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The Texas Tribune
The Texas Tribune
National
Alejandra Martinez

EPA’s inspector general says agency isn’t enforcing benzene pollution rules at refineries in Texas, nationally

A Deer Park neighborhood next to Highway 225, which borders the refineries, petrochemical plants and industrial storage tanks that line the Houston Ship Channel. In 2019, air quality inspectors found that high levels of benzene emissions had wafted across the highway and into residential areas of Deer Park in the weeks after the ITC chemical fire was extinguished.
A Deer Park neighborhood next to Highway 225, which borders the refineries, petrochemical plants and industrial storage tanks that line the Houston Ship Channel. (Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune/Public Health Watch)

A report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general found that the federal agency is failing to enforce federal pollution limits on benzene emitted from refineries, including nine in Texas.

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