Michael Ash and I at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, have released a new edition of the Toxic 100 Air Polluters, a ranking of the top corporate air polluters in the United States.
The Toxic 100 rankings are based on releases of hundreds of toxic chemicals from industrial facilities across the country. The rankings take into account not only the quantity of releases, but also the toxicity of chemicals, transport factors such as prevailing winds and height of smokestacks, and the number of people exposed.
For the first time, the Toxic 100 includes information on the disproportionate risk burden imposed on minorities and low-income communities – making it possible to compare corporations in terms of their environmental justice performance as well as overall pollution. The data reveal, for example, that minorities bear 65% of the air toxics risk from facilities owned by ExxonMobil Corporation – more than double their share in the nation’s population.
Read the full report here.