WASHINGTON, DC — Chris Jahn, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), explained how the group’s over 150 manufacturers “help create a cleaner future” without being forced by the government with their own set of environmental health and safety standards.
During a Monday morning policy event headlined by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, Jahn was asked by Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle how the chemistry industry is working in an “environmentally sound way.”
“One, it’s the products that we make that will help create a cleaner future, but it’s also the way that we make them that will also do that as well,” the industry leader said.
The ACC has over 150 manufacturers as members that produce a wide array of chemical products that Americans use in their daily lives, with Jahn arguing that “American success relies on American chemistry.”
Examples of environmentally conscious products from member groups include hydrogen and nuclear energy, he said.
“Believe it or not, [it] requires chemistry to do that. So the products that our members make enable all of those clean technologies. At the same time, the way our members manufacture, that has gotten better over time as well,” he continued.
Every single ACC member has to comply with the industry group’s “Responsible Care” program, which requires a “third-party audit of our environmental health safety and security protocols,” Jahn explained:
So we’ve got a program that we call Responsible Care. Our members are required to comply with that program, and it is a third party audit of our environmental health, safety, and security protocols. And what we do is we gather their metrics, how they perform on those things. We aggregate that, and we publicly disclose that — not because anybody in the government makes us do that, but because it’s the right thing to do. And I can sit here and tell you that our industry is cleaner and safer than it has ever been.
The ACC still works within the government’s regulations, with Jahn saying that the current EPA under the Trump administration is working faster than the Biden administration’s EPA on approving chemistries that would benefit the public in a safe way.
“This is not your grandfather’s chemical industry, and we’re going to continue to get better and better as we go forward,” Jahn told the crowd gathered in Washington, DC. “So the way we do it is really important, and what we do is equally important.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
