Environmental Justice / Environmental Racism

“Racism is the intentional or unintentional use of power to isolate, separate and exploit others. . . Racism is more than just a personal attitude; it is the institutionalized form of the attitude” -National Council of Churches Racial Justice Working Group Now all of the issues of environmental racism and environmental justice don’t just deal with people of color. We are just as much concerned with inequities in Appalachia, for example, where the whites are basically dumped on because of lack of economic and political clout and lack of having a voice to say “no” and that’s environmental injustice. –Dr. Robert Bullard

Definitions: Environmental equity: Poison people equally Environmental justice: Stop poisoning people, period. Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color. Environmental justice is the movement’s response to environmental racism. “Environmental equity” is not environmental justice. “Environmental equity” is the government’s response to the demands of the environmental justice movement. Government agencies, like the EPA, have been coopting the movement by redefining environmental justice as “fair treatment and meaningful involvement,” something they consistently fail to accomplish, but which also falls far short of the environmental justice vision. The environmental justice movement isn’t seeking to simply redistribute environmental harms, but to abolish them. A note on institutional racism… The most significant problem facing people of color is the institutional and cultural racism which results in discrimination in access to services, goods and opportunities. Institutional racism involves polices, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. Systemic racism is the basis of individual and institutional racism; it is the value system that is embedded in a society that supports and allows discrimination. Institutional and systemic racism establishes separate and independent barriers. Institutional racism does not have to result from human agency or intention. Thus, racial discrimination can occur in institutions even when the institution does not intend to make distinctions on the basis of race. In the context of racism, power is a necessary precondition for discrimination. Racism depends on the ability to give or withhold social benefits, facilities, services, opportunities etc., from someone who is entitled to them, and is denied on the basis of race, color or national origin. The source of power can be formal or informal, legal or illegal, and is not limited to traditional concepts of power. Intent is irrelevant; the focus is on the result of the behavior.

Key Documents:

• Principles of Environmental Justice (printable 1-page PDF version; en Español)
  (Environmental Justice Platform adopted at The First People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991)
• Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing (1997)
• Documents from the Second People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (2002):
  • Principles of Working Together (en Español)
  • Principles for Alliance with Green Groups
  • Youth Environmental Justice documents:
    • Principles of the Youth Environmental Justice Movement
    • Youth-to-Youth and Youth-to-Adult Principles of Collaboration
    • Youth Leadership in the Environmental Justice Movement
• Climate Justice Principles:
  • Principles of Climate Justice (2009)
  • 10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the U.S. (2002)
  • Bali Principles of Climate Justice (2002)
• Cerrell Associates: Political Difficulties Facing Waste-to-Energy Conversion Plant Siting (1984 report showing that industry targets specific types of communities)

General Background on Environmental Justice:

• Environmental Justice: An Interview with Robert Bullard (Earth First! Journal)
• Excellent articles by Dr. Michael Heiman:
  • Race, Waste, and Class: New Perspectives on Environmental Justice
  • Waste Management and Risk Assessment: Environmental Discrimination through Regulation
• Environmental Justice Powerpoint presentation (available from Energy Justice Network)
• Risk Assessments vs. Alternatives Assessments / Applying the Precautionary Principle – Who get the benefits and who get the risks? Who decides?

Studies Documenting Environmental Racism & Classism

• Our Spatial Justice Tool (Do your own EJ analysis of power plant data or your own data) — based on 2010 census data available via JusticeMap.org and energy and waste industry data available via Energy Justice Network’s mapping project
• Trash Incineration and Environmental Racism
• Poor in Pennsylvania? You’re fracked. (Environmental Health News article on 2015 study showing that low-income white communities harmed most by fracking for natural gas in Pennsylvania)
• Who’s in Danger? A Demographic Analysis of Chemical Disaster Vulnerability Zones (PDF) (2014)
• National Patterns in Environmental Injustice and Inequality: Outdoor NO2 Air Pollution in the United States (PDF) (2014)
• Making the Environmental Justice Grade: The Relative Burden of Air Pollution Exposure in the United States (2011)
• A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S. (Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, 2008)
• Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007 [Hazardous waste disposal facilities] (United Church of Christ, 2007)
  (Report is 5.3 MB PDF… click here for a less graphics-heavy 1.1 MB version)
  (Also, see press release and related information.)
• Still Toxic After All These Years: Air Quality and Environmental Justice in the San Francisco Bay Area (2007)
• Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards – Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (2005)
• Air of Injustice: African Americans & Power Plant Pollution [Coal power plants] (2002)
• Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide In Environmental Law (1992 investigation in the National Law Journal that documents unequal enforcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
• Who Lives Near Coke Plants and Oil Refineries? An Exploration of the Environmental Inequity Hypothesis (Risk Analysis, 1999)
• The Toxic Threat to Indian Lands (Greenpeace, 1991)
• Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and their Correlation With Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities U.S. General Accounting Office (June 1983)

Other Environmental Justice Websites/Resources:

• Dr. Robert Bullard (books, reports, interviews & more)
  
  

• Environmental Justice Resources
  • Fighting Environmental Racism: A Selected Annotated Bibliography
  • Environmental Inequality Bibliography

• Scorecard.org Environmental Justice Maps
  
• Energy and Environmental Justice
• DC’s Waste and Environmental Racism
• Is Water Fluoridation an Environmental Racism Issue?
• Toxic Targets: Polluters That Dump on Communities of Color Are Finally Being Brought to Justice (E Magazine)
• Pollution-Weary Minorities Try Civil Rights Tack (New York Times)
• Center for Diversity and the Environment (effort to diversify the mainstream environmental movement)
• 1997 Louisiana Energy Services case before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board – An amazing legal decision where an arm of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a license to a proposed uranium enrichment plant in a poor, black community in Louisiana on the basis of environmental racism (as far as we know, this is the only case where the courts have denied a license on such a basis. It’s a long decision to read. See our summary and choice quotes if you don’t have the time to read it all.

The Environmental Movement’s Struggles with Race Issues

• The National Toxics Campaign: Some Reflections, Thoughts for the Movement
• The Student Environmental Action Coalition‘s crisis in the mid-1990s
  • SEAC in Crisis: Just What’s Going on Here?
  • Student Environmentalists Learn Hard Lessons
• Historic Letters from the Environmental Justice movement to EPA and major environmental groups:
  • Gulf Coast Leadership Development Project letter
  • March 1990: Southwest Organizing Project letter to Big 10 environmental groups
    • The Group of 10 respond
    • The Shot Heard Round the West (article on the letter and response)
  • May 1990: Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice letter to Greenpeace and other allies
  • July 1991: Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice letter to U.S. EPA, charging EPA with racism
  • Indigenous organizations letter to World Wildlife Fund and other mainstream environmental groups (Buzzworm Magazine)

U.S. Environmental Justice Law and Policy

• Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
• Legal Tools for Environmental Equity vs. Environmental Justice (original of 2012 law journal article reviewing EJ legal history and equity vs. justice approaches)
• Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations (11 February 1994)
• Not In My Backyard: Executive Order 12,898 and Title VI as Tools For Achieving Environmental Justice (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Oct 2003)
• Memorandum of Understanding on
  Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898 (2011)
  
• Council on Environmental Quality’s Environmental Justice Guidance
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

  • Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide In Environmental Law (1992 investigation in the National Law Journal that documents unequal enforcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
  • EPA Office of Environmental Justice
  • EPA Environmental Justice blog
• EPA and Enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
  Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requires that federal agencies and recipients of federal funds may not act in ways that create a discriminatory impact. Since the 2001 Alexander v. Sandoval U.S. Supreme Court decision, private individuals and groups may no longer sue recipients of federal funds (like state agencies that give operating permits to polluting industries) for discrimination unless they can prove that the discrimination was intentional — contrary to what most federal courts have held up to that point. Since that decision, the only recourse is to file a Title VI complaint to EPA’s Office of Civil Rights. EPA has a dismal record of responding to these complaints and has only ruled on the merits of two complaints to date. Both of these rulings failed to protect against discrimination and set very negative precedents.
  • Environmental Justice, Denied: Environmental racism persists, and the EPA is one reason why (2015 report by Center for Public Integrity on EPA’s failure to handle Title VI complaints)
  • The EPA Denies Civil Rights Protection for Communities of Color (Title VI factsheet)
  • List of Title VI complaints filed and their status, as of July 15, 2011
  • 2011 decision: Angelita C. v. California Department of Pesticide Regulation
    • EPA Fails to Enforce Civil Rights Act: Secret Methyl Bromide Back-Room Deal Disregards Latino Children’s Rights (8/25/2011 press release by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment)
    • Settlement Agreement between U.S. EPA and California Department of Pesticide Regulation (8/24/2011)
    • Preliminary Finding of EPA’s Office of Civil Rights (4/22/2011)
    • 1999 Title VI complaint (6/30/1999)

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