NEWS SOCIETY Stronger voice for environmental justice advocates? After years of grassroots pressure, environmental justice advocates scored a major victory last February when President Clinton signed an Executive Order requiring federal agencies to review and halt environmental policies that hurt low-income, minority communities. But how involved community groups will be in shaping these new policies is uncertain as the federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice prepares its plans and holds its only public meeting this month. So far, only EPA has allowed community groups to take part in developing an environmental justice strategy, and the role of the public will probably vary from agency to agency, says Martin Halper, senior science advisor in the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and coordinator of the working group. The Executive Order calls for public meetings "as appropriate," but the strategies need not be publicized until they are made final in February. "All I can say for sure is the working group meeting will be
public, but we will wait to see if they will be talking about strategies generically or talking about them specifically," adds Halper. "Some of these departments have a lot of catching up to do," says Richard Moore, coordinator of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice in Albuquerque and head of the EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The Advisory Council was formed last year and has advised EPA on environmental justice issues, including its response to the Executive Order. "We've asked for an open dialogue between members of the Interagency Working Group and our EPA Advisory Council," says Moore, but so far there have been no takers. The working group's public meeting will be held at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta on January 20. Some dozen federal departments and agencies are required by the Executive Order to develop a strategy to identify and correct programs and poli-
EPA strategy promises "fundamental reform" Complying with requirements of the president's Executive Order on environmental justice could call for a major shift in how EPA does business, according to preliminary drafts of the Agency's environmental justice strategy. EPA intends to incorporate environmental justice concerns into "everyday Agency activities and decisions" and says "fundamental reform will be needed in Agency operations." According to sources, these changes are proposed: • New means of communicating with poor and Native American and other minority communities in appropriate languages. "The Federal Register doesn't work and neither does the New York Times," an EPA staff member says. "We've got to find new ways to explain regulatory decisions." • Use of EPA regional demonstration projects designed to address problems in environmental justice communities. • Intensified, targeted enforcement actions, more frequent inspections, and higher compliance rates for companies operating near environmental justice communities. • Greater focus on research to examine human health problems in low-income, minority populations. • Use of risk assessment methods that reflect cumulative and synergistic effects of exposure or multiple pathways of exposure. • Development of systems to analyze and compare health and environmental risks borne by populations identified by race, national origin, and income.
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cies that have had a disproportionately adverse effect on human health or the environment in minority and low-income communities. Led by EPA Administrator Carol Browner, the working group consists of eight task forces. In all, some 200 federal staff members take part, Halper says. Overall, EPA is much further along in developing its strategy than are other parts of the federal government, following some four years of running battles between community leaders and the Agency. The 25-member EPA Advisory Council, representing environmental justice organizations and communities, industry, and states, marked a high point in community involvement but got off to a rough start over the selection of its first chairperson, John Hall of the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission. Hall was appointed by EPA but opposed by many activist members for a variety of reasons, including the state's poor environmental justice record and activists' view that the Council—not Browner—has the right to choose its leader. At a meeting in August, the issue boiled over: Hall resigned, and Moore was elected to lead the Council. Matters have cooled since, say EPA and Council sources, and several Council task forces on issues from public participation to waste siting and enforcement are drawing up proposals for EPA's environmental justice strategy. Among them, Moore says, are proposed pilot projects in which EPA would hold workshops to aid communities in understanding and influencing how companies receive operating permits. The Advisory Council may yet get its voice heard by the Interagency Working Group. In November, the Council changed the location of its previously scheduled meeting from Washington to Atlanta and timed it to immediately precede the working group's public hearing. —JEFF JOHNSON
