E&E Greenwire | Ellie Borst | July 9, 2025
EPA won't move forward with a Biden-era proposal to review plastic-waste-derived feedstocks used to make fuel.
In a proposed rule published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, the agency withdrew the June 2023 proposal that would have required fuels derived from plastics be free from 18 listed chemical contaminants before they're allowed to be used in transportation.
The Biden administration’s rule stemmed from concerns over what impurities existed in the feedstocks from chemical recycling technologies, primarily pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a process that uses high temperatures to break down hard-to-recycle plastics to their chemical building blocks for future reuse, often as fuel.
An agency assessment on the fuel generated by Chevron's chemical recycling plant in Pascagoula, Mississippi, found the emissions posed cancer risks for potentially 1 in 4 nearby residents, sparking public outrage and a lawsuit.
EPA has since said it will take another look at its approval of Chevron's process, which "was the basis of the" June 2023 rule, according to the Federal Register document published Wednesday.
Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council, celebrated EPA's decision to withdraw the proposal. The rule would have "imposed unnecessary burdens and hindered investments in the advanced recycling industry," he said in a statement.
Industry groups, including ACC, fiercely opposed the Biden administration's proposal and said it would have been "essentially impossible to comply with." Public health groups "generally supported" the proposed checks and balances, the Environmental Defense Fund wrote in a comment to the agency.