What was executive order 12 898

Directs that each federal agency develop an agencywide environmental justice strategy. Requires that the administrator of EPA collect and analyze data assessing environmental and human health risks borne by population identified by race, national origin, and income. Like the Executive Order, the bill requires that agencies develop an agencywide environmental justice strategy.

The proposed legislation, however, does not mandate a strict timeline for producing these strategies and their revisions, as required by the Executive Order. Developing a framework for integrating socioeconomic programs into EPA's strategic planning on environmental justice.

Measuring and evaluating agencies progress in developing and implementing environmental justice strategies. Carrying out agencies existing and future data collection efforts and the conduct of analyses that support environmental justice programs. Developing, facilitating, and conducting reviews of federal agencies scientific research and demonstration projects. Improving how EPA communicates with other agencies, state and local governments, tribes, environmental justice leaders, interest groups, and the public.

Advi sing on EPA's ad ministr ation of grant progra ms relatin g to environmental justice assista nce. Conducting environmental justice outreach activities. The advisory committee shall be composed of 25 members appointed by the President, with representatives from the community, industry, academia, state and local governments, federally recognized tribes, indigenous groups, and nongovernmental and environmental groups.

The bill does, however, go beyond the Executive Order in a few instances:. It expands reporting and public participation requirements by mandating that each analysis of the environmental effects of federal actions required by the National Environmental Policy Act NEPA include an analysis of the effects of those actions on human health, as well as any economic and social effects.

It is, therefore, unclear, what is contemplated by this new responsibility concerning complaints and what power the working group would have to remedy environmental justice complaints. Finally, it appears that inadequate funding prevents many agencies from meeting their environmental justice obligations. The agencies have few resources committed full time to environmental justice issues.

At the Department of the Interior, for example, environmental justice is viewed by most components as collateral duty with little full-time staff and no devoted funding for environmental justice activities. This report reviews how well four federal agencies are implementing Executive Order 12, and their Title VI responsibilities in the context of environmental decision-making.

Generally, agencies can successfully implement the order through three steps: first, ensuring that their programs which substantially affect human health and the environment do not discriminate and that their state and local funding recipients do not discriminate; second, providing minority and low-income communities access to information on, and an opportunity for public participation in, matters relating to human health or the environment, regulations, and enforcement; and third, collecting and analyzing research and data on the environmental, human health, economic, and social effects of their actions on minority and low-income communities.

This report, therefore, examines to what extent EPA and the Departments of Interior, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation have addressed these three goals through:. Using Title VI nondiscrimination regulations to enforce the principles of environmental justice. Creating opportunities for meaningful public participation in the environmental decision-making process and the use of alternative dispute resolution.

Conducting scientific research and collecting data on human health impacts and the distribution of environmental risks and hazards, and disseminating scientific information and data to the public and affected communities.

Creating evaluation criteria, establishing accountability and performance measures for environmental justice programs, and providing top-down agency leadership on environmental justice issues. Chapter 2 defines environmental justice and identifies key issues such as the role of race and poverty in environmental decision-making, provides examples of several minority and poor communities adversely affected by environmental decision-making, and reviews the health issues related to the disproportionate placement of facilities in these communities.

Chapter 2 also discusses whether environmental justice inhibits economic opportunity in communities of color and low-income communities, and the impact of recent changes in the Superfund program that may hinder environmental cleanup efforts in these communities. Chapter 3 covers the use of Title VI nondiscrimination regulations as an environmental justice tool and how agencies can improve their Title VI programs.

Chapter 4 gives an overview of the impact of Alexander v. Sandoval , a Supreme Court decision prohibiting private rights of action for disparate impact claims under Title VI. The decision has already placed greater importance on federal administrative Title VI regulations and enforcement, as well as brought more attention to the role state and local authorities play in environmental decision-making and what steps can be taken at these levels to bring about environmental fairness.

Chapter 5 assesses public participation in environmental decision-making and the use of alternative dispute resolution to resolve conflicts and complaints.

Chapter 6 discusses the need for federal agencies to collect data and conduct scientific research to more specifically identify human health and environmental risks created by concentrating waste and other facilities in communities of color and low-income communities, and how agencies technical assistance grants are used by communities and advocates.

Chapter 7 reviews whether there is sufficient agency accountability and evaluation of environmental justice programs and activities. Without accountability and program evaluation, little progress will be made toward achieving environmental justice.

At the end of each chapter are specific recommendations for action. Chapter 8 is a compilation of the recommendations made by the Commission throughout the report. This report makes reference to activities of the U. Coast Guard as a part of the Department of Transportation. The Commission notes that since its hearing the U. Coast Guard has been incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security.

Ruckelshaus, administrator, U. Environmental Protection Agency, testimony before the U. Order No. VI hereafter cited as Exec. Gerrard, ed. The Council on Environmental Quality defines low-income populations based on the annual statistical poverty thresholds from the Census Bureau's Current Population Reports.

Minority populations are identified where the minority population of an affected area exceeds 50 percent or the minority population percentage of the affected area is meaningfully greater than the minority population percentage in the general population. See, e. The Commission was specifically interested in the U.

Accordingly, DOI was not requested to define minority populations or low-income populations. In this report, the terms minority, minority populations, and communities of color are synonymous and used interchangeably. Stay safe!

Pay online via the Link. Biz Portal! Assist mail. The Commission subsequently hurdled the annual surveillance audits held on 25 October and 23 October and received its Attestations for Continued Certification on 26 November and 05 November , respectively.

Please see TC's Certificates. The law aims to reduce the adverse impact of the pandemic on the well-being of Filipinos through the provision of assistance, subsidies, and other forms of socioeconomic relief. In its preamble, EO No. Jump to navigation. The landmark Order was the first major federal action on environmental justice EJ in the United States and required that all federal agencies "make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.

The issuance of the Order brought legitimacy and attention to the EJ movement and its underlying principle that low-income communities and communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution and its health effects. The Order also inspired a tidal wave of regulatory and policy actions by states requiring appropriate agencies to adopt policies, practices and procedures to consider EJ in decisionmaking. From a substantive perspective, the Order lacked requirements that EJ play a determining factor in siting, rulemaking, and permitting decisions.

Instead, the Order directed agencies to adopt an EJ strategy and then implement it. To date, not every federal agency has fulfilled the Order's EJ mandates. Twenty years later, the Order's legacy remains, notwithstanding several attempts over the years to weaken it. In , under Administrator Stephen Johnson the Environmental Protection Agency EPA -- the lead agency charged with implementing the Order -- attempted to redefine the purpose of the Order by dropping race as a factor in identifying and prioritizing populations that may be disadvantaged by a federal agency's policies, asserting that all communities should be treated equally regardless of their race or socioeconomic status.

The action, which scrubbed racial discrimination from the definition of EJ, led to the issuance of two scathing reports by EPA's own Office of Inspector General one in and one in concluding that EPA had failed to properly implement the intent of the Executive Order. The result was unprecedented attention to and awareness of EJ issues at EPA and throughout the federal government.

However, EJ advocates have correctly asserted that although in recent years EPA has prioritized EJ and paid it a lot of lip service, it has failed to make substantive strides forward in implementing EJ policies and rules that significantly impact communities. Unfortunately, twenty years after the issuance of the Order, communities across the country continue to be unnecessarily exposed to toxic pollution that threatens their health and quality of life.

Many of these communities also lack basic environmental benefits too like a healthy home free of toxins, access to open spaces like parks, the availability of healthy foods, and safe and affordable public transportation.

So on this anniversary, we recognize that although we've made great strides forward since , the collective struggle for EJ continues and that the voices of low-income communities and communities of color around the country calling for justice have grown louder and stronger. Below is a fantastic blog post by Dr. Robert Bullard , one of the EJ movement's first leaders, on the 20th anniversary of the Order, the issuance of a new report tracking the EJ movement over five decades, and some of the EJ challenges that still remain today.

You can find the Dr. Bullard's new report on EJ here. After decades of hard work, struggle, and some victories along the way, the quest for environmental justice for all communities has yet to be achieved. Even in , the most potent predictor of health is zip code. Race and poverty are also powerful predictors of students who attend schools near polluting facilities , the location of polluted neighborhoods that pose the greatest threat to human health, hazardous waste facilities , urban heat islands , and access to healthy foods , parks , and tree cover.

Transportation equity remains a major environmental justice and civil rights challenge. Environmental justice leaders want to see these gaps closed now and not have to wait another two decades.

The Executive Order after twenty years and three U. Bush and Barack Obama has never been fully implemented. Still, the environmental justice movement has made tremendous strides over the years. Out of the small and seemingly isolated environmental struggles, emerged a potent grassroots community driven movement that is now a global movement. In , only four states Louisiana, Connecticut, Virginia, and Texas had a law or an executive order on environmental justice.

In , all 50 states and the District of Columbia have instituted some type of environmental justice law, executive order, or policy, indicating that the area of environmental justice continues to grow and mature. In , Dumping in Dixie was the first and only environmental justice book.

In , there were fewer than a dozen environmental justice books in print. Today, hundreds of environmental justice books line the shelves of bookstores and classrooms covering a wide range of disciplines. Environmental justice courses and curricula can be found at nearly every college and university in the U. The number of people of color environmental groups has grown from groups in to more than 3, groups and a dozen national, regional and ethnic networks in Prior to , only a couple of EJ leaders had won national recognition and awards for their work.

The movement is still under-funded after decades of proven work. This is true for private foundation and government funding. Overall, foundation and government funding support for environmental justice has been piecemeal.

After years of hard work, struggle, and some victories along the way, the quest for environmental justice for all communities has yet to be achieved. Race is still the most powerful predictor of locally unwanted land uses or LULUs and access to healthy foods.

The vast majority of environmental justice leaders two decades ago preferred to have environmental justice codified in law. However, that did not happen. As part of the commemoration, reactions were solicited from environmental justice leaders representing diverse stakeholder groups from activists to academics. The focus of the environmental justice movement is now just and sustainable development.

This means using our unlimited mental and creative resources, not our limited natural resources. If this is true, as I believe it to be, then we need to develop more constructive ways to unleash these phenomenal mental and creative resources in our communities, and quickly. Currently, in the US and around the globe we waste human potential as wantonly and comprehensively as we lay waste to our environmental potential, and this is no surprise, as both actions are directly related.

We need to understand that while there is growing human inequality, there will never be environmental quality. Julian Agyeman, Ph.

The most recent example of its work in this area grew out of a request from fair housing advocates in Texas who are monitoring implementation of a disaster recovery program funded by HUD. While there has been some progress in environmental justice, much remains to be done. The federal legal foundation is still very weak, based as it is on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of , which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, by recipients of federal financial assistance.

There are almost no federal discrimination protections on the basis of low income, which the EJ Executive Order addresses. There needs to be a statutory basis for EJ protections, which includes low income. The Executive Order on EJ is a sham. The only thing the EOhas produced is jobs for the people at these federal agencies tasked to create the illusion that they are working to achieve environmental justice. I have witnessed heartless and clueless representatives of federal agencies visit hardcore EJcommunities and board their plane back to DC untouched, unmoved and, despite numerous attempts on our part, were never heard from again.

I have witnessed good people at federal agencies that wanted to truly help.