Environmental injustice and covid-19: addressing the link between pandemics and pollution in racial and ethnic minority communities under the clean air act

• Pages: 113-154
• Date: 01 October 2022
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Eric V. Hull
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

Environmental Injustice and COVID-19:

Addressing the Link Between Pandemics and

Pollution in Racial and Ethnic Minority

Communities Under the Clean Air Act

ERIC V. HULL*

“Our responsibilities are to protect the health and environment of all

Americans, including those historically marginalized, overburdened, under-

served, and living with the legacy of structural racism.”

1

E-mail from Michael S. Regan, EPA Administrator, to EPA Employees (Apr. 7, 2021), https://

perma.cc/TZ6G-LUHF.

ABSTRACT

There are direct links between climate change, air pollution, and the spread

and severity of respiratory pandemics. Individuals suffering from existing co-

morbidities associated with short-term and chronic exposure to harmful air pol-

lutants face elevated risks for respiratory pathogens. The novel coronavirus

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has spread throughout the world, but it has dispa-

rately impacted racial and ethnic communities exposed to elevated levels of air

pollution.

Because climatic changes will worsen air quality, racial and ethnic commun-

ities that already suffer socioeconomic and health inequities face increasing

health risks as climate change progresses. In its current form, the Clean Air Act

is poorly suited to regulate the impacts of pollution on communities living clos-

est to industrial facilities, major roadways, and other sources of pollution.

Amending the Clean Air Act and developing policies to address near-source

pollution can simultaneously address climate change while promoting environ-

mental justice and health equity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

I. Regulating Harmful Emissions Under the Clean Air Act . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

* Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law. © 2023, Eric V.

Hull. The Author would like to thank Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law and

Dean Beto Jua

´rez, Professor Olympia Duhart, Professor Helia Hull, Professor Eang Ngov, and Professor

Daniel O’Gorman for their valuable editorial comments.

1.

113

A. NAAQS: Controlling Criteria Pollutants Under the CAA . . . . . . . . 117

B. Controlling Mobile Source Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

C. Control of Stationary Source Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

1. Control of Hazardous Air Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

2. New Source Performance Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

II. Inequitable Health Risks from Air Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

A. Particulate Matter (PM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

B. Nitrogen Dioxide (NO

2

) ............................... . 126

C. Ground-Level Ozone (O

3

) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

D. VOCs and Other Air Toxics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

III. Air Pollution and Respiratory Pandemics: The Impacts of Co-Morbidities

and Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

A. The Link Between Air Pollution and COVID-19 Outcomes . . . . . . 129

B. Climate Change and Air Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

IV. Environmental Justice and the Inequitable Distribution of Environmental

Harms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

A. The Lingering Impacts of Inequitable Siting of Industrial Facilities 137

B. The Lingering Impacts of Inequitable Siting of Highways and Major

Roadways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

C. The Lingering Impacts of Racial Zoning, Redlining, and Public

Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

1. Discriminatory Zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

2. Redlining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

3. Public Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

V. Recommendations to Address Environmental Injustice and to Promote

Health Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

A. Amend the CAA to Address Localized Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

B. Expand Community Use of Hyperlocal Air Quality Monitoring . . . 151

C. Utilize Green Infrastructure to Address Roadway and Heat Island

Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

INTRODUCTION

Pollution affects everyone, but numerous studies have concluded that the bur-

dens of pollution in society are not equitably distributed.

2

See, e.g., U.S. GEN. ACCT. OFF., GAO/RCED-83-166, SITING OF HAZARDOUS WASTE LANDFILLS

AND THEIR CORRELATION WITH RACIAL AND ECONOMIC STATUS OF SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES 1

(1983), https://perma.cc/4J8L-K294; Douglas L. Anderton et al., Environmental Equity, The

Demographics of Dumping, 31 DEMOGRAPHY 229, 229 (1994); UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST JUSTICE AND

WITNESS MINISTRIES, TOXIC WASTE AND RACE AT TWENTY 1987-2007: GRASSROOTS STRUGGLES TO

DISMANTLE ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM IN THE UNITED STATES 45 (March 2007) [hereinafter UCC, Toxic

Waste] available at https://perma.cc/362T-MYTJ.

Regardless of the spe-

cif‌ic cause, throughout the country, racial and ethnic minorities continue to live

2.

114 THE GEORGETOWN ENVTL. LAW REVIEW [Vol. 35:113

on the frontlines of chemical exposure.

3

Whether by conscious design, institu-

tional neglect, or other factors, these communities have been forced to host heav-

ily polluting facilities that other communities reject. In some areas, multiple

industrial facilities are sited within the same community.

4

For example, the community of Altgeld Gardens in Chicago is surrounded by 50 landf‌ills and 382

industrial facilities. EPA, Environmental Justice Atlas: Chicago’s Toxic Doughnut, USA, https://perma.

cc/LQ38-NWBR (last updated May 7, 2015).

In other areas, historic

state and national transportation policies routed major highways and roadways

through low-income communities of color that continue to suffer from elevated

exposure to harmful vehicle emissions.

5

These areas, colloquially referred to as

“fenceline communities,” “hot spots,” or “sacrif‌ice zones,” expose vulnerable

individuals to harmful air pollutants in quantities that may far exceed levels

deemed safe for human health.

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID-19”) has impacted the entire

world, but it has disparately impacted racial and ethnic minority communities

whose members already suffer from respiratory co-morbidities associated with

short-term and chronic exposure to harmful air pollutants.

6

Health Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups, CDC (July 1, 2022),

https://perma.cc/TBP8-RPW9; CDC, Risk of Exposure to COVID-19: Racial and Ethnic Health

Disparities, (Dec. 10, 2020), https://perma.cc/GTW4-EQ38.

Members of these

communities often lack adequate access to healthcare, encounter language barriers,

and live in substandard public housing complexes that place them at increased risk

of contracting respiratory diseases such as COVID-19.

7

Risk of Exposure to COVID-19: Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, CDC (Dec. 10, 2020),

https://perma.cc/GTW4-EQ38.

The risks of harm from air pollution exposure increase as the ambient tempera-

ture increases.

8

Changes in temperature, humidity, precipitation, and other mete-

orological factors will alter the concentration and broaden the distribution of air

pollutants in ways that increase health risks.

9

EPA, CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES 20 (Sept. 2021),

https://perma.cc/QY6X-UT2N.

Prolonged exposure to extreme heat

can also exacerbate preexisting chronic conditions, including respiratory and

3. In his book “Sacrif‌ice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States,”

researcher Steve Learner provides case studies on a dozen environmental justice communities scattered

throughout the United States. He opined: “What the residents prof‌iled here have in common is that they

all live on the frontlines of toxic chemical exposure in the United States. They inhabit low-income

‘sacrif‌ice zones’ where hundreds of thousands of residents are exposed to disproportionately elevated

levels of hazardous chemicals. They reside in semi-industrial areas largely populated by African

Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, and low-income whites where a dangerous and sometimes

lethal brand of racial and economic discrimination persists.” See STEVE LERNER, SACRIFICE ZONES: THE

FRONT LINES OF TOXIC CHEMICAL EXPOSURE IN THE UNITED STATES 2 (2012).

4.

5. Deborah N. Archer, Transportation Policy and the Underdevelopment of Black Communities, 106

IOWA L. REV. 2125, 2132-33 (2021).

6.

7.

8. See e.g., Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou et al., PM2.5 and Mortality in 207 US Cities:

Modif‌ication by Temperature and City Characteristics, 27 EPIDEMIOLOGY 221, 226 (2016).

9.

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