The State of Environmental Justice: An Obama Administration Retrospective

• Date: 01 May 2017

5-2017 NEWS & ANALYSIS 47 ELR 10385

D I A L O G U E

The State of Environmental

Justice: An Obama

Administration Retrospective

Summary

Environmental justice has ocially been a federal pri-

ority since 1994, when President Bill Clinton signed

Executive Order No. 12898 directing federal agencies

to include consideration of health and environmen-

tal conditions in minority, tribal, and low-income

communities into agency decisionmaking. In Presi-

dent Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, he promised

to strengthen the EPA Oce of Environmental Jus-

tice, expand the environmental justice small grants

program, and empower minority communities to

respond to health threats. In 2011, the Federal Inter-

agency Working Group on Environmental Justice

signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Envi-

ronmental Justice and Executive Order No. 12898,

and in May 2016, EPA released its EJ 2020 Action

Agenda. However, signicant challenges remain, as

shown by high-prole incidents such as the Flint water

crisis. On December 1, 2016, ELI hosted a panel of

experts to look at the Obama Administration’s legac y

on environmental justice and discuss opportunities

for t he future. Below we present a transcript of the

discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity,

and space considerations.

Benjamin Wilson (moderator) is Managing Principal of

Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.

Barry Hill is a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental L aw

Institute, and formerly Senior Counsel for Environmental

Governance of the Oce of International and Tribal A airs

at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Quentin Pair was a Senior Trial Attorney at the U.S.

Department of Justice’s Environmental and Natural

Resources Division (ret.), and is an adjunct professor at

Howard University.

Suzi Ruhl is a Senior Attorney Advisor at the EPA’s Oce

of Environmental Justice, and Co-Chair of the NEPA

Committee and the Rural Communities Engagement

Committee of the Federal Interagency Working Group on

Environmental Justice (IWG).

Benjamin Wilson: ank you to ELI for organizing this

program, and to all attendees. We have eight or nine ques-

tions that we want to ask of our panelists, and certainly on

an issue like our topic there are far more than eight or nine

questions that one could ask.

We’re going to start with a prett y fundamental ques-

tion, which is how one would dene environmental justice

(EJ) and how do we legally dene EJ?

Barry Hil l: EPA denes EJ as the fair treatment and

meaningful involvement of all people and of all communi-

ties. But that’s the legal denition, if you wi ll. e prac-

tical denition is that no community should be exposed

disproportionately to environmental harms and risks. It’s

the responsibility of the agencies and it’s the responsibility

of government; it’s the responsibility of the private sector,

as well as communities, to try to make sure that it’s not

going to be “equal distribution”—we’re talking about “fair

distribution.” at’s one way of dening it or looking at it

from a practical matter.

Suzi Ruhl: Building on what Ba rry said, as the histori-

cal denition has carried us forward, I think one of the

major accomplishments of this [Obama] Administration

is moving that denition into more meaningful practice.

I like to think of the denition as a concept over time in

a trajectory. Key points for moving for ward include the

recognition that while EJ is absolutely about reducing and

minimizing the risk of exposure to pollution and those bad

impacts, it’s also about equal access to the good, to services

and amenities. Under the Oba ma Administration, we’ve

really seen that progress. e lack of access to those ame-

nities, whether it’s drink ing water or health care, is also a

disproportionate environmental impact.

Quent in Pair: Basic ally, I agree with Barr y. I would

just twea k it a bit in s aying —and ask if anybody on

the pa nel agrees with me —that there’s really not a legal

denition of EJ. ere i s no EJ law, wh ich ma ny p eo-

ple don’t reali ze. ere’s E xecutive Order No. 12898,1

signed by then-Pre sident Clinton on Februar y 11, 1994.

A presidentia l Executive Order means simply that it’s

instruction from t he president on how he wants those

1. Exec. Order No. 12898, 59 Fed. Reg. 7629 (Feb. 11, 1994).

Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.