Implementation Woes. Are Agencies Ready for Environmental Justice?

• Author: Lisa Benjamin
• Position: Assistant professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School
• Pages: 6-7

6 | THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, November/December 2021.

Copyright © 2021, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Environmental justice is back

on the political agenda. En-

vironmental injustice, unfor-

tunately, never went away.

e Biden administration has made

EJ a priority, but the responsibility

for implementing political directives

will fall primarily on federal agencies.

Some progress has already been made

on that front, particularly in relation

to appointments, signicantly with a

number of people of color heading

and working in many agencies.

But the work to advance environ-

mental justice within agen-

cies requires more in-depth

assessment and potential

institutional reform. While

this administration’s early

activity has fostered numer-

ous articles and analyses,

few have taken a look at the

ongoing ght to foster EJ

within government agen-

cies themselves. Jill Lindsey

Harrison’s new book From

the Inside Out: e Fight for

Environmental Justice Within

Government Agencies does

just that.

An associate professor of sociology

at the University of Colorado Boul-

der, Harrison spent eight years inter-

viewing and observing current and

former representatives from a variety

of federal and state agencies that work

on environmental justice initiatives.

ese include EPA (headquarters,

eight regional oces, and satellite of-

ces), the federal Department of Jus-

tice and Department of the Interior,

California EPA, Colorado Depart-

ment of Public Health and Environ-

ment, and Oregon Department of

Environmental Quality.

Professor Harrison’s work illus-

trates how agency dynamics can fun-

damentally undermine environmen-

tal justice policies, including their

implementation.

My students often ask me why —

so many decades after the Clinton ad-

ministration issued Executive Order

12898 in 1994 and many (many!)

strategy and policy documents on en-

vironmental justice later — there has

been such a lack of progress. We as-

sess case after case where cumulative

impacts are not taken into account,

and the particular vulnerabilities of

environmental justice communities

are overlooked by federal and state

agencies. To answer their overarch-

ing query, I articulate for them what

Jill Harrison calls the “standard nar-

rative”: lack of regulatory authority,

limited resources at federal agencies

to incorporate EJ needs, and the lack

of analytical tools to identify at-risk

communities. Harrison’s book eshes

out these deciencies in detail, em-

phasizing that these are existing, and

very real, constraints to EJ policy

implementation within government

agencies.

Yet these explanations often feel in-

complete. Harrison’s book completes

the picture for us. While she accepts

that these standard narrative de-

ciencies present very real barriers, the

spectacular lack of progress on these

issues points to the fact that, as Har-

rison notes, “Something else is going

on.” Her work provides clear examples

of career professionals within federal

agencies who struggle to understand

and prioritize environmental justice.

Based on interviews with agency sta

(including EJ sta) and observations

of agency meetings between 2011

and 2019, the book provides an inter-

nal picture of organizational inertia,

and even resistance, to EJ initiatives

within government agencies. While at

times painful to read, her ndings are

important to confront and address.

Harrison divides these internal

obstacles into several categories. e

rst includes strategies that agency

sta, including management, use to

undermine environmen-

tal justice. For example, in

the infamously ineective

oce at EPA that handles

Title VI complaints, Harri-

son notes that past manage-

ment directed sta to use

any administrative grounds

possible to reject Title VI

lings. In addition, none of

the sta at the oce had any

interest or experience in civil

rights law, and some were

assigned to the oce after

having done poorly within

other jobs at EPA.

e second category concerns

sta narratives used to undermine

environmental justice. A widespread

example of this is EPA sta who feel

“we do ecology, not sociology.” ese

narratives involve claims of agency

neutrality, but also discomfort at be-

ing required to incorporate EJ into

their work, as it is often perceived as

peripheral to agency mandates and

sta expertise.

It is not all benign neglect. Harri-

son documents that some agency sta

feel that prioritizing communities of

color constitutes reverse racism, and

use colorblind and post-racial narra-

tives to reject EJ reforms. Some sta

Implementation Woes

Are Agencies Ready for Environmental Justice?

By Lisa Benjamin

In the Literature

From the Inside

Out: The Fight for

Environmental Justice

Within Government

Agencies. By Jill Lindsey

Harrison; The MIT Press;

$35.00.