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Environmental Justice

Low-income Americans are exposed to health hazards in their homes, at their jobs, and in their neighborhoods more frequently than their affluent counterparts.
Many studies have found that businesses that generate toxic waste—automotive and equipment repair shops, salvage yards, dry cleaners, small manufacturing companies, and construction firms—are disproportionately located in low-income and minority communities.1 Other studies have found a clear correlation with race and income in the concentration of air pollution, location of municipal landfills and incinerators, number of abandoned toxic waste dumps, and incidence of lead poisoning in children.2
Environmental clean-up efforts disproportionately benefit white Americans over people of color.
A landmark 1992 study uncovered glaring inequities in the way the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforced environmental laws. The study found: “There is a racial divide in the way the U.S. government cleans up toxic waste sites and punishes polluters. White communities see faster action, better results, and stiffer penalties than communities where blacks, Hispanics and other minorities live. This unequal protection often occurs whether the community is wealthy or poor.”3 A recent study in Massachusetts found that communities where people of color compose 25 percent or more of the population face nearly nine times higher cumulative rates of exposure to hazardous materials than predominantly white communities.4
A focus on environmental justice arose out of the civil rights movement.
A series of community protests led by African Americans in the South—especially in Warren County, North Carolina—provided the impetus for a 1983 U.S. General Accounting Office study. The study found that three out of four of the off-site commercial hazardous waste landfills in eight southern states were located in predominantly African American communities, even though African Americans made up only 20 percent of the population. The Warren County protests also led to the first national study that correlated waste sites and minority demographics in 1987. By 1990, what began as a community-based struggle against toxic wastes had grown into a nationwide environmental justice movement.5
The Clinton Administration took steps to address racial disparities in environmental protection.
In 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.” Executive Order 12898 requires each federal agency to “make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States and its territories and possessions….” This Executive Order reinforces the mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discriminatory practices in programs that receive federal funds.
The EPA is not enforcing the Clinton-era directive.
In March 2004, the Inspector General of the EPA reported that the agency is not doing an effective job enforcing environmental justice. The EPA lacks plans, goals and performance measures and has even proposed redefining “environmental justice” to exclude consideration of race and income level—despite the U.S. House of Representatives’ unanimous 2005 vote to force the EPA to adhere to its existing standards. And the EPA Superfund program, founded in 1980 to clean up toxic waste sites, ran out of industry fees in 2003 and has relied entirely on tax dollars since. The Bush Administration opposes the “polluter pays” principle, making it impossible to fund needed cleanups.6
Hurricane Katrina revealed catastrophic inadequacies in the environmental precautions for minority communities.
During the hurricane, more than 500 sewage plants in Louisiana—25 of which were major facilities—were damaged or destroyed. Hydrocarbons and natural gas leaked from over 170 sources, and more than 80 oil spill sites were identified—including major oil refineries owned by Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell.7 These egregious environmental hazards disproportionately affected communities of color, which had been excluded from the urban planning process and consequently had a lack of input into the development of an emergency preparedness strategy. The crisis dramatically demonstrated the concentration of hazardous facilities in or near low-income communities of color, including the infamous “Cancer Alley” near New Orleans.8
States can take several steps to address environmental justice.
Sixteen states (AR, CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, LA, MD, MA, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, WA) have fairly strong laws or regulations to promote environmental justice. Eight other states (AL, DE, IN, KY, MS, MO, NH, WI) have laws or regulations that partially address environmental justice.9 Some states, such as Maryland, have created special advisory councils to call attention to racial and income disparities in order to avoid discriminatory enforcement of environmental laws. Florida and several other states have created academic centers to study the issue—Florida’s Center for Environmental Equity and Justice is located at Florida A&M University. California law prevents the disproportionate siting of toxic chemical facilities in minority communities. California also funds an Environmental Justice Small Grants Program, which provides assistance to local nonprofit organizations’ projects that address environmental justice issues. Washington and Oregon approved plans to allocate one percent of their states’ Interstate 5 transportation spending toward a community enhancement fund to alleviate the impact of that road in affected neighborhoods.10
Endnotes
  1. Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, “Region IV Environmental Justice Partnership Project: Lessons Learned,” June 1997.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Marianne Lavelle, Marcia Coyle and Claudia MacLachlan, “Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide in Environmental Law,” The National Law Journal, 1992.
  4. Daniel R. Faber and Eric J. Krieg, “Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” October 12, 2005.
  5. Robert Bullard, “Environmental Justice in the 21st Century,” Environmental Justice Resource Center, 2002.
  6. Center for Health, Environment and Justice, “25th Anniversary of Superfund—America’s Safety Net in Crisis,” September 29, 2005.
  7. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, “Katrina Pollution Surveillance and Investigation,” September 20, 2005.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Public Law Research Institute at Hastings College of Law, University of California, “Environmental Justice for All: A Fifty-State Survey of Legislation, Policies, and Initiatives,” January 2004.
  10. Jessica Kitchin, “Environmental justice: an emerging state issue,” Stateline.org, August 2, 2004.
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