Three states limit community air data under industry-backed laws

At 71 of 100 facilities, no in-state government monitor tracks highest-volume chemical

Lawmakers in Louisiana, Kentucky and Ohio passed laws over the past two years that prevent regulators from acting on air-quality data collected by communities unless it comes from Environmental Protection Agency-approved equipment, Floodlight reported. Such equipment typically costs tens of thousands of dollars. The investigation found that the chemical industry supported the restrictions in the three states, while similar legislation was repeatedly introduced in West Virginia.

Floodlight reported that industry representatives argued community monitoring was not sufficiently reliable for regulatory enforcement. In West Virginia, industry declined to support a version of a bill that would have let regulators consider community data if it met manufacturer requirements.

Jeff Fritz, an official with Chemours, wrote in an internal email that the bill “essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent.” Bill Bissett of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association wrote that the change “neuters” the measure and left it “toothless.” The compromise bill died, along with versions introduced in 2025 and 2026.

The three enacted measures took different legislative paths. Louisiana passed the Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act in 2024 with drafting help from the state’s Chemistry Association. The law requires data used in enforcement to meet EPA-approved standards.

Kentucky enacted a measure in 2025 requiring “scientifically defensible” methods. Floodlight reported that the same phrase had appeared in an American Chemistry Council blog post two years earlier. The council lobbied for the Kentucky measure with the American Petroleum Institute, Chemours and Dow Chemical.

Ohio placed its monitoring restriction in a budget bill last year. The measure prompted a lawsuit by plaintiffs including Donna Ballinger of Middletown, Ohio, who has a low-cost monitor in her front yard a few hundred feet from a steel plant.

Ballinger said the plant frequently sends black, white and gray particles onto her property. She said fumes sometimes burn her eyes and throat and that she often holds her nose while walking between her house and car. “My fear is cancer,” Ballinger said. The lawsuit alleges that Ohio’s new rules make readings from her monitor useless as evidence.

The American Chemistry Council did not answer Floodlight’s questions about its lobbying or role in promoting the state legislation. The council said in a statement that it has invested in community air-monitoring projects and advocated for “expanded access to credible air quality information.”

Chemours spokesperson Jess Loizeaux said the company opposed using community-monitoring results for enforcement unless trained regulators first verified their validity and accuracy through official tests. Ohio’s chemical trade group did not respond to interview requests.

Tony Long, general counsel for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, said businesses feared that uncalibrated monitors would spread misinformation. “You don’t want to be stopped for speeding on an uncalibrated speed gun,” Long told Floodlight.

The state measures come as public monitoring resources have declined. EPA data show that federal grants for the public air-monitoring network fell more than 35% over the past two decades after adjustment for inflation. The number of government air monitors nationwide fell by nearly half during the same period. Nearly six in 10 US counties have no public air monitor at all, according to a 2025 study.

A 2020 congressional watchdog report also documented leaks, termites and ants at monitoring stations in one state. Officials in another state searched eBay for discontinued parts, according to the report, which did not identify the states.

Floodlight compared reported chemical releases from the largest industrial air-pollution sources in Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio and West Virginia with the substances detectable by government monitors in those states. At 71 of the 100 facilities examined, no government monitor in the relevant state measured the chemical released in the greatest quantity.

In Louisiana, a national center of oil, gas and petrochemical production, public monitors often sit miles from major industrial polluters and do not test for some of the most dangerous chemicals, Floodlight reported. A $500,000 federal grant would have allowed the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to monitor 27 communities the group identified as pollution hotspots.

The organization installed monitors in four communities before the Trump administration canceled the grant last year. “It’s like having your legs knocked out from under you,” executive director Marylee Orr said.

Kentucky regulators documented toxic air around Louisville’s industrial Rubbertown area, then enacted a plan and revised regulations. Floodlight attributed subsequent declines to those actions, reporting that toxic air contaminants across the Louisville metropolitan area fell by almost 80% and that the most dangerous chemicals fell by 96%.

Reonda Victor lives in the heavily industrialized corridor between Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, and New Orleans, where Floodlight reported that air pollution poses one of the highest cancer risks in the US. The closest public monitoring station to her home tests only for lead.

Victor said her mother, grandmother and sister have all had breast cancer, though she could not say whether industrial pollution caused their illnesses. She said genetic testing showed that she had no predisposition to breast cancer. Victor said she wondered whether proper air monitoring could help determine whether industrial pollution factored into her family members’ illnesses. “Without information, we don’t know,” she said.

Images accompanying The Guardian’s report showed the flue-gas stacks at the Mill Creek generating station in Louisville, a California official calibrating rooftop equipment used to track local air pollution, and a scientist discussing an air-monitoring car with Louisiana Environmental Action Network staff. Another photograph showed smoke from a chemical plant in an area identified in its caption as “Cancer Alley.”