It has been a busy time on the taxpayer-funded, green-group grant front. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency filed an appeal in the D.C. Circuit of a district court order that it unfreeze some of the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to activists, financing the industry that was engaged with the Biden administration to advance an aligned agenda. This is very relevant to several document productions from the Agency GAO has been reviewing, which provide more granular detail on the interplay between these relationships, on the ground, and seeming coordination between the Agency, activists and their academic allies. (A very truncated excerpt of these records, which are many over numerous months, is here.)
The records at issue here come from the energy industry-intensive Region 6 (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas).
Notable about these developments is a certain intersection between green groups receiving both “EJ” grants and Bloomberg funding for air monitoring and other purposes (e.g., The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice received $13 million in August 2023 from the EPA’s EJ grants; The Bullard Center received $150 million in December 2023 from the EPA’s EJ grants. In an interesting twist, green groups in Louisiana got ‘IRA’ money for community air monitoring in 2022, but the state signed a law in 2024 prohibiting citizen science (activist) air monitoring from being used in regulatory decisions. Since, LA DEQ also got IRA money to do air monitoring, the green groups wanted R6 to steer LADEQ towards their target sites).
As background, Michael Bloomberg launched Beyond Petrochemicals in 2022 with an $85 million grant. Beyond Petrochemical’s campaign strategy is to distribute funds to local organizations operating “grassroot” campaigns, several of which also receive federal environmental justice funding to support “campaign building” and local air quality monitoring efforts targeting petrochemical facilities across R6. (The campaign seeks to shut down permitting at over 100 petrochemical facilities, and claims 19 “victories” thus far.)
Beyond Petrochemicals funds and partners with several of the green groups lobbying EPA R6, including Inclusive Louisiana, RISE St. James, the Bullard Center at Texas Southern University, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Air Alliance Houston, and Texas Campaign for the Environment.
In these records, the involvement by certain professors jumps out, beginning with a November 2022 letter from two academics – Prof. Peter DeCarlo of Johns Hopkins and Dr. Kimberly Terrell, director of Community Engagement at Tulane Environmental Law Clinic – to R6 officials in November 2022, urging R6 to direct EPA federal grants to specific areas and to monitor certain air emissions at particular facilities targeted by the activists.
The academics acknowledged they worked on this letter in partnership with several green groups simultaneously lobbying R6. There is some obvious teamwork here, with DeCarlo and Terrell’s work consistently referenced by activists to support petitions to deny permits, implement stringent monitoring requirements, and shut down petrochemical operations; Beyond Petrochemicals has directly funded several DeCarlo projects; Terrell’s connections with the campaign include supportingDeCarlo’s ETO study as “ground-breaking work” and participating during Beyond Petrochemical-sponsored “Media Briefing on Plastics, Petrochemicals and Protecting Cultural Resources”.
DeCarlo and Terrell later published a June 2024 study funded by ‘Bloomberg Philanthropies’ and Beyond Petrochemicals calling for more monitoring of Louisiana facilities. (This focused on ethylene oxide levels; ETO is the subject of many emails in EPA’s FOIA releases and a clear priority of green-group lobbying to guide EPA action).
These R6 records put some flesh on the bones of how Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals campaign works on the ground. More on that network and its apparently rather successful advocacy and influence operations in a bit. For the moment, the emails and other documents released by EPA suggest that:
- The Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LA BB) (a group R6 kept informed as it did, e.g., Bloomberg Foundation, and which could contact Nance and, per Nance, is “one of the well-connected groups in the region” deserving of responsiveness—which it gets—a position EPA hid in another release) and Inclusive LA outlined a collaborative workplan
together and presented it to R6 Administrator Nance early in her tenure
- As the body of work shows clearly, close coordination and collaboration would not be unusual to find there—lots ofemails with green activists show up in EPA productions despite having no visible EPA party—including on insufficiently enthusiastic employees
- The gist of the plan is to push the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to use its EPA air monitoring grants to cover St. John the Baptist and St. James Parishes. A particular focus was a grain terminal and Nucor Steel (a Bloomberg campaign sought rejection of permits to expand a facility)
- EPA and R6 discussed ways to get around/in front of LDEQ on this issue
- LA BB, Inclusive LA, and R6 worked with two academics – Tulane’s Dr. Terrell and JHU’s Dr. DeCarlo – on a letter on the state of air monitoring in St. James Parish for use in discussions with LDEQ.
These are ‘topline’ takeaways; for a more detailed chronology is below(again, source documents linked, above).
- March 31, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade sends a letter to EPA R6 Administrator Nance congratulating her on her appointment. The letter lists off four areas of concern for the group, including:
- Need for reduction of ethylene oxide emissions and a halt to new permitted sources. This section comments on the litigation over the Formosa Plastics permitting.
- Assure the LDEQ implements recommendation of the LA Legislative Auditor re: the agency’s “incompetence regarding issues of violations and enforcement.”
- Carbon capture: Louisiana primacy. LA Bucket Brigade opposes.
- Facilities of concern. This section names Shell Norco, Nucor Steel, Denka, Formosa, and LNG terminal permitting.
- April 6, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade sends an email to Dr. Nance including two attachments regarding “the importance of zoning in EJ.” One of these attachments is the St. James Parish council lawsuit. The second is an EPA report cited in the suit.
- August 2022: Inclusive Louisiana and Louisiana Bucket Brigade request a meeting with EPA R6 Administrator Nance to discuss air monitoring/industrial pollution in the town of Convent, St. James Parish.
- September 1, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade sends an email to Dr. Nance recapping a meeting that took place on August 31, which “concluded with a plan of action to address cumulative effects of air pollution and the need for federally administrated air monitoring in St. James Parish.” The action items are:
- R6 staff to speak with LDEQ regarding LDEQ’s air monitoring and enforcement
- R6 staff to share information with LA Bucket Brigade regarding R6 “ongoing work with LDEQ in addressing permit violations at Nucor Steel”
- Address the lack of, and need for, comprehensive NAAQs-comparable air monitoring in St. James Parish
- Follow-up meeting between EPA R6 and Dr. Peter DeCarlo (Johns Hopkins University)
- October 6, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade requests a follow up meeting with EPA R6 Administrator Nance and staff “to move forward towards our goal of getting comprehensive NAAQS-comparable air monitoring in St. James Parish.” References a prior meeting that took place on Aug. 31. Nance confirms a meeting will be scheduled.
- November 14, 2022: Dr. Kimberly Terrell of Tulane Environmental Law Clinic sends a letter to R6 Administrator Nance, R6 staff, and copies in LA Bucket Brigade and Inclusive LA. The letter, authored by Dr. Terrell and Johns Hopkins University’s Dr. DeCarlo, “details our concerns about air quality in St. James Parish.” Terrell notes the concerns are timely “given EPA’s recent announcement of funding to LDEQ for air monitoring in the Parish… we hope that your office will help ensure that LDEQ measures pollutants of concern in predicted hotspots using methods that enable comparisons to legal standards.” Terrell writes that “the community and their advocates will be reaching out to you separately.” Dr. Nance thanks Terrell for her letter and says she will be discussing them with R6 air experts.
- November 15, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade writes to R6 Administrator Nance and R6 staff regarding EPA’s recent grant award to LDEQ for enhanced air monitoring. LA Bucket Brigade said they had requested a meeting with LDEQ to discuss concerns with air monitoring in St. James Parish, and requested that Dr. Nance join the meeting.
- November 15, 2022: R6 staff internally confirms Dr. Nance’s interest in attending the LA Bucket Brigade / LDEQ meeting. R6 staff discuss the need to speak with EPA’s Air and Radiation Division “to determine if we can get NAAQs monitors placed within the community.”
- November 15, 2022: Dr. Nance forwards LA Bucket Brigade’s Nov. 15 email to staff and writes: “I would like to review and discuss Dr. Terrell’s letter internally with our Air group before the meeting with the community and LDEQ.” R6 staff discusses Dr. Terrell’s letter internally on Nov. 16.
- November 30, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade re-ups Nov. 15 email inviting Dr. Nance to LDEQ meeting asking if she or her staff will attend. LA Bucket Brigade writes, “we want to try and arrange this meeting as soon as possible, so that money has not already been allocated before input is given by the community.”
- November 18, 2022: R6 staff sends Dr. Terrell’s letter to Jeffrey Robinson, manager of R6 Air Monitoring and Grants branch. The email to Robinson says, “Dr. Nance/Iris wanted to pass along this information to you and see whether/how this information can be used by LDEQ as they look to implement the recent grant $ they received under the IRA/ARP to do air monitoring in the St James Parish. Do you know where we could find information on what the requirements were to be awarded the grants and/or whether it is possible to get a copy of LDEQ’s application for the $?”
- November 21, 2022: Robinson’s initial response is redacted under a claim of attorney-client privilege. Robinson then writes, “I’ve received a copy of the workplan for the LDEQ project in St. James Parish which indicates it may predominantly focus on the west side of the Mississippi River (communities of Welcom, Freetown, St. James, Moonshine, and Vacherie). The project workplan indicates very specifically that the project will establish and operate one Temporary Located Community (TLC) air monitoring site from roughly Oct. 2023 – Sept. 2025. The project community partners listed by LDEQ are LEAN and Rise St. James. … So in short, the project workplan that selected for funding will be a ‘non-regulatory’ based monitoring project for selected NAAQS pollutants (SO2, NO2, PM1O, PM2.5) and for some HAP emissions specifically in St. James Parish (with focus on the west side of the Miss. River). They indicate they will also analyze for continuous methane, non-methane hydrocarbons, and total hydrocarbons.”
- December 14, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade reaches out to LDEQ secretary Chuck Brown and LDEQ staff with R6 staff and EPA staff copied, writing: “I am reaching out to you on behalf of Inclusive Louisiana. We are requesting a meeting with your office, Peter Cazeaux, and other relevant staff assigned to the Ambient Air Monitoring Project in St. James Parish. We are especially concerned seeing that the air monitoring program is planned only for the west bank in St. James, excluding communities in Convent and Romeville on the east bank living near particularly concerning sources of industrial pollution, such as Nucor Steel.” LA Bucket Brigade requests a meeting with LDEQ.
- December 14, 2022: LDEQ’s Jason Meyers replies to LA Bucket Brigade, writing: “LDEQ also recognizes that the grant application eluded that the TLC site will be located on the West Bank of the river. However, LDEQ has not yet identified the potential location for the site and does not believe the referenced statement prohibits the placement of the site on the East Bank.”
- December 15, 2022: LA Bucket Brigade replies to LDEQ asking whether the agency has a list of potential sites for the TLC air monitoring program and requests community engagement in the siting process.
- December 15, 2022: Matthew Tejada of EPA’s office of EJ and civil rights replies over to of the LA Bucket Brigade/LDEQ thread only to Dr. Nance and R6 staff, writing: “can we reach out to LDEQ to offer to help them facilitate engagement with the community folks to discuss the project and make sure the communities thoughts about location are kept in mind?” Much of the rest of the exchange among EPA staff is redacted under claims of deliberative-process privilege.
- December 15, 2022: R6 staff replies to Tejada, writing “Dr. Nance had her monthly call with LDEQ on Tuesday and mentioned that the community is interested in having EPA at the meeting but we defer to Dr. Brown. They didn’t discuss more than that.”
- December 15, 2022: David Garcia, Director of EPA’s air and radiation division, offers to R6 staff that EPA ARD staff can reach out to LDEQ’s Jim Meyers “first, before Dr. N engages.” Following exchanges are redacted under claims of deliberative process. EPA R6 staff and EPA staff discuss who the community partners are in the grant work plan, which was discussed prior in Nov. 21 exchanges. Tejada writes, “it would sure be a missed opportunity with all going on for LDEQ to not engage” with the community advocates, and offers “support through or CPRC contract to facilitate engagement with the community.” Much of the rest of the exchange among EPA staff is redacted under claims of deliberative-process privilege.
There’s a lot there, and more records to go through to further flesh out the picture, but it’s clear that the relationship between Agency and activists—which supplied many Biden EPA officials—is undergoing reform, if the courts will let it.