04/17/2025

5th Circuit Allows Suit Seeking Petrochemical Plant Ban in ‘Cancer Alley’

Inside EPA | Dawn Reeves | April 11, 2025

5th Circuit Allows Suit Seeking Petrochemical Plant Ban in ‘Cancer Alley’

The 5th Circuit is reversing a federal district court and allowing environmental justice (EJ) groups to proceed with their civil rights suit seeking a moratorium on new and expanded petrochemical plants in Louisiana’s “cancer alley,” offering a win for advocates even as the Trump administration is broadly attacking such EJ work.

The April 9 decision from a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Inclusive Louisiana, et al. v. St. James Parish, et al. overturns a district court holding dismissing the case after the appellate panel held the plaintiffs have standing to bring their discrimination claims against the local government.

“The pendulum of justice has swing in our favor. We have been sounding the alarm for far too long that a moratorium is needed to halt the expansion of any more polluting industries in our neighborhoods, and too many lives have been lost to cancer,” said Gail LeBoeuf of Inclusive Louisiana, in response to the ruling.

The decision notes that the case is about the organizations’ allegations that the parish “discriminates against them by directing hazardous industrial facility development towards majority-Black districts and Black churches, where their members and congregants live.”

It adds: “The Parish has chosen to allow [20 of nearly 24] industrial facilities in the majority-Black Fourth and Fifth Districts, whereas no new industrial facilities have been permitted to locate in the majority-White parts of the Parish in the last 46 years.”

Further, the parish “has granted every single request by corporations to locate their heavy industrial facilities in majority-Black districts in the Parish, while rejecting requests to locate those facilities in or near majority-White districts.”

One of the challenges is to the parish’s 2014 land-use plan that designated large swaths of the majority-Black areas as “industrial” despite heavy residential concentration. It also included buffer zones protecting Catholic churches, schools and tourist plantations from industrial development in white areas, while providing no similar buffer for Black churches and schools, and it blocked access to the burial grounds of group members’ enslaved ancestors.

The ruling also notes that the facilities “spew an array of highly dangerous air pollutants,” and EPA data show that the Fifth District is in the 95th to 100th percentile for “air toxic cancer risk” nationwide.

The case was first brought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in March 2023, and included seven claims against the parish for allegedly violating the groups’ constitutional and statutory civil rights, including violations of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. It also relied on a post-Civil War-era civil rights law. The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the parish’s policies are unlawful and asked the court to invalidate the land-use plan’s provisions directing industrial development to their districts. It also sought injunctive relief, asking the court to order a halt to the siting of more industrial facilities in their districts.

But the district court dismissed the case in November 2023, finding the plaintiff groups lacked standing and granting the parish’s motion to dismiss. “Alleging broadly unequal treatment as the basis for numerous claims does not suffice to meet” the burden of establishing injury, Judge Carl Barbier wrote in dismissing all seven claims.

Novel Litigation

Last May, the groups appealed the novel case to the 5th Circuit, where parish officials continued to argue they lacked standing. “Plaintiffs, unhappy with environmental emissions of private industry . . . file suit against the parish attacking decades of land-use decisions under the guise of constitutional claims,” the parish said in a filing.

The Louisiana groups raised four arguments in the appeal, all centering on their position that the district court erred in finding they lacked standing.

After hearing oral argument Oct. 10, the panel’s decision agrees with the plaintiffs on all counts, reversing the district court holding and remanding the case to Barbier.

“Of course, whether the organizations will prove their allegations or prevail on any of their claims remains to be seen,” the opinion says. “At this juncture, however, we merely acknowledge that they have standing to pursue them.”

The opinion was written by Judge Carl Stewart, a Clinton appointee, and joined by Senior Judge Patrick Higginbotham, a Reagan appointee, and Judge Catharina Haynes, a George W. Bush appointee.

The St. James Parish Council did not respond to a request for comment on the holding or whether it will seek further appeal.

But the Louisiana EJ groups are touting the decision to allow their case to proceed. Barbara Washington of Inclusive Louisiana added, “We are so grateful that the judges have allowed our moratorium case to continue in court. Now, on to the next battle.”

The case was brought by lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Tulane Law Clinic.