CleanAIRE NC Among Orgs Suing EPA Over Pollutant Exemption
Steele Creek facility named in suit
Charlotte-based nonprofit CleanAIRE NC is one of three Southern environmental organizations that has filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to grant a “free pass” to companies that could be putting their neighbors at risk through the use of cancerous pollutants, including one in Charlotte.
The two-year renewable exemptions, granted to 40 medical sterilizer facilities nationwide, waive 2024 safeguards that prohibited the use of ethylene oxide at such facilities, lowering cancer risks by more than 90% for people living nearby, according to the suit that was filed on Wednesday. The EPA is reportedly planning to weaken the protections for facilities across the country.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and Natural Resources Defense Council filed the suit on behalf of CleanAIRE NC, Sustainable Newton in Georgia, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.
Nine of the exempt facilities are located in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. All of those are located near residential areas, primarily impacting overburdened communities of color or communities in low-wealth areas.
One of the facilities that has received an exemption is a warehouse operated by Sterigenics, located near the TM Winget Nature Preserve in the Steele Creek area. The facility is just feet from residential neighborhoods like Krislyn Woods and Planters Walk in an area that is predominantly Black.
“These exemptions raise serious questions about whose health is being prioritized,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of CleanAIRE NC. “We are talking about a known carcinogen being pumped into neighborhoods already overburdened by industrial pollution, where so many families live, learn, and play. To strip away these life-saving protections, which are already proven and working in facilities across the country, is a profound betrayal of the public trust.”
In 2024, under President Joe Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency substantially strengthened the federal regulations governing ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilization facilities based on the results of scientific studies showing that the pollutant is 60 times more toxic than previously thought.
In March 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited regulated facilities to seek “presidential exemptions” from the Clean Air Act. Hundreds of the nation’s worst polluters emailed to ask for exemptions from major air toxics standards, including petrochemical plants, coal-fired power plants, coke ovens and commercial sterilizers, according to the suit.
The technology to control the pollution exists and is widely used, the suit asserts, though the Trump administration’s exemption proclamations ignore that, claiming the tech “is not available.”
Many of the facilities that received exemptions were already capable of complying with the stronger protections required under the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 standards, said Irena Como, senior attorney with SELC.
“The law is clear, the science is clear and the technology to control dangerous ethylene oxide pollution exists today,” stated Como, “…yet the Trump administration’s unlawful actions continue to create chaos at the expense of the health and safety of communities on the ground.”
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