Fulfilling the Executive Order, Once and For All

• Author: Vernice Miller-Travis
• Position: Vice Chair at the Maryland Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities and the principal at Miller-Travis & Associates
• Pages: 51-51

MARCH/APRIL 2011 ❧ Page 51

Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, March/April 2011

Th e fo r u m

Fulf‌illing the

Executive Order,

Once and For All

V M-T

T he Obama administration,

particularly EPA Admin-

istrator Lisa Jackson and

Chair of the White House

Council on Environmental

Quality Nancy Sutley, have created

a climate in which environmental

justice issues as a matter of public

policy are being given unprecedented

attention at the highest levels of our

government.

ough President Clinton issued

Executive Order 12898, “Federal Ac-

tions to Address Environmental Jus-

tice in Minority Populations and Low-

Income Populations,” some 17 years

ago, the letter and spirit of the execu-

tive order have not been fulf‌illed. EO

12898 ordered each federal agency to

“make achieving environmental justice

part of its mission by identifying and

addressing, as appropriate, dispro-

portionately high and adverse human

health or environmental ef‌fects of its

programs, policies, and activities on

minority populations and low-income

populations in the United States.”

In our (Veronica Eady Famira,

Vernice Miller-Travis, Daria Neal)

recently released report “Now is the

Time: Environmental Injustice in

the U.S. and Recommendations for

Eliminating Disparities,” written on

behalf of the Lawyer’s Committee for

Civil Rights Under Law, we note that

while the Clinton administration laid

the foundation for federal environ-

mental justice policy, it did not always

follow through on its commitment to

environmental justice or utilize exist-

ing laws to achieve the goals of the

historic executive order. Worse yet the

Bush administration neglected envi-

ronmental justice altogether, weaken-

ing existing rules and failing to enforce

environmental and civil rights laws.

Draft Plan EJ 2014, EPA’s Interim

Guidance on Considering Environ-

mental Justice During the Develop-

ment of an Action, and planned guid-

ance on integrating environmental

justice into permitting are the Obama

administration’s attempts to codify

and fulf‌ill the stated purpose of EO

12898 once and for all, providing cer-

tainty for af‌fected communities, state

regulators, and the regulated com-

munity — something we have all be

longing for.

For example, the goal of integrating

environmental justice concerns into

agency rulemakings and undertaking

environmental justice impact analyses

of rules are two hugely signif‌icant

advancements. ere have been some

concerns raised by the private sec-

tor and states that EPA’s ef‌forts in

this realm are creating an unfair op-

portunity for environmental justice

advocates to weigh in on agency

rulemakings, while they are not being

given similar opportunities. EPA is

not creating an uneven playing f‌ield,

quite the contrary; it is working hard

to ensure that the perspective of this

constituency is heard on the record,

and considered in the f‌inal rulemaking

process.

Private sector interests all have the

same opportunities for input and take

vigorous advantage of them. ey

meet with EPA rule writers frequently

during the pre-proposal period to

share their views and concerns on

draft rules. ey have legal counsel

whom they hire to advance their inter-

ests in the rule drafting process. ey

also have advocacy organizations like

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the

American Chemistry Council, and

the American Petroleum Institute (to

name three out of dozens of entities),

who work in concert with private

sector companies to encourage EPA

and the Of‌f‌ice of Management and

Budget to draft and promulgate rules

that comport with their business inter-

ests. ey also employ dozens of paid

lobbyists who meet with members of

Congress and their staf‌fs to persuade

them to draft or amend environmen-

tal laws and statutes that comport

with their intrinsic interests.

Environmental justice advocates

and low-income and tribal com-

munities have no such tools at their

disposal. Recognizing the inequity of

resources and access, EPA is making

every ef‌fort to create public processes

that encourage environmental justice

communities and advocates to be

informed of the various rulemakings,

hear from agency staf‌f about the in-

tent and purpose of the various rules,

and have an opportunity to express

their concerns about the draft rules to

the agency.

To this end EPA has been hosting

public teleconferences and webinars

to inform environmental justice com-

munities of the draft rules, understand

the complexity of the rules, and tell

the agency what they think. In at least

two instances that I’m aware of during

the summer of 2010, public telecon-

ferences hosted by EPA’s Of‌f‌ice of Air

Quality Pollution Standards on draft

air rules targeted at environmental jus-

tice constituencies saw the majority of

opinions and questions expressed dur-

ing these particular calls coming from

private sector and state agency staf‌f.

It is my fervent hope that the regu-

lated community, state agencies, local

governments, and the environmental

justice community can f‌ind middle

ground. at we can work together,

and with EPA and other federal agen-

cies, to make real the constitutional

guarantee of equal protection before

the law for all. is goal can be signif‌i-

cantly advanced by the various ef‌forts

underway now and articulated in Plan

EJ 2014 and its many components.

Now is the time to make real EPA’s

mandate to protect human health and

the environment in every community,

on every reservation, in every holler,

colonia, and barrio. Seventeen years

is far too long to have waited for fair

treatment and consideration.

Vernice Miller-Travis is Vice Chair at the

Maryland Commission on Environmental Jus-

tice and Sustainable Communities and the

principal at Miller-Travis & Associates.