Cause No: Office of Environmental Adjudication (OEA) No. 22-A-J-5216
Description: CLC is represented the local community group Gary Advocates for Responsible Development (GARD) in challenging a Clean Air Act permit that IDEM issued to Fulcrum Centerpoint, LLC, allowing the company to build a massive garbage-to-jet-fuel plant near the Lake Michigan shoreline in Gary. The proposed trash-burning facility would generate even more hazardous air pollutants in a community where residents already breathe some of the nation’s most dirty air. IDEM issued the permit despite overwhelming community opposition and the submission of detailed public comments demonstrating that Fulcrum’s planned refinery would use a gasification process that has yet to be proven safe, effective, or even economically viable. Instead, IDEM issued the permit relying on Fulcrum’s unsupported claims about its potential emissions.
Current status: After nearly two years of litigation including defending GARD against Fulcrum’s abusive discovery tactics, we briefed cross-motions for summary judgment. Consistent with the OEA’s decisions over the last two decades, which have sided in every instance but one with industry and IDEM, the OEA granted summary judgment in Fulcrum’s and IDEM’s favor. Because the OEA’s decision is contrary to the law and facts of the case, which confirm that IDEM did not have the information it needed about Fulcrum’s emissions to issue the air permit, CLC filed a petition for judicial review with the Lake County Superior Court on May 20, 2024. Shortly after we filed the appeal, news of the company’s financial collapse broke in the press. As we and GARD had maintained all along, Fulcrum’s promises that it could turn household waste into low-carbon jet fuel were technically infeasible at scale. When Fulcrum’s Nevada facility – one-third the size of what it planned for Gary – could not produce saleable quantities of even an unrefined crude oil, the company defaulted on its construction bonds and creditors forced the company to close. On July 17, 2024, IDEM revoked the permit for Fulcrum because it failed to respond to our petition for judicial review. On August 26, we dismissed our appeal because revocation of the permit was the relief sought by GARD. Two weeks later, Fulcrum filed for bankruptcy and its remaining assets are being sold.
Initial Pleadings Documents:
