Environmental Justice

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The latest news on EPA and Biden administration efforts to address the effects of environmental releases on poor and minority communities, including permit reviews, civil rights investigations, and funding priorities.

Regan Clashes With Youth Advisory Council Over ‘False’ Climate Solutions

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is defending several aspects of EPA’s climate policy against claims by members of the National Environmental Youth Advisory Council (NEYAC) that it “supports and helps implement several misguided false solutions for climate change,” such as carbon capture and greater use of natural gas. NEYAC used its Oct. 22 meeting to unveil its final recommendations for EPA on potential policy changes pertaining to climate change, environmental justice and a circular economy. The recommendations it released that day...

WHEJAC Floats Suite Of Steps To Implement Biden EJ Executive Order

White House advisors are pressing the Biden administration to take a series of substantive steps to implement a 2023 executive order on environmental justice (EJ), including offering health services to communities harmed by pollution, offering to help people relocate from those areas and giving them greater ability to reject federal projects. The recommendations are included in an Oct. 4 report from the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) in response to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14096 that...

SAB Urges EPA To Include ‘Step-By-Step Process’ For EJ Analyses

EPA’s advisors are urging the agency to improve its draft technical guidance for assessing environmental justice (EJTG) in regulatory analyses, pressing officials to use a “step-by-step process for conducting a structured EJ analysis,” an approach they say is “crucial” in cases where any analysis shows the need to revise regulations. EPA’s chartered Science Advisory Board (SAB) is slated to meet Oct. 15 and review a draft report from its Environmental Justice Science & Analysis Review Panel advising EPA on how...

California EJ Groups Plan Suit Against EPA To Compel Valley SIP Actions

Several California environmental and environmental justice (EJ) groups are threatening to sue EPA over its alleged failure to take final action to determine whether the San Joaquin Valley attained the 1997 annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standard, and to decide whether to approve the valley’s plan to attain a 2015 ozone standard. “The San Joaquin Valley has already failed twice to attain [the 1997] standard by deadlines in 2015 and 2020,” writes Brent Newell, an attorney representing the groups, in...

CEQ Seeks WHEJAC Advice On ‘Place-Based’ Environmental Injustice

The White House is asking its environmental justice advisors to recommend successful models “for place-based and community-focused initiatives (including community-driven and collaborative efforts) to address cumulative impacts from environmental injustice that can inform federal multiagency collaboration.” The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) formally made the request during an Oct. 9 meeting in Huntsville, AL, of the Biden administration’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC). Chief federal environmental justice officer Jalonne White-Newsome of CEQ said the advice is needed to...

EPA Urges Court To Reject Louisiana Bid To Block Title VI Rules Nationwide

EPA is strongly opposing an effort by Louisiana to convince a federal judge to impose a nationwide bar preventing the agency from implementing its Civil Rights Title VI disparate-impact rules, arguing the state had not shown any injury in its request to expand the judge’s earlier order blocking the rule’s implementation only in the Pelican State. “Because the State has not proven any injury outside of the State of Louisiana from the application of the challenged regulations, the Court’s permanent...

Newsom Signs Bill To Curb Warehouse Impacts Despite EJ Opposition

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a controversial bill that aims to curb pollution from warehouses in disadvantaged communities by creating first-time logistics standards for the sector, despite opposition from environmental and equity groups that argue the new requirements are too lax and will establish poor precedents. “This legislation strikes a delicate balance that puts in place a higher standard for logistic development near sensitive receptors,” said Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Colton), co-author of the bill, AB...

EPA Touts Refinery Settlement As Fenceline Monitoring Win Amid EJ Doubts

EPA is touting a recent consent decree agreement with an Ohio refinery as a win for its growing fenceline air monitoring program and its broader push to address the concerns of environmental justice (EJ) communities, but the deal comes amid doubts about the agency’s ability to actually address “cumulative” EJ concerns in regulation. Under the proposed settlement announced by EPA and the Justice Department (DOJ) Sept. 27, Lima Refining Company (LRC), located in Lima, OH, must pay a civil penalty...

EPA Names New Members To CASAC, SAB Amid Closely Watched Reviews

EPA has announced new rosters for both its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and broader Science Advisory Board (SAB), and a new chair of the influential CASAC -- Jeremy Sarnat, an associate professor of environmental health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. The shift, which EPA announced Sept. 27, comes as both bodies are in the midst of several high-profile projects including CASAC’s nascent review of the nationwide ozone air standard and SAB’s scrutiny of...

FHWA Strongly Defends EJ Analysis In Challenge To Capital Beltway Review

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is defending the environmental justice (EJ) analysis it conducted as part of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review for an expansion of the Capital Beltway, urging a federal appeals court to reject environmentalists’ challenge and uphold a district court’s judgment allowing the project to proceed. The agency’s Sept. 16 filing in Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, et al. v. FHWA, et al ., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit,...

OIG Says EPA Dramatically Overestimated Justice40 Benefits For Brownfields

A new audit from EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) says the Brownfield Projects Program overestimated the Justice40 benefits of its work by more than 30 percent, finding that while the agency claimed 91 percent of benefits from those cleanups went to disadvantaged communities, the actual figure is only 60 percent. The Sept. 24 OIG report , “The EPA Brownfield Projects Program is on Track to Meet its Justice 40 Goal but Overestimated Disadvantaged Community Benefits,” says the agency improperly...

Louisiana Seeks To Scrap EPA Title VI Rules After Winning Injunction

Louisiana is asking a federal district court to vacate EPA’s Title VI disparate impact rules, even after the court granted a broad permanent injunction preventing the agency from enforcing them against any entity in the state, saying their continued application anywhere in the country puts the Pelican State at a “competitive disadvantage” for federal grants. State Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) filed a Sept. 19 motion in Louisiana v. EPA asking Judge James Cain of the U.S. District Court...

Backing EPA’s EJ Actions, EAB Denies Challenge To Region 8 Title V Permit

EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is denying a challenge brought by a Utah tribe to Region 8’s Clean Air Act (CAA) permit for Deseret energy’s Bonanza power plant, agreeing with EPA that the agency was not required to address the tribe’s environmental justice (EJ) concerns because such policies are not currently enforceable. The tribe has “not demonstrated that review is warranted on any of the grounds presented,” an EAB panel said in a Sept. 10 decision in In Re: Deseret...

SAB Plans Review Of Major EJ Advice To EPA As Biden Term Winds Down

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) is slated to meet next month to consider several reports advising the agency on key environmental justice (EJ) policies as well as a long-awaited assessment of arsenic’s risks, clearing the way for the board to provide final advice on the high-priority measures before the end of President Joe Biden’s term next year. According to a Federal Register notice slated to be published Sept. 17, the full SAB will meet Oct. 15-16, where panelists will...

EPA Expands Reach Of Meaningful Engagement Policy For ‘Public’ Outreach

EPA’s final Meaningful Engagement Policy takes a broader view of the “public” with whom the agency plans to engage compared to the proposed version, clarifying in response to public comments that the plan applies to a range of stakeholders, including state regulators, trade associations and registered lobbyists. While the policy is generally intended to address community concerns, EPA says in a response to comments document released alongside the policy that broader engagement with industry and other groups will help the...

Michigan Signs Title VI Deal Requiring EJ, Cumulative Impact Analyses

Michigan has signed an agreement with environmentalists under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requiring that all hazardous waste facility permit applicants perform environmental justice (EJ) analyses, an effort that one advocate says targeted the state, rather than EPA, because of fears a Trump administration would be unsympathetic to such efforts. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy (EGLE) signed the Aug. 29 agreement to resolve a complaint filed in 2020 by the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition,...

EJ Coalition Presses EPA To Reject AGs’ Petition To Weaken Title VI Rules

Nearly four dozen environmental justice (EJ) and allied groups are pressing EPA to reject a petition from Republican attorneys general (AG) to weaken the agency’s disparate impact rules under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, with the groups arguing the rules represent “critical protections” for disadvantaged communities. After assessing the rights law and the experience of communities harmed by pollution, “we are confident that EPA will find it appropriate to reject the Civil Rights Rollback Petition and, instead, strengthen...

Court Backs National Ban On EPA Rights Rule, Expands Louisiana Bar

A federal district court judge is permanently blocking EPA from enforcing disparate impact rules under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against any entity in the state of Louisiana, a step he says is “effectively” vacating the rules in the state, while also endorsing a push to scrap the rules nationwide. The decision, outlined in an Aug. 22 permanent injunction issued by Judge James Cain of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, is a win...

Permanent Injunction

Memorandum Ruling


Hoping To Limit Complaints, EPA Issues New Title VI ‘Procedural’ Guide

EPA has issued new guidance aimed at underscoring existing “procedural” safeguards, such as public participation, language and other requirements, for its Title VI civil rights program, measures the agency says are aimed at curbing the administrative complaint process that has sparked broad legal challenges for EPA and other agencies’ programs. EPA’s Office of External Civil Rights Compliance (OECRC) Aug. 22 released the new guidance , titled “Civil Rights Guidance on Procedural Safeguards,” that aims to assist states and other recipients...

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