EPA Bows to Corporate Polluters, Abandons Duty to Protect Public from Sterilizers’ Ethylene Oxide Emissions

Today, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed rule to roll back public health regulations adopted in 2024 for commercial sterilizer facilities that use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment and spices. Ethylene oxide, one of the most toxic air pollutants EPA regulates, is a highly carcinogenic flammable gas capable of damaging DNA even in small doses.

The 2024 regulations require most sterilizer facilities to reduce emissions and have continuous emissions monitoring systems by April 6, 2026. According to the EPA, the 2024 safeguards when fully implemented would eliminate over 90% of ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizer facilities and reduce the number of people exposed to unacceptable cancer risks from ethylene oxide by 92%.

“The 2024 standards would have delivered enormous public health benefits. EPA knows that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic and determined that sterilizers can install effective and affordable pollution controls,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Deena Tumeh. “EPA has no basis to repeal this well-supported rule. By rolling back the rule, the Trump EPA is bending the knee to the sterilizer industry at the expense of millions of people’s health.”

If finalized, Trump EPA’s proposal will allow sterilizer facilities to emit more ethylene oxide. Based on EPA’s own data, this proposal would subject at least 85,000 more people to unacceptable cancer risks compared to the 2024 rule. Many facilities are already in compliance with one or more of the emission limitations in the 2024 rule, but Trump EPA’s proposal would allow these facilities to reduce or eliminate their emission controls and monitoring equipment.

Nearly 14 million people in the United States and Puerto Rico live within five miles of a commercial sterilizer, according to a 2023 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Inhaling ethylene oxide can increase the risk of cancer, including breast cancer and cancer of white blood cells.

Children are particularly vulnerable to ethylene oxide harm because the chemical remains in their bodies longer than it does in adults. Many commercial sterilizer facilities are in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, and compound existing health risks from other local sources of pollution. In 2018, the first Trump EPA determined that ethylene oxide was a major driver of elevated cancer risks that the Agency is now ignoring.

In June 2025, the Trump administration exempted more than 40 percent of sterilizers in the United States from complying with the 2024 rule for two years. These exemptions came after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards.

The 2024 sterilizer protections were the result of a successful 2022 lawsuit brought by California Communities Against Toxics, Clean Power Lake County, Rio Grande International Study Center, Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, represented by Earthjustice.

Quotes from our clients and partners:

“I remember the EPA informing us that Steri-Tech’s ethylene oxide emissions in my hometown of Salinas, Puerto Rico, were so high that we had one of the highest rates of toxic air cancer risk in the United States” said Victor Alvarado, founder and coordinator for Comité Diálogo Ambiental. “Eliminating the new protections against ethylene oxide emissions is unjust.”

“We understand that industry applied heavy pressure to weaken the previously finalized rule. We also understand that industry remains more concerned with their profits than the lives of those who live near sterilizer facilities, like my community in Laredo,” said Tricia Cortez, executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center. “Sterilizer facilities, like Midwest must be held accountable for their dangerous, cancer-causing emissions. We need an EPA that works to protect us, the people, not financial interests and corporations that continue to cause so much harm to so many.”

“EPA’s decision to roll back commercial sterilizer safeguards is an affront to countless families and workers who were unknowingly exposed to ethylene oxide—a cancer-causing gas—for years, even decades,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The rule was based on a growing and robust body of evidence showing the toxicity of long-term exposure to ethylene oxide, which EPA, international institutions, and the National Academies have affirmed. Rolling back these protections will undoubtedly harm people’s health, especially children’s.”

“Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sterilizers are some of the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics and chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team. “Rather than regressing on key protections, these facilities need even more controls in place to ensure the safety of workers and nearby communities.”