Interior Now Has a Bold EJ Mandate

• Author: Monique Harden
• Position: Assistant Director, Law and Public Policy Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
• Pages: 47-47

MAY/JUNE 2021 | 47

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2021.

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

Sidebar

SI DE BAR

Ten days after she was con-





person to lead the Department

of the Interior, wasted no time in

convening the Public Forum on

the Federal Oil and Gas Program

on March 25. The new secretary

opened the event with an envi-

ronmental justice perspective,

focusing on “the communities who

live with legacies of pollution” and

“future generations.”

Environmental justice is a hu-

man rights demand to live, work,

play, learn, and pray in a healthy

and safe environment. It is a move-

ment led by Black, Indigenous,



Islander communities, who are

disproportionately harmed by pol-

lution and more vulnerable to the

climate crisis. The placement of

oil and gas industries, along with

their derivative plastics and pesti-

cides manufacturing enterprises, in

communities of color drives envi-

ronmental racism with dire conse-

quences for residents.

Case in point: over one million

Black people live within a half mile

of at least one oil or gas facility

and in areas where pollution from

facilities exceeds EPA’s cancer

risk guidelines. This impact, along

with other racially disproportion-

ate pollution burdens not only in

the United States but around the

world, have metastasized into the

climate crisis — which affects com-

munities of color and poor neigh-

borhoods more than others.

Advocates for environmental

justice are demanding a morato-

rium on governmental approvals

of polluting industries. President

Biden’s Executive Order 14008,

“Tackling the Climate Crisis at

Home and Abroad,” moves in this

direction by halting new oil and

gas leases on public lands and in

offshore waters. Section 208 of

the EO provides a mandate for

Secretary Haaland to conduct

“a comprehensive review and

reconsideration” of oil and gas

leases that involves a survey of

their “potential climate and other

impacts.” The new secretary is

further empowered to consider

adjusting coal, oil and gas royal-

ties or taking other action “to

account for corresponding climate

costs.” Importantly, as provided in

Section 207 of the EO, Haaland’s

work includes advancing renew-

able energy on public lands and in

offshore waters.

Sections 207 and 208 of EO

14008 expand on Section 4 of EO

13990, “Protecting Public Health

and the Environment and Restor-

ing Science to Tackle the Climate

Crisis,” which President Biden

signed on Inauguration Day. Sec-

tion 4 directs the secretary of the

interior to establish a temporary

moratorium on oil and gas leases

in the Arctic National Wildlife Ref-

uge, countering the move of the

prior administration.

Of all the cabinet secretaries



Biden gives the boldest mandate

to Secretary Haaland. In EO

14008, the Department of the

Interior has a charge that goes be-

yond the mandate of the Council

on Environmental Quality, which

is to map environmental injustice.

It also exceeds the directives to

the Department of Justice and the

Environmental Protection Agency,

which together are merely to en-

force environmental laws. These

laws take effect after the oil and

gas wells are drilled. They are de-

signed to permit pollution to the

exclusion of the health protections

demanded by environmental jus-

tice communities.

Haaland’s implementation of

EOs 13990 and 14008 will institute

a new regime for decisionmak-

ing. Together, the two executive

orders as applied to the Interior

Department mean the end of the

business-as-usual for oil and gas

leases.

The secretary is now empow-

ered to account for the real-world

impacts of oil and gas operations



other communities of color and

increasingly warm our planet. Her

mandate has the potential to stop

the perpetuation of environmental

racism, particularly in the face of

the ever-growing climate crisis.

Realizing this potential would help

to deliver environmental justice in

communities living with legacies of

pollution and secure a future for

generations to come.

Interior Now Has a Bold EJ Mandate

“Secretary Deb Haaland is now

empowered to account for the

real-world impacts of oil and gas

operations that signicantly harm

Black and other communities of

color and increasingly warm our

planet”

Monique Harden

Assistant Director, Law and Public Policy

Deep South Center for

Environmental Justice