Research conducted
by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) on four state's
environmental justice programs (Indiana, Florida, New Jersey, and California)
reveals encouraging signs of progress in a number of areas. However, the
panel's analytic framework also shows variability in the performance of each
state. Significantly, NAPA found that considerable additional efforts are
needed to: (1) strengthen leadership; (2) move toward a
performance-based approach to measure and achieve results; (3) integrate more
fully environmental justice into core state programs; (4) expand and improve
the public participation process; and (5) improve the use of current legal
authorities to address environmental justice. The study was made
possible by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of
Environmental Justice.
Leadership and Accountability
Leadership exists in a variety of power centers at the state level, including
state legislatures and environmental agencies. The study found that
"champions" within those institutions support, encourage, and require the state
to demonstrate activity addressing environmental justice concerns. The most
promising examples of leadership, with the potential to produce on-the-ground
results, were found where the commitment occurred at the highest levels of the
state or agency leadership and included agencies with primary responsibility
for environmental programs. In all instances, community engagement, support,
and pressure were key elements to gaining leadership attention and action.
Specifically, the state legislatures in both Florida and California took the
initiative to address environmental justice. In Florida, through the action of
an interested state legislator and the support of a non-profit advocacy group,
an Environmental Justice Commission was established in 1995 to review the issue
and make recommendations to the legislature. After concluding that
people-of-color and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by
environmental hazardous sites, the Commission recommended, among other things:
(1) that a Center for Environmental Equity and Justice be created and housed at
the Florida A & M University's (FAMU) Environmental Sciences Institute; (2) a
birth-defects registry be housed at the FAMU Institute of Public Health; and
(3) a Community Health Advisory Board to the Florida Department of Health be
established. In 1998, the state legislature created and funded the Center at
FAMU, as part of the university's base budget, to conduct research, develop
policies, and implement education, training, and community outreach
initiatives. A critical missing piece of the state puzzle, however, is the
Florida Department of Environmental Programs, which declined to enter into a
memorandum of agreement with FAMU because they did not feel that the department
had the legal authority to consider environmental justice concerns.
In two other states - Indiana and New Jersey - state environmental agencies
have taken direct action as the result of several factors, including: (1)
environmental justice concerns that emerged within their states; (2) research
done by the state; and (3) national environmental issues, including the
emergence of high profile cases filed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. As a result, Indiana developed an environmental justice strategic plan
that included identifying areas with concentrations of potentially
environmentally hazardous facilities, improving public participation, improving
compliance and enforcement priority setting, and providing staff with
appropriate training to address environmental justice concerns.
The state of New Jersey responded in a somewhat different manner. The
Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) viewed its environmental justice
program in the context of the state's larger plan to encourage new development
in neglected cities. The fact that the state has more brownfield sites than any
other state helped to focus the state's environmental justice actions on
economic-environmental revitalization. To address environmental justice
concerns, between 1998-2002, the department established an advisory committee
to advise and assist it with the implementation of its environmental justice
program, including creation of an office for environmental equity whose manager
serves as on NJDEP's senior management team. NJDEP also issued an
administrative order to implement the task force's recommendations, established
an environmental justice policy, and proposed a rulemaking to expand community
participation for environmental permits. The policy commits the department to
specific activities and includes the development of an environmental equity
screening tool to help identify areas of potential concern.
Leadership on the issue of environmental justice in California came first from
the state's legislature in 1991, which passed five environmental justice bills
only to have them vetoed by the governor. In 1999, with the election of a new
governor, the state has enacted six statutes, as of the date of this article.
The environmental justice acts variously define environmental justice; direct
the Office of Planning and Research in the governor's office to coordinate
issues; require the California Environmental Protection Agency to consider
environmental justice when designing and operating its programs; require that
half of all funding appropriated through 2007 for diesel mitigation programs be
used to reduce air contaminants and reduce public risk in impacted areas,
including people-of-color and low-income communities; and provide policy
guidance for local land-use agencies. A closely related bill on clean-up levels
for brownfield sites was also enacted.
Additionally, the state plans to connect
land-use guidelines to environmental justice by working with state
environmental agencies, local land-use authorities, and cities. The panel's
research showed that two key environmental agencies - the Air Resources Board
and the South Coast Air Quality Management District were making significant
progress in developing programs that include leadership accountability,
integration with the permitting program, priority setting and risk reduction,
and improved public participation. The state has also utilized monitoring data
to set risk reduction strategies and serve as the basis for the development of
new regulations. The state's Department of Toxic Substances Control has also
developed draft guidance on including environmental justice in its permitting
process.
Permitting
At the time of the study, and of the states studied, only California and
Florida had enacted laws that directly address environmental justice. In
neither state, however, did the laws completely integrate environmental justice
into the core environmental programs, though programs like those being
developed by California have directly engaged environmental agencies and
required them to develop specific plans around environmental justice concerns.
States have raised concerns about the extent to which they have appropriate
existing legal authority to fully address environmental justice issues within
their core programs. At EPA's request, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)
conducted an examination of federal laws and determined that EPA has
significant latitude to address environmental justice concerns even if not
directly required by the statutes. The authorities cited by ELI included, among
others, those deriving from the National Environmental Policy Act; Title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964; general administrative authority to
exercise agency discretion; and media-specific environmental laws, such as the
federal Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and hazardous and solid waste laws.
Of the states surveyed, only California stated that it planned to undertake a
comprehensive review of existing state legal authority, in response in part to
the legislative requirement that the state determine whether there were any
legal barriers to addressing environmental justice problems.
The review also revealed that very few tools have been developed to assist
permit writers in addressing environmental justice and that the existing permit
backlogs are a real barrier to their doing so. New Jersey and Indiana have
concentrated on public participation relative to permit issuance and Indiana
and California have provided training on environmental justice that could
include permit writers.
Setting Priorities to Reduce Pollution
The study found that data served several key functions as a tool for setting
priorities. First, data demonstrating that people-of-color and low-income
communities may be in areas where there are high concentrations of hazardous
facilities has been an important means of getting the attention of state
legislators, environmental departments, and others to help them understand
reducing risk in these areas as a priority consideration. This was true in all
four states. A second important tool is the data produced from monitoring to
better enable the state to prioritize risk reduction efforts. In California,
the South Coast Air Quality Management District's MATES II study is one of the
most thorough studies of its kind, utilizing mobile and stationary monitors to
develop detailed data on neighborhood-specific air toxic exposures. This data
validated the existence of localized "hot spots," enabled the District to
propose rules to address local concerns, and resulted in funds being targeted
to areas of highest risk. The study also resulted in the adoption of a ten-year
air toxics control plan in March 2000 that commits to a 30 percent reduction of
residual risk by 2010. The Air Resources Board's neighborhood assessment
process has also been used to identify high-risk areas and address those risks.
Public Participation
All four states have recognized the importance of improving public
participation and have initiated policies and procedures to improve public
engagement and access to information. This includes utilizing community
advisory committees to assist agencies in addressing environmental justice
concerns, developing guides to help citizens understand agency processes,
training citizens about how to effectively participate in agency decisions,
training staff to be more effective in dealing with communities, providing
earlier public notices for agency decision-making processes, among other
efforts.
Specific examples of these efforts include the South Coast Air Quality
Management District's monthly town hall meetings to encourage staff to work
with the community outside the parameters of individual projects. Indiana's
Department of Environmental Management has developed a Guide to Citizen
Participation to enhance public participation. New Jersey's Department of
Environmental Protection proposed a rule on an "Expanded Community
Participation Process for Environment Justice." In Florida, the Florida A&M
University's Center for Environmental Equity and Justice develops extensive
education, training, and community outreach.
This study provides the public, low-income and people-of-color communities, and
states with information about how some states have approached the issue of
environmental justice and serves as a starting point to help identify which of
the activities and strategies show promise of producing results that will
directly and positively impact the lives of affected communities.
This report can be accessed on the National Academy of Public Administration's
website by clicking
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