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Environmental Justice under the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental justice was integrated into the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s policies and regulations in 1992, when the Office of Environmental Equity (now known as the Office of Environmental Justice) was created. Environmental Justice became a nationally recognized term and movement in 1982, when hundreds of community members and environmental activists protested the dumping of PCB laced soil in Warren County, North Carolina. Since then, environmental justice has remained an important social issue in United States. The EPA has taken steps to mediate environmental justice issues, EJ 2020 Action Agenda is the agency’s most recent strategy.

Before the Establishment of the EPA

National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act was a law enacted on January 1, 1970 that required that all areas of government, besides the president, Congress, and federal courts, consider environmental impacts of large projects before commencing them. The law requires that Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements be created on all projects involving federal funding, work performed by the federal government, or projects requiring federal permits.

Title VI

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits the discrimination by race, color, or national origin by any institutions or projects receiving federal funding. Environmental justice communities have directly sued institutions that violate Title VI and have filed complaints against agencies like the EPA for violations of Title VI.

Executive Order 12898

Executive Order 12898, issued on February 11, 1994 by Bill Clinton, ordered federal agencies to not only identify but also deal with programs, activities, and policies that disproportionately affected human or environmental health. The executive order acts as an extension of Title VI, calling for action to remedy the effects of discriminatory practices instead of just prohibiting the funding of discriminatory projects. The signing of this executive order marked the first time that environmental justice was included in United States federal policy.

Plan EJ 2014

Plan EJ 2014 is a template created by the EPA to foster the expansion of environmental justice into all branches and policies of the agency. The development of Plan EJ 2014, also simply known as Plan, in 2010 signified the EPA’s commitment to integrating environmental justice concerns into its agenda. The Plan was announced on the twentieth anniversary of the signing of Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 12898. Lisa Jackson, the now-former EPA administrator, and the Obama Administration sought to build upon Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 and address mounting environmental justice concerns in the United States. Plan extends the definition of overburdened communities to those which benefit disproportionately less from environmental amenities, such as open space and clean air. Overburdened communities are also defined as those which are subject to disproportionate environmental burdens; past legislation defined overburdened communities solely by this characteristic. The EPA recognized the importance of adhering to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in outlining and implementing Plan EJ 2014.

Content and Goals

Three main goals define Plan EJ 2014. First, The Plan sought to bolster the environmental and social well-being of disadvantaged communities. Second, give communities the tools and knowledge they need to effectively advocate for the health of their citizens and the health of the environment. Third, to develop healthy and efficient communities by establishing connections with state, local, and tribal governments.

Plan EJ 2014 initiated multiple strategies to aid in the achievement of its main goals. A number of strategies are consistent among all the outlined goals of Plan EJ 2014. The plan hopes to foster the development of tools which would incorporate environmental justice issues into current and future rule-making, as well as provide means of enforcing these rules. The Plan seeks to improve community involvement in environmental justice matters by offering resources which aid in successful collaboration between the EPA and state, local, and tribal governments. The plan emphasizes the role of sustainable development and localized initiatives in supporting the development of healthy communities and environments.

Implementation

The EPA released the Plan EJ 2014 draft in 2010 for public comment. Public comments were compiled and grouped together into 174 general questions. The EPA then released a sixty-two page document which included both public comments and the EPA’s response.

Two yearly reports, released in 2013 and 2014 by the EPA, detailed the progress of the Plan. The Office of Environmental Justice was responsible for preparing the reports.

Effectiveness

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed six major federal strategic planning practices outlined in Plan EJ 2014. The GAO’s analysis concluded that of the six practices they reviewed, the EPA adhered to three: they successfully defined the goals and mission of Plan EJ 2014, they collaborated with other agencies, and fostered the engagement and accountability of those in leadership positions. However, the GAO reported that the EPA was not successful in fully adhering to the other three planning practices under review. Key stakeholders were not always engaged in the implementation of Plan, the EPA was unable to determine tactics to aid in managing Plan EJ 2014, and performance measures were not developed or implemented. The GAO concluded that until all planning practices are fully realized, Plan EJ 2014 cannot be successful in expanding environmental justice matters across the offices and branches of the EPA.

EJ Screen

The guidelines established as part of Plan EJ 2014 led to the creation of EJ Screen, a digital mapping program that allows the user to cross reference demographic information with environmental data in order to identify particularly at-risk communities. The tool serves as a more accessible way to determine which populations might be especially affected by toxic exposure and pollution from nearby factories.

EJ 2020 Action Agenda

The EJ 2020 Action Agenda is a plan introduced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which seeks to address environmental justice issues by focusing specifically on environmental and health inequalities in the United States. The plan aims to alleviate the disproportionate hardships faced by minority, low-income, and Native American communities. The plan’s intention is to continue and expand upon the EPA’s previous environmental justice policy, Plan EJ 2014, which attempted to incorporate environmental justice into every one of the agency’s initiatives.

Content and goals

The EJ 2020 Action Agenda seeks to establish a course of action for addressing current environmental justice issues in the United States. This plan demonstrates efforts by Gina McCarthy, the now-former head of the EPA, to integrate environmental justice concerns into all of its programs and offices. The EPA hopes to reduce the health disparities and disproportionate environmental hazards experienced by the nation’s minority, low-income, and tribal communities.

The EJ 2020 Action Agenda revolves around three main goals. The first goal is to expand environmental justice efforts to all of the EPA’s programs, and thus proliferate the positive impacts of the agenda. The second goal focuses on increasing collaboration between federal agencies and communities of concern. Increased public participation, especially among stakeholder communities which are most affected by environmental legislation, is critical to achieving this goal. The last goal concentrates on mitigating the environmental and health disparities associated with four critical challenges: lead disparities, drinking water, air quality, and hazardous waste sites.

The EJ 2020 Action Agenda emphasizes improving the resiliency of communities to the negative effects of climate change. The plan prioritizes improvements in historically underserved communities which are disproportionately impacted by climate change and currently experience inequitable health effects. The agenda outlines efforts to improve communication and partnership between the EPA and local governments and stakeholders, with particular attention to indigenous communities. Additionally, the plan calls for more stringent monitoring and enforcement of pre-existing environmental regulations in the hopes of mediating the effects of climate change on communities.

Implementation

The EPA has promoted transparency and public involvement in both the enactment and subsequent progress of EJ 2020, emphasizing efforts to work with many levels of government and involving community stakeholders at all stages of implementation.

Community Involvement in Drafting

After releasing a draft of the Action Agenda on April 15^th, 2016, the EPA ran a public comment period between the dates April 15, 2016 to June 15^th, 2016. Comments by individuals were allowed to be submitted either electronically or in hard copy form. The EPA received thousands of responses from community stakeholders commenting on the draft. In addition, the EPA held over one hundred meetings across the country and four online meetings to address problems that communities had about the draft and answer questions.

Annual Reports

The EPA plans on releasing annual reports at the ends of the years 2017 through 2020, emphasizing the importance of transparency and accountability as the reasons behind the reports.

Criticism

Institutions such as the Human Rights Defense Council, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Farmworkers Justice, have criticized the plan and, more broadly, the entire agency for not being sufficiently comprehensive in their definition of environmental justice. Additionally, the EPA has been historically rebuked for putting formal policy and procedure ahead of applied efforts and substantive practices. Individuals such as Naeema Muhammad, co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, protest that the plan is another example of an EPA initiative that serves as an empty denunciation of environmental injustices, lacking real world actions to resolve these issues. In particular, EJ 2020 has been criticized for not adequately including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an element of the plan’s ideological structure, creating a disconnect between civil rights and environmental justice in the agency's relevant policies.

Status under the Trump administration

Under the current administration, there is substantial doubt concerning the future implementation of the agenda, as the current Administrator of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, has not demonstrated familiarity with the policies of the environmental justice department of the agency. Organizations such as Communities for a Better Environment have stated that Pruitt is a danger to EPA initiatives, including the EJ 2020 Action Agenda, that seek to redress environmental dangers that disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color. Additionally, the entire department is among those that could be phased out as part of President Trump's proposed EPA budget . John Coequyt, Director of Federal and International Climate Campaigns for the Sierra Club, has stated that the move to cut the environmental justice department is overtly racist, and abandons communities that require relief from environmental hazards the most.

Mustafa Ali, the former Assistant Associate Administrator for Environmental Justice at the EPA and senior aid to Gina McCarthy, resigned from his position in March 2017. During his twenty-four year tenure, Ali consistently advocated for the integration of environmental justice issues into the offices, policies, and regulations of the EPA. In 1992 he helped found the EPA's environmental justice program under George H. W. Bush's Administration. Ali announced his resignation as reports emerged, detailing the Trump Administration's proposed budget cuts to the EPA, which would effectively dissolve all funds for the office of environmental justice. Ali's resignation letter, directed toward the newly appointed chief of the EPA Scott Pruitt, was made public. In his letter, Ali urged Pruitt to use his position to positively impact those living in disadvantaged communities and to build upon the environmental justice triumphs of recent years.

Shortcomings

Despite the agency’s efforts, little measurable progress has occurred as a result of federal policy that seeks to address environmental injustices. Although issues of environmental equity have reached the federal policy agenda, there is still a lack of significant results due to political conflicts, bureaucratic roadblocks and a general absence of clarity as to the definition of those environmental justice communities. According to Manuel Pastor, director of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, the two major factors contributing to futility in this situation have been the inability of federal officials to generate clear, effective policy and the overall lack of administrative organization on environmental policy across various levels of government. While the subject of environmental injustice has now gained exposure at the national level, the EPA still remains without any policy that reaches beyond its ideological position and into the realm of quantifiable action.

The EPA has faced substantial criticism for delayed responses to environmentally hazardous situations, such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Additionally, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that the agency is far behind on its review of civil rights complaints, effectively stranding affected communities without the requisite resources or support to protect themselves from sources of significant pollution. Officially, the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights has never concluded that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been broken in any complaints case. In 2015, the agency attempted to solve this issue by creating a new policy initiative, the External Compliance and Complaints Program Strategic Plan, intended to redress the backlog of complaints by 2020.