Since the inauguration of Biden’s administration in January 2021, environmental justice (EJ) has become one of the forefront policies of the Administration. In Biden’s January 20, 2021 executive order, he emphasized the Administration “must advance environmental justice.” Subsequently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) acted. On April 7, 2021, U.S. EPA issued a directive directing all regions and staff to clearly integrate EJ into their plans and actions.
According to U.S. EPA, EJ is to seek “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”
EJSCREEN
To have a practical way to evaluate EJ, U.S. EPA has developed a screening and mapping tool called EJSCREEN. According to U.S. EPA, EJSCREEN is to aid in efforts to ensure programs, policies and resources are appropriately inclusive and consider the needs of communities most burdened by pollution. EJSCREEN is free for everyone. It uses a concept of EJ Index, which is an indicator including demographic and environmental information for any geographic area, to identify possible concern (represented by percentiles) by comparing the community of interest to state and national data.
Overall, EJSCREEN provides 11 major indicators such as National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) air toxics cancer risk, ozone and particulate matter (PM). Among these indicators, nine of them are either directly or indirectly relate to air pollution. As a result, U.S. EPA and the legislative body have focused heavily on air related EJ issues, particularly for air permitting.
EJ and Air Permitting
Historically, U.S. EPA has promoted public involvement by overburdened communities in permitting process, especially for major permitting activities such as Title V and prevention of significant deterioration (PSD).
In March 2021, a draft legislation, CLEAN Future Act (H.R. Bill 1512), was introduced to the U.S. House of Representative. Some of the proposed provisions are strongly tied to EJ for air permitting. For example, if an area has an annual mean PM2.5 concentration greater than a certain level, no permitting of major sources in that area would be allowed, and no permit could be renewed after January 2025.
State agencies have also moved towards integrating EJ into rules and regulations governing the air permitting process. For example, New Jersey proposed rulemaking for EJ in June 2021. One of the proposed rules is to impose binding permit conditions for a Title V air permit if a disproportionate impact exists for an overburdened community.
Stakeholders
Environmental professionals should closely follow the steps that federal and state regulators are taking regarding EJ in air permitting. More importantly, industries need to be proactive to learn the surrounding neighborhoods and evaluate any EJ issues so that they can plan ahead for any potential risks relating to air permitting processes.
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