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In April 2024, Formosa Plastics Corp. USA was among 137 companies to receive the 2023 Pinnacle Award by the Union Pacific Railroad for "safe shipping of hazardous materials". The transport company honors cusotmers that "release prevention protocols, corrective action plans and have zero non-accident releases of regulated hazardous materials shipments". 

Meanwhile, journalists at the Intercept have followed how in the aftermath of the East Palestine train disaster, lobbyists have both weakened rail safety (Thakker 2023) and supported the buildout of toxic polyvinylchloride (PVC) production (Mitchell 2023, 2024). The latter includes Formosa Plastics planned expansions in Louisiana's St. James Parish.

In November 2023, Taiwan Public Television (PTS) reported that a whistleblower at Formosa Plastics' Sixth Naptha Cracker informed a local legislator about the forging of certificates of fire safety of petrochemical equipment: https://news.pts.org.tw/article/668279

Taihsi residents have more recently begun to organize a community-led solar power initiative. As Lai (2021, 667) argues, scholarship on community energy projects tends to overlook the importance of place relations, either by exclusively on quantification of energy, or explaining implementation processes by relying on an abstract ideal of civil society. The Taihsi campaign, in turn, shows that local geo-histories – from colonial relations to Formosa’s ‘good neighbor’ policies – are integral to understanding the unfolding of energy transition in the village. The introduction of community energy provided the community with a new framing and articulations of a vision for just transition (Lai 2021, 679). From the local perspective, the community energy initiative appeared as a form of compensation for systemic neglect and a way to gain independence from energy systems that are deeply entangled with petrochemicals. However, Lai (2021, 681) emphasizes that this new self-understanding was often at odds with the goals of Taipei-based NGOs and policy makers, ranging from the community energy initiative’s governance models, the use of revenue, as well as local class and economic barriers.