The Environmental Protection Agency has released what it calls a Justice Report, which emphasizes environmental justice and commitment to underserved communities.
The Equity Plan satisfies a Biden administration requirement for all agencies to assess whether their programs and policies maintain systemic barriers for people of color and other underserved groups.
The report further solidifies the stated goal of the Environmental Justice Agency. In the four-year strategic plan released in February this year, the agency lists environmental justice as the No. 2 priority in tackling climate change.
In practice, environmental justice means that “everyone enjoys the same level of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the benefits of environmental resources and decision-making processes,” according to the report.
The report lists six priority areas for promoting environmental justice:
- Studying the cumulative effects of EPA decisions
- Helping underserved communities report their experiences to EPA
- Developing EPA’s internal capacity to work with underserved communities
- Strengthen EPA’s compliance with civil rights
- Integrating community science into EPA research and programs
- Make EPA procurement and contracting fairer
The Equity report follows a September report the agency released on social vulnerability to climate change and adds a slew of scientific studies finding that the impacts of increasing climate will hit people of color hardest.
The Social Vulnerability Report identified six of the most prominent impacts of climate change. It was then calculated where these climate impacts are most likely to occur. Finally, the EPA used census data to measure the likelihood of vulnerable groups living in those areas.
It found that with 2 degrees of warming, Black people are 34% more likely to live in areas with the highest projected increases in childhood asthma, Latinx people 43% more likely to live in areas with the highest projected hours lost at work Weather and tribal peoples are 48% more likely to live in areas expected to have the highest percentage of land flooded by sea level rise.
The report builds accountability mechanisms into each priority area, assigns a staff member to handle cumulative impact priority, and commits to the agency sharing updates with the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council for others.
“I think this is a step in the right direction for the EPA,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter. “The key will be to make sure it’s not a plan that just sits there. And that there really is that kind of accountability that they say they want to build into that.”
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Assessing the cumulative impact of projects is something that environmental activists have long called for. It would force regulators to assess the total cost of a project to the environment, e.g. B. to consider the number of existing industrial plants in the area before issuing a permit for a new one.
The agency also acknowledges in the report that it has not fully used its civil rights enforcement and enforcement powers to enforce the federal Civil Rights Act, calling itself reactive rather than proactive, attributing this to underfunding of the Civil Rights Compliance Office . It will take steps to proactively initiate compliance activities, the report said.
In particular, the Agency mentions several times in the report the importance of meaningful engagement in order to make progress in its priority areas.
EPA set a September 2023 deadline for short-term action after advocates at public hearings urged the agency to act quickly.
Short-term goals include a framework for assessing the cumulative impact of projects, guidelines on how to respect civil rights, and a set of indicators to track how well the EPA is addressing environmental and public health inequalities.
Longer-term goals, such as the actual implementation of cumulative impact assessments, could take several years.
Several environmental justice advocates, including Rashaad Thomas, a writer from Phoenix, said the EPA is still not moving fast enough.
“I think how many black and brown people are going to get cancer in three to four years?” he said. “Or any other disease related to environmental justice?”
Zayna Syed is an environmental reporter for The Arizona Republic/azcentral. Follow her coverage on Twitter at @zaynasyed_ and send tips or other story information to zayna.syed@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental reporting on azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic’s environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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