The EPA must take immediate action to restrict the use of the chemical ethylene oxide and its harmful effects on poor and minority communities, according to a group of advisers assembled by the agency itself.
The toxic gas is used in factories often located in areas populated by people with low incomes or people of color, the advisers wrote in a May 2 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has no reason to “kick the can down the road when environmental justice communities are being disproportionately affected today,” they said.
Ethylene oxide is a gas that ...