John,

Texas regulators just gave approval to ExxonMobil to pollute even more at its Baytown, Texas plastics plant, located at one of the dirtiest refinery and petrochemical factories in America.1

We need to stop this dirty and dangerous project. It will make climate change even worse and bring even dirtier air to an already polluted area.

Tell the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do its job and make Exxon clean up its act.

ExxonMobil's Baytown refinery and chemical plant complex is already the largest source of air pollution in the Houston area and one of the top polluters in Texas and the nation.2

It also has a long record of fires and explosions, and violations of clean air laws.3 For example, after Environment Texas and the Sierra Club sued Exxon, a federal judge ordered the company to pay almost $20 million in penalties for releasing an extra 10 million pounds of pollutants into the air from the complex.4

Some residents call the existing eight steam "cracking" furnaces the "eight-headed dragon" because of the flames, smoke and noxious fumes they generate.5 The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) gave Exxon permission to build a ninth cracking furnace, which would add 300,000 pounds of pollution to the Baytown air each year.

Exxon's Baytown facility has repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act. Regulators should be cracking down on pollution, not allowing Exxon to pollute even more.

In granting the permit, TCEQ is allowing ExxonMobil to avoid pollution requirements for facilities located in areas with unsafe levels of smog.

Sign our petition urging the EPA to step in and block the expansion of Exxon's Baytown plant.

This is a terrible project. Petrochemical plants like this one take fossil fuels and turn them into plastic. Pumping more oil into this facility will accelerate climate change, and just to make more plastic that we don't need in the first place.

This fuels the plastic crisis and the climate crisis. And it gives Exxon a free pass to keep dirtying the air of a community already getting sick from pollution.

Oil companies should be held accountable for their pollution, and we need your voice to get the EPA to intervene. We're calling on the EPA to block Exxon from expanding its polluting plastics plant.

Hazardous and polluting facilities like this one should be closing down, not expanding.

Take action today to stop this dirty and dangerous project.

Thanks,

Lisa Frank
Executive Director

1. "No more pollution from Exxon," Environment Texas Research & Policy Center, April 22, 2024.
2. Brendon Derr, "The Houston area is home to some of Texas' largest greenhouse gas polluters," Houston Chronicle, March 7, 2023.
3. David Gonzalez and Lauren Talarico, "'We felt the shake. We felt it.' | ExxonMobil explosion strikes fear in nearby community," KHOU 11, July 31, 2019.
4. Kiah Collier, "ExxonMobil ordered to pay $20 million for air pollution at Houston plants," The Texas Tribune, April 27, 2017.
5. Anna Phillips, "Toxic air, explosions: Inside the bitter battle between Texas residents and Exxon," The Washington Post, March 16, 2023.