Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the Origin of Environmental Justice at EPA?
Early in 1990, the Congressional Black Caucus, a bi-partisan coalition of academicians, social scientists and political activists met with EPA officials to discuss their findings that EPA was unfairly applying its enforcement inspections and that environmental risk was higher in racial minority and low-income populations. In response, the EPA Administrator created the Environmental Equity Workgroup in July 1990 to address the allegation that "racial minority and low-income populations bear a higher environmental risk burden than the general population."

The Workgroup produced a final report "Reducing Risk in All Communities" Volumes I and II in June 1992 which supported the allegation and made ten recommendations for addressing the problem. One of the recommendations was to create an office to address these inequities. The Office of Environmental Equity was established November 6, 1992. The name was changed to Office of Environmental Justice in 1994.

Since the Office was created there have been significant efforts across EPA to integrate environmental justice into how the Agency conducts its day-to-day operations. Information on these activities can be found throughout the Agency. Every Headquarters Office and Region has an environmental justice coordinator to serve as a focal point within the organization. This network of individuals plays a key role in outreach and education to external as well as internal individuals and organizations. Many questions are received concerning environmental justice and some of the more frequently asked questions seemed a good way to explain what EPA has done and plans to do in the future. Return to FAQs

2. How Does EPA Define Environmental Justice?
Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, culture, education, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair Treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal environmental programs. and policies. Meaningful Involvement means that: (1) potentially affected community residents have an appropriate opportunity to participate in decisions about a proposed activity that will affect their environment and/or health; (2) the public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision; (3) the concerns of all participants involved will be considered in the decision-making process; and (4) the decision-makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially affected. Return to FAQs

3. How Did the Environmental Justice Movement Arise?
The environmental justice movement was started by people, primarily people of color, who needed to address the inequity of environmental protection services in their communities. Grounded in the struggles of the 1960's civil rights movement, these citizens from every facet of life, emerged to elucidate the environmental inequities facing millions of people. These communities rose to articulate and to sound the alarm about the public health dangers which posed an immediate danger to the lives of their families, their communities and themselves. Return to FAQs

4. What information did EPA rely upon to determine that environmental injustice exists?
In response to a variety of concerns raised by EPA staff and the public (the Michigan Coalition, Congressional Black Caucus, and others), the EPA Administrator William Reilly formed the EPA Environmental Equity Workgroup in 1990 with staff from all EPA offices and regions across the Agency. The Workgroup was directed to assess the evidence that racial minority and low-income communities bear higher environmental risk burden that the general population, and consider what EPA might to about any identified disparities. The report entitled Environmental Equity: Reducing Risk in All Communities reviewed data that existed on the distribution of environmental exposures and risks across population groups and summarized a review of EPA programs with respect to racial minority and low-income populations. The Workgroup reported several major findings indicating the existence of environmental injustice and made a number of recommendations to the Agency including the prioritization of environmental equity. Return to FAQs

5. Why did EPA undertake environmental justice as a guiding principle?
Because of the Agency's strong belief that all Americans regardless of race, color, national origin, or economic circumstance are important to the future of our nation and should be able to live in a clean, healthy environment, EPA Administrator Riley established the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992; Administrator Browner made environmental justice one of EPA's highest priorities and established environmental justice as one of the seven guiding principles in the Agency's strategic plan in 1993. In an Agency-wide meeting, she stated that "many people of color, low-income and Native American communities have raised concerns that they suffer a disproportionate burden of health consequences due to the siting of industrial plants and waste dumps, and from exposure to pesticides or other toxic chemicals at home and on the job ... EPA is committed to addressing these concerns and is assuming a leadership role in environmental justice to enhance environmental quality for all residents of the United States." In 2001 Administrator Whitman recommitted the Agency to "integrating environmental justice into all Agency programs" in her August 9 memorandum. Subsequently she established a reporting requirement to provide documentation of environmental justice activities. Return to FAQs

6. What is Executive Order 12898 "Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations"?
The Executive Order was signed by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1994, to focus federal attention on the environmental and human health conditions of minority and low-income populations with the goal of achieving environmental protection for all communities. The Order directed federal agencies to develop environmental justice strategies to aid federal agencies identify and address disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of their programs, policies, and activities on minority and low-income populations. The Order is also intended to promote nondiscrimination in federal programs substantially affecting human health and the environment, and to provide minority and low-income communities access to public information on, and an opportunity for public participation in, matters relating to human health or the environment. The Presidential Memorandum accompanying the Order underscores certain provisions of existing law that can help ensure that all communities and persons across this nation live in a safe and healthful environment. Return to FAQs

7. What is the Interagency Working Group?
One of the provisions of the Executive Order established an Interagency Working Group (IWG) on environmental justice chaired by the EPA Administrator and comprised of the heads of eleven departments/agencies and several White House offices. These include the EPA, the Departments of Justice, Defense, Energy, Labor, Interior, Transportation, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, and Health and Human Services, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Council of Economic Advisors. The IWG meets on a monthly basis to continue the collaborative projects. Fifteen demonstration projects have been selected which depict this with additional projects to be selected each year. Return to FAQs

8. Why was the Office of Environmental Justice established?
EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992 in response to public concern and at the recommendation of the Environmental Equity Workgroup. The Office oversees the integration of environmental justice into EPA's policies, programs, and activities throughout the Agency; serves as the point of contact for environmental justice outreach and educational activities; provides technical and financial assistance. The Office also
serves as the lead on the Interagency Working Group of other federal agencies to incorporate environmental justice into all federal programs. Return to FAQs

9. What strategy has EPA formulated to address environmental justice issues?
EPA began developing a strategy to address environmental justice concerns prior to the signing of the Executive Order. The final document, Environmental Justice Strategy: Executive Order 12898, is consistent with the Executive Order and ensures the integration of environmental justice into the Agency's programs, policies, and activities. The strategy contains five major areas with include: 1) Public Participation and Accountability, Partnerships, Outreach, and Communication with Stakeholders; 2) Health and Environmental Research; 3) Data Collection, Analysis, and Stakeholder Access to Public Information; 4) American Indian and Indigenous Environmental Protection; and 5) Enforcement, Compliance Assurance, and Regulatory Reviews. Return to FAQs

10. How are environmental justice strategies being implemented at EPA?
Implementing environmental justice programs at EPA has required modifying the Agency's approach to include educating its officials to recognize that certain populations who are disproportionately impacted by environmental pollution are excluded from the decision and policy making process. EPA's implementation of environmental justice programs includes securing the commitment of senior management; environmental justice guidance for all staff; environmental justice training within the Agency; a cross-media team approach; coordination with states, Indian tribes, industry, and all stakeholders; devotion of resources to program implementation, systematic review and integration of environmental justice priorities into activities, establishment of pilot projects; and development of measurement tools for accountability. Return to FAQs

11. What programs exist to educate individuals and communities about environmental justice issues?
For several years, EPA has sponsored an internship program with the express desire to encourage students to pursue an environmental career. The internships, which are limited to six months of duration, formalize training and provide "hands-on" experience for students. Students must be registered at a university to participate. In addition to the internship program, the Small Grants Program is available to increase address local problems, raise environmental awareness, expand outreach, and provide training and education. More information about these programs can be found on the environmental justice web page. Return to FAQs

12. What are the Environmental Justice Executive Steering Committee and Environmental Justice Coordinators Council?
In 1994, the Agency implemented a new organizational infrastructure to integrate environmental justice into EPA's policies, programs, and activities. This new organization created these groups to work in conjunction with the office of Environmental Justice. The Environmental Justice Executive Steering Committee is made up of senior managers representing each of the Headquarters offices and representatives from the regions. It provides leadership and direction on strategic planning, cross-media policy development, and ensures that coordination is implemented at all levels to ensure that environmental justice is incorporated into Agency operations. The Environmental Justice Coordinators are the front-line staff specifically responsible to ensure policy input, program development, and implementation at regional and headquarters offices. They are the first contact with the public. A list of individuals to contact for help in specific EPA offices/regions can be found on the contact page. Return to FAQs

13. How Does EPA Receive Information From the Public?
To ensure that EPA was obtaining adequate stakeholder advice as it implemented a national environmental justice program, the Agency chartered the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) in 1993. The Council which is governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act provides independent advice to EPA on all matters relating to environmental justice. It consists of 25 members appointed from stakeholder groups including community-based organizations; business and industry; academic and educational institutions; state and local government agencies; tribal government and community groups; non-governmental organizations and environmental groups. In addition to the Executive Council of 25, the NEJAC additional members t o serve on the seven subcommittees. Six subcommittees are organized around themes to help develop strategic options for EPA. The subcommittees are: 1) Waste and Facility Siting, 2) Enforcement, 3) Health and Research, 4)Air and Water , 5) Indigenous Peoples, and 6) International. The seventh subcommittee serves to address specific issues unique to Puerto Rico and only meets in Puerto Rico. Each subcommittee is managed by a Designated Federal Officer. To find out more information about the NEJAC visit the web site. http://www.epa.gov/oeca/oej Return to FAQs

14. What Tools Are Available?
The National Environmental Justice Program Office is developing a National Environmental Justice Handbook to provide an institutional framework for EPA of what environmental justice is, its history and principles and basic definitions. The Handbook among other things is intended to: (1)Develop one programmatic template for environmental justice programs across the agency; (2) Develop one consistent set of methodologies for assessing environmental justice problems; (3) Develop one set of basic commonly used definitions; (4) Identify outreach and participation strategies for key partners in the environmental justice mission, both internal and external to EPA; and 5) Provide a set of working protocols for integrating meaningful community involvement/public participation in the decision-making process. Return to FAQs

15. How Do We Empower the Public?
The Community Small Grants Program is a financial assistance program available to help communities; grassroots organizations, and other non-governmental organizations become knowledgeable about environmental justice. The primarily purpose is to assist community-based organizations that are working in developing solutions to local environmental issues. The Community Small Grants Program was established in 1994, and since then, more than 900 grants of up to $20,000 each have been awarded to community organizations. As a result of these grant awards, community-based organizations (i.e., grassroots groups, churches, and other nonprofit organizations) have expanded citizen involvement and given people the tools to learn more about exposure to environmental harms and risks, and consequently, to protect their families and their communities as they see fit. Some projects have included: (1) creating and implementing a community-based model for permanent solutions to polluted, abandoned land, in low-income neighborhoods by producing A Guide to Vacate Lots booklet; (2) educating migrant farmworkers about coliform contaminations; (3) developing activities which promote awareness of the dangers of lead-based paint and (4) protecting surface water and groundwater on Native American reservations by developing rational criteria for abandoned wells. Return to FAQs

16. How Will EPA Focus National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) Meetings in the Future?
The Agency is working to assure that the NEJAC provides meaningful recommendations which can directly impact national policies. In that regard, in 1999 the Agency asked the NEJAC to consider a focused approach to its meetings. The policy issues to be addressed are:

• This meeting focused on what factors should be considered by a federal agency, as well as state or local agencies with delegated permitting authority, in the decision making process prior to allowing a new facility to operate in a community that already may have a number of such facilities. Washington, D.C. - November 30-December 2, 1999

• This meeting focused on whether there is a direct correlation between the environment and the public health problems of the residents of communities that are inundated with pollution-generating facilities. Atlanta, Georgia, - May 16-18, 2000

• This meeting addressed whether the Federal government has succeeded in fully integrating environmental justice into its programs, operations, policies, and activities pursuant to Executive Order 12898. Washington, D.C. - October 24-26, 2000
• This meeting addressed whether water quality has an impact on environmental justice consideration where fish consumption is considered subsistence. Seattle, WA - December 3-6, 2001

• This meeting will explore the connection between pollution prevention techniques and environmental justice issues. Baltimore, MD December 9-12, 2002 Return to FAQs

17. How Does Someone Determine the Health and Demographic Data Around a Specific Location?
The National Environmental Justice Program Office is working with the Agency in making more information available to the public through the Envirofacts database. This will be done by including census data and health statistics along with the EPA data already available. Health data (such as county level mortality statistics) will be provided from federal sources where such data is collected. These are the National Center for Health Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control, the Agency for Toxic Standards and Disease Registry and other health departments and agencies. The EnviroJustice Mapper tool is available now. You may visit the web site for more information about this database. http://www.epa.gov/epahome/Data.html Return to FAQs

18. How Can You Work With Communities?
EPA's Regional Coordinators have suggested a number of communication techniques for working with all communities but especially low income and culturally diverse communities:

Listen to what is said;

Take the community seriously. If you hear from a community resident that there is a problem, listen and see if you can help;

Make use of facilitators when groups bring a problem to a local meeting;

Identify and work with informal networks;

Get out early and talk with your community members;

Work with the media cognizant of the specific community in which you are seeking information;

Recognize that culturally diverse citizens are frequently not members of national environmental organizations and may need to be contacted through other more local means;

Hold workshops with local community leaders;

Build bridges for long term planning changes;

Be sensitive to working with culturally diverse groups. Each culture sees the issue differently; and

Involve both four year and two year academic institutions near the community, especially the Tribal Colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), and institutions which serve Hispanic students and Asian students. Return to FAQs

19. What Is Your Role?

Learn about the community in which you are working. How familiar are you with its population? For example, are there people who don't speak English well, people who can't read, or people who are shut in? Will work schedules keep people from attending community meetings?

Did you know that 32 million (14 percent) of the people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home? For example in California, 0.6 million people speak Chinese and 5.5 million speak Spanish at home. Over 17 million (8 percent) of the people living in the U.S. speak Spanish at home.

Are announcements and information of special interest to non-English speakers, such as fish advisories and Superfund site fact sheets, available in the native language needed to reach the most impacted people? What is the requirement to reach the most impacted people? How diverse is the community?

Consider Age. Inter-generational equity means that younger or older generations should not bear a greater environmental burden. Children are especially vulnerable to harm from toxic substances and may be exposed through normal play. Is there a relatively high population of children in the community? Do children play outdoors where they may come in contact with contaminated soil and water?

Understand cultural diversity. Many cultural groups depend upon fishing to augment their diet either because of poverty or tradition. Of the 250 million Americans, 49 million (20 percent) are African American, American Indian, or Asian American; 22 million (9 percent) are Hispanic American.

Poverty severely limits options and opportunities. Low income groups cannot always move away from undesirable places, do not have adequate health care and may suffer more exposure to environmental hazards. Return to FAQs

20. What Are Some Examples of Environmental Problems?

Lead. Almost two-thirds of American housing units were built before 1970. Although the use of lead paint for houses was banned in the 1970's, older homes often contain paint with high concentrations of lead. Additional sources of lead in the home are: drinking water extracting lead from lead pipes and fixtures, lead in dust (usually from paint), and contaminated soils carried in from outside. The primary pathway for exposure is from ingestion of paint chips and dust containing lead. There is a particularly high concentration of lead problems in low-income and culturally diverse populations, who live in the inner city where the public housing units were built before 1970.

Waste Sites. Low income, and quite often culturally diverse populations, are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities.

Air Pollution. In 1990, 437 of the 3,109 counties and independent cities in the U.S. failed to meet at least one of EPA's ambient air quality standards. Many Americans live in these communities: 57 percent of all whites, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanics.

Pesticides. Approximately 90 percent of the 2 million hired farm workers in the United States are people of color, including Chicano, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean blacks and African Americans. Through direct exposure to pesticides, farm workers and their families may face serious health risks. It has been estimated that as many as 313,000 farm workers in the U.S. may suffer from pesticide-related illnesses each year.

Wastewater: City Sewers. Modern sewage systems were developed to carry sewage and storm water separately to prevent overflow problems that are common in older, urban areas. Many inner cities still have sewer systems that are not designed to handle storm overflow. As a result, raw sewage may be carried into local rivers and streams during storms, creating a health hazard.

Wastewater: Agricultural Runoff. More recently, streams and rivers in rural areas with concentrations of commercial truck farms and animal feedlots have suffered mysterious lesions in fish and algae blooms resulting in fish kills. High levels of phosphorus support algae growth, which blocks re-aeration, reducing the level of oxygen needed to support aquatic life. It is suspected that the increased use of commercial fertilizers and concentrations of animal wastes contribute to the degradation of receiving streams and rivers in rural areas, with communities that are often low income and culturally diverse. Return to FAQs

21. How Can I Obtain More Information About Environmental Justice?
You can contact the Office of Environmental Justice at 1-800-962-6215 or 1-202-564-2515 or you can contact the office or region you are most interested in by calling the individual listed on the EPA Contacts Page. Return to FAQs