The Trump administration’s lenient regulatory treatment of coke and integrated steel manufacturing plants makes nearby residents vulnerable to two particularly hazardous pollutants — benzene and chromium, according to a new report.
Given that both industries are significant sources of air pollution, “it is vital that they are properly regulated and monitored,” the Environmental Integrity Project report says. The administration’s “delay or elimination of fenceline monitoring and toxic air pollution cleanup requirements threaten to impose a heavy health burden on nearby communities and leave them in the dark about the risks they face.”
The two sectors are intertwined. Integrated mills start with iron ore and end with finished steel. Coke, a distilled form of coal, fuels the blast furnaces used to make that steel.
While they collectively employ thousands of workers, their plants are major pollution sources. Air monitoring around U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works near Pittsburgh in 2022-2023, for example, showed average levels of cancer-causing benzene of almost 26 micrograms per cubic meter of air, about eight times higher than California’s standard for long-term exposure, the report says.
