At the risk of being pilloried for harboring politically incorrect thoughts, I have to admit to a sense of unease anytime I see the term environmental justice trotted out as the reason to do something (anything), particularly in the hands of the EPA. My immediate response is to ask the question, “Justice for whom?”—which is invariably followed by the answer posited by a good friend whose name shall remain shrouded in secrecy, “Its only justice when I get my way.”
Those less than supportive thoughts notwithstanding, the EPA’s program plan is explained as follows:
Plan EJ 2014, [is] a three-year, comprehensive plan to advance environmental justice efforts in nine areas, including rulemaking, permitting, enforcement, and science. Plan EJ 2014 aims to protect people’s health in communities overburdened by pollution, to empower communities to take action to improve their health and environment, and to establish partnerships with local, state, tribal and federal governments and organizations to promote sustainable communities where a clean environment and healthy economy can thrive.
Plan EJ 2014 is EPA’s strategy to meet the mandate of Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” which states that each federal agency, with the law as its guide, should make environmental justice part of its mission.
It’s not that I take issue with the ills that the EPA’s Plan EJ 201 aims to address; not even those expressed in Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” requiring each federal agency, with the law as its guide, to make environmental justice part of its mission. Rather, my concerns lie in (1) the vagueness of the term and its supposed areas of interest, (2) the assumption that the groups called out are necessarily or always victims of situations beyond their choosing, (3) that government action has the ability (much less the track record) to come up with genuinely just solutions, and (4) that the program it proposes, (see below) guarantees a lot of unproductive committee work with little substantive progress at the other end.
EPA, along with its federal partners, will continue to conduct outreach, education, stakeholder forums and listening sessions as it moves forward to implement EO 12898 and Plan EJ 2014. EPA will issue annual reports documenting the progress toward meeting the commitments outlined in Plan EJ 2014. The annual reports will be made available to the public through EPA’s website.
Let me share my genuine belief that where inequities exist, the role of government is to make sure its own skirts are clean. Implicit in this is the enforcement of laws already on the books that are routinely flaunted to the benefit of a favored few, and as a subset of this, the elimination of the thousands upon thousands of zoning ordinances that establish much of the basis for the problems these programs hope to eliminate.
I have to admit that it is with some trepidation that I ask for your thoughts on the matter and/or how I view the situation.
Plan EJ 2014: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/plan-ej/index.html
More information on environmental justice: http://epa.gov/environmentaljustice/