The federal government is being sued by environmental groups over the relaxed air pollution rules for steel mill coke ovens.
Just Transition Northwest Indiana, the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Environmental Integrity Project, the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution, PennFuture and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that aims to prevent the administration of President Donald Trump from allowing coke ovens to release carcinogens and neurotoxic pollutants.
Brian Lynk, a senior attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center said, “The communities who live with these plants and depend on clean and healthy air, in Northwest Indiana and around the country, deserve better.”
Coke ovens heat coal to purify it into coke, which is burned in blast furnaces to make the iron that's turned into steel. Environmental groups say coke ovens release a significant amount of air pollution, including toxic chemicals and metals like lead, mercury and benzene.
The Trump administration granted 11 coke ovens, including at Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor Works in East Chicago, a two-year exemption to a 2024 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule that requires emission controls to be put into place.
Originally, the administrations stated the exceptions to be granted were for cases where the technology was not readily available for compliance, and for industries like the steel sector that it says are vital to national security.
The involved environmental groups said the administration should enforce new emissions standards, a new fence-line monitoring requirement and stricter limits on leaks from coke oven battery doors, lids and offtakes.
