the Citgo consent decree without filing such extensions with the court, and without any provision for public notice and comment."

The letter to the EPA from the Corpus Christi citizen group concludes as follows: "CFEJ recognizes the time and effort that EPA and DOJ have put into this settlement with Citgo. We appreciate the opportunity to work with you to strengthen the decree and to ensure that the decree’s intended environmental benefits become reality. We ask that you respond in writing to the questions posed in this letter before moving for entry of the Citgo consent decree. Working together we hope we can achieve a settlement that benefits the environment and Citgo’s neighbors while bringing Citgo back into compliance with federal laws."

While EPA chose not to respond to CFEJ’s concerns before moving for entry of the Citgo Decree, CFEJ hopes that the federal court will require EPA to address its concerns before the court approves entry of the Decree.

The full text of the CFEJ letter is available online at http://www.trla.org.

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