The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Land and Emergency Management recently released its draft Environmental Justice Action (EJ) Plan. What's inside?
First, some background: After entering office, President Biden signed a pair of executive orders directing federal agencies to pursue environmental justice. The first focuses on narrowing entrenched inequities furthered by standing agency policy, and the second orders agencies to shrink their climate-harming footprints. Together, these orders offer the public an immense opportunity to combat environmental injustice.
The EPA has since directed its Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) to evaluate current and best practices to meet the requirements of each executive order. As the office charged with overseeing the primary programs managing and containing hazardous substances, its policies hold great potential in mitigating risks faced by at-risk communities.
The office's EJ Action Plan lays out four goals to guide and motivate its push toward equity and climate justice. These include: strengthening compliance with cornerstone environmental statutes and civil rights laws, integrating environmental justice considerations into OLEM's regulatory process, improving communications and collaborations with communities in carrying out OLEM policies, and carrying out Biden's Justice 40 initiative to deliver 40 percent of clean energy and climate benefits to disadvantaged communities.
While well-intentioned, these aspirational goals require filling out.
Filling Key Gaps
While EPA makes much-needed commitments to strengthen existing measures, points of concern remain, specifically relating to risk management and regulated infrastructure. The EPA aims to strengthen risk prevention and emergency response measures with an environmental justice focus. To enhance accident prevention and response, and reduce severe releases, the plan should strengthen and expand Risk Management Program measures to mitigate, monitor, and manage natural hazard-induced technological disasters (aka “natech” disasters), which remain high and growing in many communities at risk of climate impacts.
Additionally, aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) are not held to the same regulation and management standards as underground storage tanks and are omitted from the plan. Given the immense hazards they pose, particularly to low-income communities of color, EPA should include protections and prevention measures that address AST risks and incorporate input from those impacted by worst-case discharges.
One of the plan's stated goals is to compile and critically evaluate current assessment tools, methods, and strategies. To improve their responsiveness and equity, future OLEM assessments should consider the cumulative impacts of investment strategies, as concurrent risks are uniquely prevalent in environmental justice communities.
Assessments should also be wary of monetary proxies to weigh the relative value of environmental benefits against economic benefits of polluting. If the “polluters pay” principle is to hold serious sway, OLEM must move beyond economic-oriented, case-by-case assessments. Under a more comprehensive, place-focused assessment strategy, the harmful impacts of anaerobic digestion technologies used by agribusiness and plastic incineration infrastructure would likely outweigh any purported economic benefit of projected investments.
The goal of community engagement and empowerment runs throughout the EJ Action Plan as well as Biden's executive orders. However, it's unclear how agencies will overcome barriers to community involvement in the regulatory process given their current strategies. To address this disconnect, OLEM should dedicate resources to developing regulatory expertise within affected communities, collaborate with trusted local leaders, and build local leadership capable of maintaining working partnerships.
Community Input and Review
OLEM's EJ Action Plan comes as climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of weather events that jeopardize communities and infrastructure. As a result, the regulations enacted under this initiative have far-reaching implications.
Nearly 200 million people live in “worst-case [spill] zones” from facilities regulated under EPA's Risk Management Program. Nearly 4,000 of those facilities are exposed to risks of wildfire, storm surge, flooding, and sea level rise. In a single 10-year period, more than half a million people were injured, killed, or forced to shelter in place or evacuate after a chemical release at an RMP facility. These populations are disproportionately low-income, linguistically isolated, and people of color. Without more stringent RMP measures and more regulated facilities, environmental degradation, public health disasters, and environmental injustices will likely increase.
Fortunately, OLEM is accepting public input on how the plan can achieve these goals. Community input is foundational to environmental justice. Written feedback will be reviewed until April 30, and online and in-person outreach sessions will be held throughout the year. Concerned communities and organizations must act now.
To learn more, read our full comments to EPA, subscribe to our mailing list, and follow us on social media.
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Jake Moore | February 17, 2022
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Land and Emergency Management recently released its draft Environmental Justice Action (EJ) Plan. The office's EJ Action Plan lays out four goals to guide and motivate its push toward equity and climate justice. These include: strengthening compliance with cornerstone environmental statutes and civil rights laws, integrating environmental justice considerations into OLEM's regulatory process, improving communications and collaborations with communities in carrying out OLEM policies, and carrying out Biden's Justice 40 initiative to deliver 40 percent of clean energy and climate benefits to disadvantaged communities. While well-intentioned, these aspirational goals require filling out.
Sidney A. Shapiro | February 14, 2022
When the Wake Forest University emergency communications systems called me at 12:01 am on Tuesday, February 1, I could not have guessed that it was about a chemical bomb capable of wiping out blocks and blocks of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The call warned university students to heed the city’s voluntary evacuation of the 6,500 people living within in a one-mile radius of the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant that was on fire — and in danger of exploding. Thankfully, the fire did not injure anyone, and the bomb did not ignite.
James Goodwin | February 10, 2022
The regulatory system is quite literally democracy in action, as it invites and empowers members of the public to work with their government to implement policies to keep our drinking water free of contaminants, ensure that the food on store shelves is safe to eat, prevent crooked banks from cheating customers, and much, much more.
Marcha Chaudry | February 9, 2022
A few years ago, Roschelle Powers took a routine trip to visit her mom, Roberta, at her nursing home in Birmingham, Alabama. When Roschelle opened the door, she found her mother vomiting, disoriented -- and clutching a handful of pills. Roberta’s son, Larry, visited a few days later and found his mom alone and unresponsive. She died soon after – with 20 times the recommended dose of her diabetes medication in her blood. The Powers family charged the nursing home with misconduct, but the company denied responsibility -- and the family couldn’t take their case to court because they had signed a contract that robbed them of their right to a free and fair trial. Instead, contractual legalese forced them to settle their dispute in a rigged system of arbitration rather than in an impartial court of law. My colleagues and I share this story, chronicled in a New York Times investigation of forced arbitration, in the opening pages of our new report about the disproportionate toll this widespread practice has on marginalized and vulnerable groups.
Darya Minovi | February 8, 2022
Last week, my colleagues and I advocated for a pair of clean water bills in Maryland and Virginia, which were spurred by research completed by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR). This two-part blog series explains why. Part I, which ran yesterday, explores our collaborative work to protect clean drinking water in Maryland. Today, we look at our efforts to protect Virginia’s health and environment from toxic chemical spills.
Darya Minovi | February 7, 2022
Last week, my colleagues and I advocated for a pair of clean water bills in Maryland and Virginia, which were spurred by research completed by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR). One would create a Private Well Safety Program in Maryland, and the other would create an aboveground chemical storage tank registration program in Virginia. Both laws are sorely needed. This two-part blog series explains why. Today’s piece looks at our efforts to protect clean drinking water in Maryland; check back tomorrow for Part II, which explores our collaborative efforts to protect Virginians from toxic chemical spills.
Daniel Farber | February 3, 2022
In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has become increasingly interventionist on issues relating to the appointment and removal of officials. Nondelegation arguments have also escalated and even non-constitutional doctrines such as Chevron are debated in constitutional terms. But according to originalist scholars, who say that the Constitution should be understood based on its meaning at the time of drafting, these are necessary developments. Although I am not an originalist, I had assumed that the originalist case must be a powerful one to justify such a forceful effort to overturn existing precedent. That turns out to have been a mistake on my part. Writing a book on presidential power led me to take a much closer look at the historical record and the recent scholarship on these questions. The work of scholars such as Nicholas Bagley, Daniel Birk, Julian Mortensen, Nicolas Parrillo, and Jed Shugerman, as well as that of their critics, have made me realize that originalist arguments for presidential appointments and removal power and nondelegation positions are not only debatable, but in some cases really shaky.
Robert L. Glicksman | February 2, 2022
During the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of the Interior undermined its statutory obligations to protect lands and natural resources managed by the federal government. It also accelerated the extraction of fossil fuels from federal lands and constructed barriers to a shift to renewable energy, hindering efforts to abate climate disruption. On March 15, 2021, the Senate confirmed Deb Haaland as new secretary of the department, which houses the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- three agencies that together are responsible for managing millions of acres of some of the nation's most precious terrain. Before Haaland's confirmation, the Center for Progressive Reform identified five priorities for the department. Here is an update on progress so far.
Jake Moore | February 1, 2022
Virginia's recent environmental and climate laws have been heralded as among the nation's most progressive. In recent years, Virginia passed landmark laws supporting renewable energy and environmental justice and joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, priming it to address the challenges posed by growing flood risks, climate-related disasters, and industry-related public health crises. However, Gov. Glenn Youngkin's election has shrouded Virginia's green future in gray.