Internal audit suggests EPA complicit in environmental racism

Environmentalists, civil rights advocates and even federal auditors say the US government is ignoring its duty to protect low-income people and people of color from harmful pollution in their communities. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of the Inspector General found the Agency does not know if its policies and programs are negatively affecting poor people because it has not conducted proper "environmental justice" reviews. "The term of 'environmental justice' is kind of a cleaned-up term," said Felicia Eaves, campaign organizer with the grassroots group Women's Voices for the Earth. "[The term] actually started out as 'environmental racism.'" The extent of environmental inequality in the United States was first documented in a landmark 1987 study by United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice, which found that across the country, toxic waste was more likely to be found in communities of color. Numerous other studies since then show similar findings. A 2000 study by the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas-Dallas found that almost half of the nearly 2 million federally subsidized apartments for low-income people were within about a mile of factories releasing toxic emissions. In 2001, the Latino Issues Forum found that the majority of new power plants being considered by the California Energy Commission were planned for neighborhoods where the majority population was black or Latino. That same year, civil rights and environmental groups released "Air of Injustice," a report that found 68 percent of blacks live within 30 miles of coal-fired power plants, compared to 56 percent of whites. More recently, the Associated Press conducted an analysis of government data for every neighborhood counted in the 2000 census. The 2005 AP report found that blacks are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in areas most at health risk from industrial air pollution. The EPA itself issued a report in 1992 finding that "racial minority and low-income populations experience higher than average exposures to selected air pollutants, hazardous waste facilities, contaminated fish and agricultural pesticides in the workplace." The federal government prioritized the issue more than a decade ago, when President Bill Clinton issued a 1994 executive order requiring the EPA to convene a working group of 17 federal agencies to review how their programs affect low-income populations and communities of color. But groups and federal auditors have been questioning the working group's progress ever since. According to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, 60 percent of program and regional office directors were not conducting environmental justice reviews at all. The Sept. 18 report also found that 87 percent of offices responding to the EPA's survey said agency management had not asked them to conduct environmental justice reviews on the agency's programs, policies and activities. This is not the first time the inspector general found the EPA was not fulfilling the executive order. In a 75-page report released in March 2004, the inspector general stated that EPA had not fully implemented the 1994 order and had not "consistently integrated environmental justice into its day-to-day operations." In its response to the inspector general, the EPA admitted that it has not conducted environmental justice reviews. It said it has instead integrated "environmental justice considerations into its strategic plan." But that plan, a draft of which was released in June 2005, was slammed by dozens of groups and lawmakers. It proposed to eliminate references to race and class as an environmental justice consideration. After the backlash, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson issued a memo in November 2005 defending EPA's commitment to environmental justice. "In recognizing that minority and/or low-income communities frequently may be exposed disproportionately to environmental harms and risks, EPA works to protect these and other burdened communities from adverse human health and environmental effects of its programs," wrote Johnson. Johnson also announced that environmental justice concerns would be folded into the agency's general 2006-2011 strategic plan–as opposed to a specific environmental justice plan–a 179-page document released late last month outlining the agency's goals over the next five years. In the new plan, EPA states it is establishing "measurable environmental justice commitments" for eight areas, including reducing asthma attacks, reducing exposure to air toxins and reducing elevated blood lead levels. The agency states it also will increase compliance with regulations, revitalize contaminated lands and ensure that fish are safe to eat and water is safe to drink. The EPA does have an Office of Environmental Justice, but a review of its website yields numerous broken links and outdated information. According to the site, the Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council has only met 19 times since it was convened in 1993, the last of which was in New Orleans in 2004.