This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.
By Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Haley Lewis dreamed about Charlie Powell last night.
It’s been more than a month since Powell, a staple in Birmingham’s advocacy community, died at age 72. Lewis, his friend and an attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, is only beginning to come to grips with the loss.
Powell was the founder of People Against Neighborhood Industrial Contamination (PANIC), a grassroots organization focused on organizing residents in north Birmingham and beyond around environmental advocacy.
Lewis said Powell was a leader and mentor, and she’s focused on carrying on the legacy he left behind, including fighting to protect environmental protections she fought alongside him to secure.
Among those protections was a Biden-era federal rule requiring fenceline monitoring and improved workplace practices at 11 coke oven facilities across the country.
Coke ovens are high‑temperature, oxygen‑free chambers used to bake certain types of bituminous coal into coke, a nearly pure carbon fuel used in blast furnaces for steelmaking. Coal is heated to roughly 1,000–1,400 degrees Celsius, emitting particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene and other light oils, ammonia, sulfur compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, cyanide compounds, metals such as cadmium and arsenic and other hazardous air pollutants. Many of these are carcinogenic.
In 2025, the Trump administration announced it would exempt coke oven operators from the new requirements for two years under a provision of the Clean Air Act allowing such exceptions only if “the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.”
Jaclyn Brass, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said that the White House’s decision to exempt coke oven operators from fenceline monitoring and other new regulations meets neither requirement.
“It’s a pretty clear case that he does not have the authority to do this,” Brass said.
It’s undisputed that the technology exists to comply with the fenceline monitoring requirements because it’s already been done, Brass said, when facilities complied for a brief period before the current administration came to power.
During that time, fenceline monitoring showed elevated levels of benzene at several coke oven facilities. Monitoring programs in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Alabama recorded benzene levels from nearly two to more than 14 times the occupational exposure limit recommended by the American Council of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).
At ABC Coke in Alabama, monitoring equipment recorded benzene levels more than 60 percent above ACGIH’s threshold limit, increasing cancer risks in the mostly Black areas of north Birmingham and Tarrant by as much as 1.7 cases in every 10,000 people.
At the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works in Pennsylvania, benzene levels were 933 percent above that threshold, increasing cancer risks by as much as 26.5 cases in every 10,000 people.
Brass said Trump’s claims around coke ovens are also dispelled by his own environmental agency. In 2025, Trump’s EPA said it “does not believe that the currently available information supports a conclusion that regulated parties would face significant immediate compliance challenges.”
To challenge Trump’s two-year exemption, a group of environmental and grassroots nonprofits have filed suit against the administration, asking a judge to declare the decision unlawful and invalid.
“For generations, communities surrounding ABC Coke here in Alabama have endured exposure to toxic pollution from one of the dirtiest industrial practices in our country. That’s why we’re taking a stand,” said Jilisa Milton, executive director of GASP, a Birmingham-based nonprofit focused on improving air quality. “Folks who have not visited metro Birmingham may not understand what being surrounded by polluting industries does to a community’s health and spirit. We’re tired of suffering so dirty industries like ABC Coke can get a pass.”
The Trump administration has not yet responded to the suit in court. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.
Haley Lewis said she deeply regrets not being able to tell Charlie Powell about the coke ovens lawsuit before his death.
“He would’ve been excited about it,” she said. “He was always in the fight. He was my dear friend, and I’ll miss him dearly.”
Lewis said she’s preparing for a public hearing on Feb. 24 on whether the Jefferson County Department of Health will renew ABC Coke’s air permit. Those who are interested in moving Powell’s legacy forward, she said, should consider attending.
“Mr. Powell definitely would have been there,” she said. “You can count on that.”