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An Executive Order on Environmental Justice

President-Elect Obama has promised to support spending $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million new “green collar jobs.” If allocated correctly, these jobs could jump-start the economies of urban neighborhoods and pockets of rural poverty. Imagine a country where a new generation of workers earns good wages and benefits— even saving for the kids’ education — while building light-rail systems, servicing wind turbines, and installing solar panels on neighborhood homes. A green economy like this would not only reduce reliance on fossil fuels and boost technological development, it would bring hope to thousands of the working poor whose communities have long been vexed by racism, pollution, and crime. Green-collar jobs are just one example of what we would see if the president renewed our commitment to Environmental Justice. Environmental Justice is a movement concerned with the distribution of environmental harms and benefits on the basis of race, income, and other personal characteristics. For years, advocates have focused on the “harms” part of the equation, and for good reason. While environmental laws have improved the quality of the nation's air and water, and saved countless lives, they have also left many people out. African-Americans are still more likely to live in polluted airsheds and continue to have the highest rates of asthma in the country. The nation’s laws also fail to protect many “non-traditional” populations, like native peoples or some Asian immigrants, whose diets are more likely to consist of fish contaminated with mercury and other chemicals. But environmental justice is about more than environmental harms. The poor and people of color often miss out on environmental benefits too. Parks, bike trails, and public swimming pools are nearly always more plentiful in communities that are more affluent and white. That inequality is especially important when one considers that children deprived of regular outdoor activities are more likely to experience obesity, diabetes, and behavioral disorders. Like trails and parks, green-collar jobs are another benefit of the environmental thinking. They, too, must be allocated among communities in a fair way. The new green economy must blossom in cities like Austin and Seattle as well as Scranton and New Orleans. President Obama could renew the country’s commitment to environmental justice by improving and updating Executive Order 12898, an environmental directive launched 15 years ago by President Bill Clinton. That order sought to reshape federal actions in order to achieve environmental justice for poor and minority communities. But Clinton’s policy never completely delivered, in part because it only vaguely defined the target populations (what is an “environmental justice community” anyway?) and it lacked a positive agenda for economic development in poor communities. The Bush Administration made things worse by interpreting the order so narrowly as to deny help to some of our most desperate and polluted communities. With the stroke of a pen, President Obama could offer a change that both environmentalists and the working poor can believe in. He could offer a new Executive Order that would clarify the application of environmental justice principles to populations most in need (whether urban, rural, or tribal) and launch an affirmative agenda that puts green-collar jobs in the most deserving places. A new Executive Order could also hold agencies responsible for better follow-through, as we discuss in our full proposal. CPR Member Scholars spelled out the specifics of such an Executive Order in Protecting Public Health and the Environment by the Stroke of a Presidential Pen: Seven Executive Orders for the President's First 100 Days, issued November 11, 2008. A cornerstone of President-elect Obama’s campaign was that the government should work for everyone, regardless of region, race, class, or party. This is especially true for environmental protection and economic development. Each reinforces the other. And each should be available to all.  

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Robert Verchick | November 13, 2008

An Executive Order on Environmental Justice

President-Elect Obama has promised to support spending $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million new “green collar jobs.” If allocated correctly, these jobs could jump-start the economies of urban neighborhoods and pockets of rural poverty. Imagine a country where a new generation of workers earns good wages and benefits— even saving for the […]

Rena Steinzor | November 12, 2008

A New Washington for Our Kids

About one in every fifteen Americans is a child under five years old, and those 20 million kids all experience the miracle of discovery and development. These fragile human beings are not simply little adults, the scientists tell us, for all sorts of reasons. They breathe five times faster, for one thing, inhaling much more […]

Robert Fischman | November 12, 2008

Stroke of a Pen: An Executive Order Protecting Public Lands

This past week, many national newspapers picked up the story from Utah, where the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just approved a spate of resource management plans that clear the way for a massive oil/gas lease sale next month. Some of the tens of thousands of acres slated for leasing are near the boundaries of […]

Amy Sinden | November 10, 2008

By the Stroke of a Presidential Pen: Executive Orders on Climate Change

President-elect Obama has a lot on his plate. No doubt the financial crisis is foremost on his mind. But as he ticked off his to-do list in his victory speech Tuesday night, I heard our new president mention another global crisis as well: “a planet in peril.” The worst economic crisis since the great depression […]

Thomas McGarity | November 7, 2008

Bush Administration Deregulatory Agenda Finishing Strong

Joining Thomas McGarity in this post are CPR Policy Analysts Margaret Clune Giblin and Matthew Shudtz.  This entry is cross-posted on ACSBlog, the blog of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. In the wake of the meltdown in the US financial sector, federal regulation has attracted renewed public support as a vehicle for […]

Shana Campbell Jones | November 6, 2008

Over Our Heads? Climate Change Threatens A Beleaguered Chesapeake Bay

You can never step in the same river twice, the saying goes. According to a new report about how climate change is expected to affect the Chesapeake Bay, that saying may become truer than ever.   In Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay, a group of scientists and water quality experts found that, because of […]

Margaret Clune Giblin | November 5, 2008

Climate Change: A New Reason to Act on Old Recommendations

Climate change is such an unprecedented challenge that sometimes it can seem overwhelming to think through its full range of impacts, let alone develop policy solutions to address them. Yet as policymakers delve into the details of the many ways in which climate change will impact global societies and the environment, the most promising solutions […]

Matt Shudtz | November 4, 2008

Saving Science: PFOA Update

In CPR’s recent white paper, Saving Science from Politics, Rena Steinzor, Wendy Wagner and I proposed reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to strengthen the Act’s “adverse effects” reporting requirements.  Under TSCA, registration of a chemical with EPA triggers a continuing obligation on regulated firms to submit to EPA any information they obtain that […]

Thomas McGarity | November 3, 2008

The Wyeth Case

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could give a boost to the Bush Administration’s backdoor “tort reform” efforts – an increasingly transparent effort to shield industry from litigation over defective products. The issue in Wyeth v. Levine is whether the Food and Drug Administration’s labeling requirements preempt […]