EPA will make racial equality a bigger factor in environmental rules

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency will create a new national office on environmental justice, the latest effort by the Biden administration to redress the disproportionate harm caused by pollution and climate change in the United States. communities of color and in low-income cities, towns and counties.

Michael S. Regan, EPA administrator and first Black person to run the agency, announced the creation of an office with environmental justice and civil rights leaders Saturday in Warren County, NC, the site of a toxic dump where protesters were arrested 40 years agoenvironmental justice movement.

“From day one, the president and EPA have been committed to not only making progress on environmental justice and civil rights, but also ensuring that environmental justice and civil rights are at the heart of everything we do. I do, so that we respect it in a way that will outlast any of us,” Mr. Regan said in a phone interview on Friday.

Mr Regan said he intends to ensure that all new regulations on air, water and chemical safety, many of which affect the profits of power companies as well as manufacturers automobiles and other major manufacturers, will now include provisions aimed at reducing the impact of environmental damage on poor and minority communities. That could include tighter pollution controls.

“When you look at how the EPA does this risk analysis to determine how rigorous it is to protect communities, we take into account communities and how they have been impacted over time,” said Regan. , who has traveled across the country, said the community suffers from disproportionate air and water pollution. “And how those regulations in the past may not have protected some communities, as we are positioned to move forward.”

Dollie Burwell, who was arrested at a Warren County landfill in 1982 and is sometimes referred to as the mother of environmental justice, said she considers the establishment of the office “another important milestone for those who have been in the public eye.” among us, who have died and gone to prison, that someone is listening. “

The new country office will combine three smaller mid-level offices on environmental justice, civil rights, and conflict prevention and resolution into one high-level office with a Senate-approved assistant administrator. receiver, who reports directly to Mr. Regan. It will have 200 employees, in Washington and across the agency’s 10 regional offices – up from 55 today who carry out the agency’s civil rights and environmental justice work. That would put the broader environmental justice agency on par with the EPA’s national air, water and chemical pollution agencies, together making up the agency’s central mission to reduce pollution. and protect public health.

“I am pleased to see the merger of the environmental and civil rights offices,” Ms. Burwell said. She said she sees the structural change at the EPA as a single step among many that the administration still must take to deliver on President Biden’s promises of environmental justice. “As someone who has attended separate schools, I expect ever-increasing achievements.”

The EPA is currently working on new rules to reduce pollution from automobile exhaust pipes, factory and power plant exhaust fumes, runoff into water lines, and leaks from oil and gas wells. It can all be shaped by environmental justice considerations, Mr. Regan said.

With an annual operating budget of $100 million, the new office will oversee the implementation of a $3 billion climate and environmental justice block grant program that was created following its adoption in last month The nation’s first major climate law. The new law also includes a broader $60 billion investment in environmental justice.

Mr. Biden, who won the 2020 Democratic primaries with help from black voters, is the first president promote environmental justice, the idea that everyone has an equal right to protection from environmental and health hazards. He created the 25-member White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the first of its kind, and called on all federal agencies to make sure disadvantaged communities receive 40% benefits from federal investment in clean air and water, flood prevention, site Superfund cleanup, renewable energy and other improvements. In May, the Justice Department announced the creation of an environmental justice office, charged with investigating and prosecuting violations of environmental laws.

Not all environmental justice activists give Mr Biden high marks. Wes Gobar, a leader of the Black Lives Matter Movement, criticized an agreement reached last month by Democratic leaders with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. Under that deal, Mr Manchin gave the key vote to pass climate legislation in exchange for a promise that the Senate would pass a separate bill this month to make it easier for oil and gas pipelines to pass. obtain a federal license. It is not yet clear whether the authorization bill will pass.

“This deal trades the health of black lives across the country for fossil fuel profits,” Mr. Gobar said. “This is an unacceptable trade-off. Our movement is pushing Congress, especially the Black Congress, to reject this option.”

“We have seen a lot of structural changes on environmental justice in the Biden, Obama and Clinton administrations, but we need to see the results,” Mr. Gobar said. “And it won’t make up for this side deal – because it cuts the federal government’s ability to protect Black communities.”

Republicans have also resisted the administration’s efforts to promote environmental justice.

At this year’s House hearings on legislation to codify many environmental justice initiatives, known as the Environmental Justice for All Act, Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, ranked Republican ranking on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said, “It’s just a dangerous trajectory for us to continue. force this racist conspiracy on all these decisions. “

“It won’t work,” he added. “Let’s work on things that will really solve problems for communities of color, for economically disadvantaged communities, and others.”