United States
Environmental Protection
k Agency
Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance/ Office of Environmental Justice
EPA 300B11001
October 2011
An Update on Ongoing and Future
EPA Actions to Empower
Communities and Advance the
Integration of Environmental Justice
in Decision Making and Research
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Foreword
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pleased to release this "Update on Ongoing andFuture
EPA Actions to Empower Communities and Advance the Integration of Environmental Justice in Decision Making and
Research. "The release of this update further exemplifies the agency's continued commitment to expand
the conversation on environmentalism and work for environmental justice. This update illuminates on-
going efforts at the EPA to develop and improve reliable scientific data for identifying disproportionate
environmental and health impacts among racial/ethnic minorities, low income populations, and
indigenous people and tribes, while working to address and reduce these disparities.
This Update is the product of a conversation that began at the "Strengthening Environmental Justice Research
and Decision Making: A Symposium on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts" held in the
Spring of 2010. During the Symposium, many participants, including academicians and community
advocates, provided recommendations to advance the scientific foundation of environmental justice
issues, and also methods to ensure consideration of environmental justice in decision-making. The EPA
continued to receive comments throughout the year, including a list of action items from a coalition of EJ
and community advocates.
One overwhelmingly consistent recommendation and action item was for the EPA to regularly engage the
public and provide updates and progress reports to the public on environmental justice and community
health efforts. This Update, along with our quarterly Community Outreach Calls, embodies the EPA's
continued effort to respond to, and incorporate, recommendations to more meaningfully engage all
stakeholders.
This Update provides a brief overview of ongoing and future actions across the EPA program offices and
regions to: (1) advance the consideration of environmental justice in decision making; (2) build a science
foundation for integrating EJ into policy-making; (3) collaborate with governmental and non-
governmental partners and communities to meet environmental health needs; and (4) empower
communities to take action to improve their environment and health.
Since the 2010 Symposium, the EPA also continues to advance environmental justice through our work
under Plan EJ 2014, which is the Agency's overarching strategy for advancing environmental justice. The
agency is engaged in a number of activities under the Plan, including establishing a research agenda that
incorporates environmental justice principles and expanding community outreach efforts through
funding opportunities and technical assistance. Additionally, the agency is working closely with its
federal partners through the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice to meet communities
where they live. These and other environmental justice activities are highlighted in this report.
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The EPA is committed to protecting health and environment for all, including communities that are
currently experiencing disproportionate environmental health impacts. Although, this report indicates
that the EPA has made significant progress, we recognize that much more work remains. Achieving
environmental justice continues to be a priority and will require continued action by the EPA, other
federal agencies, states and local governments, businesses, academic institutions, non-governmental and
advocacy groups, and most importantly the residents of communities across our nation. We look
forward to opportunities to continue the dialog on achieving environmental justice.
Lisa F Garcia
Associate Assistant Administrator for Environmental Justice
Senior Advisor to Administrator on Environmental Justice
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Acknowledgments
PROJECT COORDINATION
Onyemaechi Nweke - Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ)
Devon Payne-Sturges - Office of Research and Development (ORD)
REPORT PREPARATION
Pat Carey - Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER)
Lead, Community Capacity Building Chapter
Kelly Maguire - Office of Policy (OP)
Lead, Policy Chapter
Onyemaechi Nweke - Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ)
Report Coordinator
Lead, Healthy and Sustainable Communities Chapter
Devon Payne-Sturges - Office of Research and Development (ORD)
Lead, Science Chapter
STAFF CONTRIBUTORS TO REPORT
Office of Air and Radiation (OAR)
Candace Carraway
Mike Holloway
Connie Ruth
Erika Wilson
Holly Wilson
Will Wilson
Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution
Prevention (OCSPP)
Robert Courtnage
LaShonia Richardson
Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance (OECA)/Office of
Environmental Justice (OEJ)
Rosanna Beltre (Association of Schools of Public
Health Fellow)
Carlos Evans
Sheila Lewis
Onyemaechi Nweke
Office of Policy (OP)
Brigid Curry
Kelly Maguire
Megan McConville
Eileen McGovern
William Nickerson
JoelScheraga
Tracey Westfield
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Office of Research and Development
(ORD)
Devon Payne-Sturges
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response (OSWER)
Pat Carey
Steven Foster
David Nicholas
Office of Water (OW)
Sandy Evalenko
Grace Ma
Surabhi Shah
Alice Walker
Region 1
Sarah Levinson
Region 2
Kim Brandon-Bazile
Deborah Brown
Schenine Mitchell
Vince Pitruzello
Terry Wesley
Region 3
Reggie Harris
Region 5
George Bollweg
Region 6
Shirley Augurson
James Leathers
Michael Morton
Region 8
Michael Wenstrom
Region 9
Debbie Lowe
Sharon Murray
Max Weintraub
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MANAGEMENT STEERING COMMITTEE
Committee Chairs
Paul Anastas
Assistant Administrator, Office of Research
and Development
Lisa Garcia
Associate Assistant Administrator, Office of
Environmental Justice
Senior Policy Advisor to the Administrator
on Environmental Justice
Committee Members
Rob Brenner
Office of Air and Radiation
Heather Case
Office of Environmental Justice
Peter Grevatt
Office of Children's Health Protection
Fred Hauchman
Office of Research and Development
Charles Lee
Office of Environmental Justice
Macara Lous berg
Office of Water
Enrique Manzanilla
Region 9
Al McGartland
Office of Policy
Marsha Minter
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response
Marty Monell
Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution
Prevention
Chris Saint
Office of Research and Development
William Sanders III
Office of Research and Development
Louise Wise
Office of Policy
Hal Zenick
Office of Research and Development
CONTRACTOR SUPPORT TEAM
Industrial Economics, Incorporated
Eric Ruder
Rachel Weil
Margaret Cella
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Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Policy
Chapter 3 Healthy and Sustainable Communities
Chapter 4 Community Capacity Building
Chapter 5 Science
Appendix A Acronyms
Appendix B Executive Order 12898
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List of Actions
The following is a list of ongoing and proposed EPA actions to integrate environmental justice into
its decision-making processes. As noted in the report, these actions are intended to present an
overview of ongoing and proposed activities; they do not represent a comprehensive list of the
EPA's activities with respect to environmental justice.
Policy
Develop Plan EJ 2014 to serve as a roadmap for integrating environmental justice into EPA's activities
and decision-making processes.
Develop and launch Development and Retrospective Review Tracker (Reg DaRRt).
Develop a nationally consistent environmental justice screening tool.
Develop guidance to integrate environmental justice into the rulemaking process.
Healthy and Sustainable Communities
Reinvigorate the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (IWG).
Partner with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of
Transportation (DOT) to promote healthy and sustainable communities.
Partner with other federal agencies on the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities.
Support community-based projects that involve interagency and multi-sectoral collaboration to meet
identified environmental health needs.
Convene an interagency climate change adaptation task force.
Mainstream climate adaptation into EPA's mission.
Community Capacity Building
Initiate a Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) through EPA's Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response (OSWER).
Provide access to grant funding and technical assistance through Community Action for a Renewed
Environment (CARE) to help communities form and sustain partnerships and reduce toxic
exposures.
Increase the capacity of tribes and tribal governments to protect environmental health through
training, skills development, information exchange and technical assistance.
Build local capacity among communities to improve the health of waterways and waterfronts
through the Urban Waters Initiative.
Facilitate intergenerational engagement in environmental decision making through programs that
build knowledge of environmental justice issues among minority and low-income youth.
Provide access to funding for community-based organizations through the Environmental Justice
Small Grants Program
Strengthen technical capacity of community-based organizations and environmental justice leaders.
Enhance the capacities of minority-serving institutions to engage in research and workforce training.
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Science
Develop trans-disciplinary research programs on environment and community health.
Develop guidance, methods, tools, and data to integrate environmental justice into decision making.
Conduct exposure and health research in near-roadway environments.
Incorporate perspectives from community-based organizations and engage in collaborative
partnerships.
Partner with other federal agencies in the Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities Research
(FCHDR)
Enhance the EPA's capacity for science partnerships with impacted communities.
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AFTER 1
Introduction
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Integrating environmental justice into EPA's
programs, activities, and policies is one of EPA
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's seven key
themes, as presented in a January 2010
memorandum to her staff.1 Under the priority area
"Expanding the Conversation on
Environmentalism and Working for
Environmental Justice," Administrator Jackson
notes that EPA must include environmental justice
principles in all decisions and highlights the
protection of vulnerable subpopulations as a top
priority. Her focus on integrating environmental
justice principles into decision making at the
Agency is fostering bold, innovative and
significant action.
Environmental justice is 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.
In March 2010, EPA hosted a groundbreaking
national science symposium to foster discussion
about critical approaches for integrating
environmental justice into all of the Agency's
decisions.2 The event, "Strengthening
Environmental Justice Research and Decision
Making: A Symposium on the Science of
Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts,"
included sessions on:
The state of the science concerning notable
factors prevalent among minority and low-
income populations that are associated with
disparities in environmental health outcomes;
Legal and analytical frameworks (e.g., risk
assessment, health impact assessment, and
benefit-cost analysis) to incorporate
environmental justice into regulatory
decision making; and
Types of data and research needed to
incorporate environmental justice
considerations into decision making.
Symposium participants included community
experts, environmental justice advocates,
representatives of non-governmental
organizations, EPA analysts and scientists,
academics, industry representatives and
students. Many participants, including a special
caucus of environmental justice advocates and
community experts, provided suggestions in the
broad areas of science, policy, capacity building
and the promotion of healthy and sustainable
communities. These suggestions are helping
EPA integrate environmental justice into its
decision-making processes.
The issues raised by symposium participants
aligned with several ongoing activities
established to implement Administrator
Jackson's environmental justice priority, which
stems from Executive Order No. 12898 (1994):
"Federal Actions to Address Environmental
Justice in Minority Populations and Low-
Income Populations." They also informed
planning, including the development of Plan EJ
2014. This plan celebrates the 201 anniversary of
Executive Order 12898 by providing a roadmap
for the Agency to strengthen relationships with
communities and improve environmental
conditions and public health in overburdened
communities. The actions highlighted in this
report also align with EPA's goals and strategies
as outlined in the Agency's FY 2011-2015
Strategic Plan.4
1 Environmental Protection Agency. Jackson, Lisa P. "Seven
Priorities for EPA's Future." January 12,2010.
More information about the symposium can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/news/2010/03 17 10 calendar.
html.
3 Executive Order 12898 can be found in Appendix B.
4 U.S. EPA. 2010. Fiscal Year 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan:
Achieving Our Vision. Washington, D.C. Accessed 2011.
Accessible at: http://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/
strategicplan.html.
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As a follow-up to the event, EPA has prepared this
report to provide an overview of ongoing and
intended actions to advance implementation of
Executive Order 12898, specifically those related
to key issues raised at the symposium.
STRUCTURE OF THE
REPORT
This report presents an overview of ongoing and
proposed EPA actions that address issues
emerging from the symposium. Therefore, it is not
a comprehensive report on EPA's activities with
respect to environmental justice. To prepare this
report, several EPA programs and regions
submitted the highlighted actions as examples of
activities that address issues raised at the
Symposium.
Examples of specific actions undertaken or
planned by the Agency are outlined in four
chapters:
POLICY. This chapter introduces Plan EJ
2014, EPA's comprehensive four-year plan to
integrate environmental justice into the
Agency's activities. The chapter also includes
EPA actions to develop a national screening
tool, and ensure the integration of
environmental justice into regulatory
development.
HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES This chapter describes
interagency efforts to address environmental
justice issues, as well as EPA actions to
support community-based projects that will
enhance health and improve environmental
quality.
COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING
Through capacity building, communities can
develop the expertise necessary to address
their complex environmental challenges. The
EPA activities described in this chapter,
support efforts among communities to
improve their own environments by
overcoming barriers such as limited
infrastructure, gaps in technical assistance,
and jurisdictional issues with federal, state
and local entities.
SCIENCE This chapter gives an overview
of ongoing and proposed actions in EPA's
programs and regions to integrate
environmental justice and community
perspectives into the research conducted by
EPA and its partners. The aim of these
efforts is to develop methods and tools that
advance the integration of environmental
justice into decision making, increase
technical capacity to address environmental
justice within the Agency, and enhance
partnerships with impacted communities
on science issues.
As outlined in the chart on the following page,
each chapter includes background information
about the chapter topic, relevant suggestions
from symposium participants, a discussion of
the EPA strategy developed to address these
suggestions, and a list of EPA actions that reflect
this strategy. The report then describes each
action and its benefits to stakeholder
communities, as well as the ways in which each
action contributes to EPA's environmental
justice objectives. The Milestones section
provides a list of key outcomes for each action.
Highlight boxes draw attention to EPA projects
that exemplify some of the discussed actions
and approaches.
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STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT
The Context
about the topic
Chapter
(Policy, Healthy and
Sustainable Communities,
Community Capacity
Building, and Science)
Voices of
Environmental
Justice Advocates
and Symposium
Participants
suggestions from the
symposium
An EPA Strategy
A summary of EPA "s
approach to address
Symposium
Words to Action
A list of ongoing or future
actions that reflect EPA "s
strategy
Background
or action
Benefits to EPA's
Stakeholder
Communities
communities,
tribes and populations
with environmental
justice concerns
Impacts on EPA
Programs and
Activities
A description of the ways
the action contributes to
EPA "s environmental
justice objectives
Milestones
Key activities for
implementing each action
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AFTER 2
Policy
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The Context
EPA's core mission is to protect human
health and the environment. To achieve
these goals, the Agency has a variety of
tools at its disposal to implement and enforce a
host of environmental statutes. Such tools include
regulations, permits, enforcement, grants, and
public awareness. The degree to which EPA is
successful in achieving its mission through the use
of these policy tools can and does vary according
to how well the policies are designed, including
involvement from key stakeholders (i.e.,
community decision-makers, city planners, and
public health officials).
A well-designed policy has a clear purpose. It is
legally defensible, is feasible to implement and
comply with, and achieves the desired goals. The
development of policies that achieve these goals is
no small task. And, from the perspective of
environmental justice, the goals and needs of the
communities may not always be met. Reasons for
this include a lack of a formal structure for
integrating environmental justice into the
Agency's decision-making processes, lack of a
voice in the decision-making process, inadequate
implementation resources, and other barriers. EPA
strives to develop effective policies. Enhancing
consideration of environmental justice throughout
the development of these policies will increase the
effectiveness of EPA programs and help the
Agency achieve its mission. This chapter describes
examples of EPA's efforts to integrate EJ into EPA
policy, highlighting Plan EJ 2014, the Regulatory
Development and Retrospective Review Tracker
(Reg DaRRT) a nationally consistent screening
tool, and guidance documents.
A well^designedpolicy has a clear
purpose. It is legally defensible, is
feasible to implement, and achieves
the desired goals.
Voices of Environmental
Justice Advocates and
Symposium Participants
Advocates and other key stakeholders at the
environmental justice symposium developed the
following recommendations for enhancing
consideration of environmental justice in policy
and increasing the effectiveness of EPA's policies
and programs:
Design regulatory development procedures
that engage communities early in the policy-
making process and provide mechanisms for
effective participation.
Strengthen regulations by adopting multi-
media and cumulative impact approaches to
environmental regulations.
Explore approaches for enhancing
compliance at state and local government
levels.
Streamline and organize the enforcement
process, and reduce the number of entities
responsible for enforcement.
An EPA Strategy
To address symposium participants' suggestions
for integrating environmental justice in policy,
EPA has undertaken the following strategies:
Create a formal, agency-wide structure for
integrating environmental justice into
activities and decision-making processes.
Develop methods that incorporate
cumulative effects and multiple exposures
in the regulatory development process.
Create tools and resources that engage
communities early and effectively in the
decision-making process.
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Ensure that the concerns of environmental
justice communities are considered
throughout regulatory development.
Words to Action
EPA has undertaken the following actions toward
implementing its strategy to enhance
environmental justice considerations in policy:
Develop Plan EJ 2014 to serve as a roadmap for
integrating environmental justice into EPA's
activities and decision-making processes.
Develop and launch the Reg DaRRT
(previously called the Rulemaking Gateway).
Develop a nationally consistent environmental
justice screening tool.
Develop guidance to integrate environmental
justice into the rulemaking process.
Each of these is described in detail in the following
pages.
ACTION
Roadmapfor Integrating
Environmental Justice into EPA's
Activities and Decision-Making
Processes
BACKGROUND
In July 2010, EPA released Plan EJ 2014, a strategy
for executing Administrator Lisa P.Jackson's
priority of "Expanding the Conversation on
Environmentalism and Work for Environmental
Justice." The Plan describes the many ways in
1 More information about Plan EJ 2014 can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/environmentaliustice/plan-ei/index.html.
which EPA will integrate environmental justice
into its programs during the four-year fiscal
timeframe leading up to the 201 anniversary of
Executive Order 12898. It includes actions in
the areas of regulatory work, scientific research,
community engagement, and partnering with
other federal agencies and external
organizations.
Plan EJ 2014 has three sections: cross-agency
focus areas, tools development, and program
initiatives. The plan will help EPA achieve the
following:
Incorporate environmental justice into
rulemaking.
Consider environmental justice concerns in
EPA's permitting process.
Accelerate compliance and enforcement
initiatives.
Support community-based action programs.
Foster administration-wide action on
environmental justice.
Develop methods to ensure that the Agency
brings the best science to decision making
regarding environmental justice issues.
Identify opportunities to utilize the
Agency's statutory authorities to advance
environmental justice.
Develop a mapping platform and a
nationally consistent screening and
targeting tool to integrate environmental
justice principles into decision making.
Achieve better coordination among multiple
grant programs to enable communities to
better access agency grant resources and
foster greater efficiency in program
implementation.
Identify concrete ways to benefit
communities with environmental justice
concerns.
Activities outlined in Plan EJ 2014 align with
and support EPA's commitments in the cross-
cutting fundamental strategy of environmental
justice and children's health between 2011 and
2015.
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BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Plan EJ 2014 incorporates a wide variety of EPA
tools, such as regulatory development, permitting,
enforcement and compliance, and research,
alongside community-based efforts. The plan takes
a structured, multi-step approach to ensure the
long-term sustainability of programs and projects
aimed at integrating environmental justice into the
Agency's activities.
Plan EJ 2014 will help EPA to:
develop stronger relationships with
communities through enhanced outreach and
support;
increase the Agency's efforts to improve
environmental conditions and public health in
minority, low-income and indigenous
communities and tribes;
diversify the Agency's activities; and
utilize multi-media strategies to bring about
change in communities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
Plan EJ 2014 provides EPA programs and regions
with a much-needed formal, focused and
comprehensive framework that will increase the
Agency's accountability in the area of
environmental justice and move closer to the goal
of attaining environmental justice as part of its
mission.
MILESTONES
Develop and release a final plan.
Develop an agenda, a scope of work, outreach
plans and milestones for each of the five cross-
agency areas.
Develop specific products identified in the
scope of work for each cross-agency focus
area.
Issue periodic progress reports.
Develop a progress report at the end of each
fiscal year.
ACTION
Develop and Launch the
Development and Retrospective
Review Tracker (Reg DaRRt)
BACKGROUND
In February 2010, EPA launched the Rulemaking
Gateway, a website that includes the timely
announcement of new rulemakingsmonths or
sometimes years before the proposed rule is
publishedand multiple methods of sorting by
areas of interest. By August 2011, much of the
Gateway website was subsumed under a
broader site called Reg DaRRT, which is a more
comprehensive website that focuses both on
rulemakings under development and on the
retrospective review of existing regulations. Reg
DaRRT retained the EJ-related features of the
Gateway such as providing an "EJ filter" so
stakeholders may locate rulemakings that are of
interest to them.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The Reg DaRRT offers one-stop information for
priority rulemakings at EPA. For example, Reg
DaRRT provides RSS news feeds that alert you
when EPA indicates that a rulemaking is likely
to have an environmental justice impact, thus
2 More information about the Reg DaRRTcan be found at
http://www.epa.gov/regdarrt/.
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allowing stakeholders to more easily identify
rulemakings that may be of interest to them.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
This online tool allows EPA to readily update the
information available to the public and to do so
early in the rulemaking process, offering
stakeholders earlier opportunities for
participation. Since launching the tool, EPA has
been notifying the public of priority rulemakings
an average of eleven months earlier than the
traditional methodpublishing a proposed rule in
the Federal Registerand an average of five
months earlier than notifications in the Unified
Agenda.
potential environmental justice concern are
identified across the country. EPA has begun an
effort to develop a nationally consistent
environmental justice screening tool in order to
provide consistency in the data and methods
used in environmental justice screening, and to
better meet our responsibilities of protecting
public health and the environment.
In addition, EPA is developing a suite of tools,
data and services, known as EPA's GeoPlatform,
that will help coordinate and consolidate
mapping activities, applications, and data across
the Agency. The GeoPlatform will support a
wide variety of uses across the Agency,
including appropriate components of the
nationally consistent environmental justice
screening tool, and other data and applications
that may be of interest to stakeholders.
MILESTONES
Assess utility of the Reg DaRRT to users with
interests in environmental justice.
._ JTION
Develop a Nationally Consistent
Environmental Justice Screening
Tool
BACKGROUND
EPA programs and regions have developed a
variety of internal environmental justice screening
tools and other GIS applications to aid in
identifying geographic areas of potential
environmental justice concern. These applications,
such as EJSEAT, EJView, various regional tools,
and others, have played an important role as the
Agency worked to integrate environmental justice
into its programs, policies and activities. However,
these tools may define and use different data,
resulting in inconsistency in how areas of
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The GeoPlatform will provide access to a wide
range of EPA and partner data pertaining to
environmental exposure and risk, ecological
conditions, public health, demographics, and
boundary/administrative information.
The development of the GeoPlatform and the
concurrent creation of a nationally consistent
environmental justice screening tool provide an
opportunity for the two efforts to reinforce and
enhance each other. EPA will explore
opportunities for the projects to work together,
including incorporating appropriate elements of
the screening tool into the GeoPlatform.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA's GeoPlatform consists of a suite of tools,
data and services that will support a wide
variety of uses across the Agency, including
environmental justice and other important areas
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such as enforcement and community-based work.
EPA's Geo Platform project strives to coordinate
activities, applications, and data across the
Agency, ensuring the opportunity for re-use is
maintained and that data and information are
documented and available across the Agency, to
our partners in the states and tribes, and to our
other stakeholder communities. The vision is that
ultimately, everyone will have the ability to
conduct relevant geospatial analysis in their area
of interest using common data, tools and
techniques.
The purpose of nationally consistent
environmental justice screening tool will be to
provide a comprehensive tool for presenting
available environmental and demographic data for
locations across the United States. It will aid
decision-makers in assessing policy and actions to
be taken by EPA, in accordance with, and
pursuant to, applicable law. It will also serve as a
national baseline screening tool that can be
supplemented with additional information and
on-the-ground experience to help identify
minority, low-income and indigenous
communities and tribes that may warrant
additional investigation by EPA to help reduce
risk and improve public health. As a result of this
effort, increased consistency of data and methods
will be brought to environmental justice screening
work across EPA.
MILESTONES
Because this work is in its initial stages, the
Agency has not yet established a set of milestones
and methods for measuring success.
Environmental Justiccinto the
Rulcmaking Process
BACKGROUND
In July 2010 EPA released "Interim Guidance on
Considering Environmental Justice during the
Development of an Action."3 This Environmental
Justice Action Development Process Guidance
(EJ ADP Guide) describes the statutory and
policy frameworks for considering
environmental justice during rulemaking
activities. It guides EPA analysts through the
development process so they can engage senior
managers, stakeholders, and others at optimal
times and ask appropriate questions. EPA is
now training staff on implementation of the EJ
ADP Guide.
3 EPA's "Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice
During the Development of an Action" is available at:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/ei/resources/policy/considering-
ej-in-rulemaking-guide-07-2010.pdf.
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The Agency is developing technical guidance on
how to conduct environmental justice analysis for
rulemaking activities (EJ Technical Guidance) as a
companion to the EJ ADP Guide. The EJ Technical
Guidance will provide detailed information to EPA
analysts on incorporating environmental justice
into risk assessments, economic analyses and
other scientific input and analytical documents as
an integral part of the Agency's rulemaking
process.
While the EJ Technical Guidance is under
development, other mechanisms are being used to
identify environmental justice concerns in
regulatory actions. The Agency gathers this
information at the inception of a regulatory action
through the "tiering form." This form is used to
assign the appropriate level (i.e., tier 1, 2, or 3) of
agency review to the action. It also calls for
participation of offices and regions in a workgroup
to develop the action. Identification,
communication, and coordination of
environmental justice concerns are analyzed and
resolved through that workgroup with final
concurrence by EPA senior management.
The Agency's environmental justice and regulatory
management functions are coordinating closely to
implement the EJ ADP Guide. Regulatory
development staff in the program offices will
leverage agency resources, such as training from
related agency workgroups and webinars, to
ensure that the new guidance is implemented
consistently across all programs.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Consistent with existing law, rulemaking
workgroups will identify and address, as
appropriate, disproportionate environmental and
health impacts affecting minority, low-income and
indigenous communities and tribes. EPA will also
proactively seek meaningful participation from
environmental justice communities and bring
them into the conversations related to
rulemakings that impact them.
Incorporation of Environmental
Justice Considerations in Office
of Water Rulemaking
EPA's Office of Water plans to screen and
prioritize all significant actions (rulemakings,
policy statements, guidance documents, risk
assessments, models and analytical blueprints)
routinely for environmental justice analyses as
part of its fiscal year National Program
Guidance. Once identified, the environmental
justice analyses for these actions will be shared
with other OW environmental justice staff as a
way to enhance environmental justice
analytical capabilities of the office. As a case
study, Office of Water, Office of Science and
Technology, Engineering and Analysis Division
(OW/OST/EAD will implement EPA's latest
tools and techniques, including recent research
results from ORD, to conduct an
environmental justice analysis for the Steam
Electric Power Generation Effluent Limitations
Guidelines revisions. The ELG for steam
electric is scheduled to be proposed by July
2012 and final by January 2014.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
Together, the EJ ADP Guide and EJ Technical
Guidance will ensure that EPA is consistently
and routinely considering environmental justice
during the action development process,
consistent with existing environmental and civil
rights laws as well as Executive Order 12898,
and using scientifically appropriate tools and
methods. Throughout, the guidance documents
emphasize the need to engage communities early
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in EPA's regulatory development process to give
them optimal impact on final outcomes.
This will ensure that EPA:
consistently and routinely considers and
analyzes environmental justice early and often
in the development of rules;
identifies rules that may have
disproportionate impacts and addresses those
impacts as feasible;
addresses existing disparities through the
rulemaking process, as possible;
communicates the distributional effects of
rules in a consistent and transparent manner.
MILESTONES
Develop technical guidance to provide
analysts with methods for considering
environmental justice in regulatory analyses.
Assess the consistency with which EPA
workgroups conduct screening or analyses to
identify environmental justice issues.
Assess the level of environmental justice
community involvement in rules where
environmental justice issues have been
identified.
Monitor and evaluate the number and type of
actions taken to reduce disparate impacts or
make a positive difference in minority, low-
income and indigenous communities and
tribes
REFERENCES
U.S. EPA (United States Environmental
Protection Agency). 2010. Nationally Consistent
Environmental Justice Screening Approaches.
Accessed 2011.
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/ej/resources/publications/nejac/ej
-screening-approaches-rpt-2010.pdf
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CHAPTER 3
Healthy and Sustainable Communities
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The Context
A healthy community is characterized by
more than merely the absence of disease.
People in healthy communities have access
to health care, public safety services, and safe food
and water. They are protected from risks associated
with chemical pollution, environmental
degradation, and disasters in their homes, schools,
and workplaces. Providing and maintaining these
attributes are best attained through sustainable
interactions between humans and the environment.
Use of environmental resources at a level of
sustainable yield, long-term security from
environmental hazards, and long-lasting social,
economic, and physical structures contribute to
healthy and sustainable communities.
"A healthy community is one that
embraces the belief that health is
more than merely the absence of
disease; a healthy community
includes those elements that enable
people to maintain a high quality of
life and productivity" (US Department
of Health and Human Services, 2001)
Within the federal government, oversight of
programs and activities to protect health is
distributed across an intricate network of several
agencies that often have different mandates. What
seems necessary to advance the concept of healthy
and sustainable communities is better integration
of efforts across media- and issue-specific
programs, among multiple sectors of the economy,
and within the elaborate structure of government.
By asserting its leadership role in environmental
health protection, EPA is advancing a holistic,
systems approach to bringing about healthy and
sustainable communities. The Agency supports this
approach by identifying opportunities to leverage
resources and cross-fertilize activities with those of
other agencies and sectors, and by engaging
partners whose decisions impact communities'
health, wellbeing and sustainability.
"Sustainable development meets the
needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own
needs. " (World Commission on Economic
Development, 1987)
Voices of Environmental Justice
Advocates and Symposium
Participants
Creating healthy environments and sustainable
living conditions is central to the wellbeing of
minority, low-income and indigenous communities
and tribes. These groups are exposed to multiple
sources of pollution by way of air, water and soil
contamination. Multiple factors are involved in
both the causes of and the solutions to degraded
health and environmental conditions.
Environmental justice advocates and other key
stakeholders have established the following
recommendations for promoting healthy and
sustainable communities and increasing the
effectiveness of EPA's policies and programs:
Create a holistic, broad, cross-agency and
multi-sector approach to public health
protection that is focused on overall
community health and wellbeing as an
outcome.
Enhance coordination among EPA's programs
and interagency collaboration across the
federal government on issues related to health
protection.
Develop and implement a multimedia approach
to cumulative environmental exposures in
environmental justice communities.
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Develop a comprehensive multi-agency
regulatory structure to address issues of
multimedia contamination and cumulative
impacts in minority, low -income and
indigenous communities and tribes.
Develop a strategy for addressing
fragmentation in public health protection.
Reinvest in environmental justice communities,
and integrate the concepts of health, equity and
sustainability in community planning, zoning
and land use decisions.
An EPA Strategy
The introduction of a crosscutting strategy on
environmental justice and children's health in
EPA's 2011-2015 strategic plan underscores EPA's
commitment to improving outcomes for
stakeholder communities and populations. The
Agency has taken critical steps to guide the
implementation of the strategy on environmental
justice and children's health by developing Plan EJ
2014, whose five focus areas for implementation
include "Fostering Administration-wide Action on
Environmental Justice" and "Supporting
Community-Based Action Programs." These focus
areas commit EPA to support holistic approaches to
addressing environmental burdens that impact
communities and to bridge relationships and
develop joint initiatives among different agencies.
To address stakeholders' suggestions for promoting
healthy and sustainable communities, EPA has
implemented the following strategies:
Create partnerships to respond to multimedia
and crosscutting issues such as sustainability.
Leverage existing resources and identify
opportunities to maximize these resources
through partnerships.
Take on a leadership role in creating a healthy
environment.
Ensure that the concepts of health, equity and
sustainability are integrated into programs,
activities and policies across the federal
government.
Invest in communities to help them address
environmental issues and/or needs.
Words to Action
EPA has undertaken the following actions to
promote healthy and sustainable communities:
Reinvigorate the Federal Interagency Working
Group on Environmental Justice (IWG).
Partner with the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) and the
Department of Transportation (DOT) to
promote healthy and sustainable communities.
Partner w ith other federal agencies on the
National Partnership for Action to End Health
Disparities.
Support community-based projects that
involve interagency and multi-sectoral
collaboration to meet identified environmental
health needs.
Convene an interagency climate change
adaptation task force.
Mainstream climate adaptation into EPA's
mission.
Each of these is described in detail in the following
pages.
1 U.S. EPA. 2010. Fiscal Year 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan:
Achieving Our Vision. Washington, D.C. Accessed 2011. Accessible
at: http://www.epa.gov/nscep/index.html
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ACTION
Rdnvigoratc the Federal
Intcragcncy Working Group on
Environmental Justice
BACKGROUND
On September 22, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa P.
Jackson convened the Federal Interagency Working
Group on Environmental Justice (IWG) for the
first time in over a decade. The mandate of this
cabinet-level group is to advance and oversee the
integration of environmental justice into the fabric
of all federal agencies' programs, activities and
policies, as required in Executive Order 12898. The
re-convening of the IWG represents a significant
effort on the part of the EPA to take on a leadership
role in partnering with other federal agencies
whose policies and activities impact health, equity
and sustainability. Such collaboration will result in
identification of opportunities to maximize
resources that will enhance health and living
conditions in minority, low-income and indigenous
communities and tribes.
The charges to the IWG from Executive Order
12898 include:
Provide guidance to other federal agencies on
identifying adverse health and environmental
effects on minority and low-income
communities.
Develop model environmental justice projects
that evidence cooperation among federal
agencies.
Coordinate with and provide guidance to other
federal agencies developing environmental
justice strategies, and serve as a clearinghouse
for those strategies.
2 More information on the IWG can be found at:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/ei/interagencv/index.html
Encourage cooperation among federal agencies
that conduct research on human health and the
environment.
Assist in coordinating data collection on topics
relevant to environmental justice and health
disparities.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Environmental justice advocates and communities
recognize that multiple factors (e.g., housing, access
to health care, pollution) contribute to health
disparities and other environmental justice
concerns. They recommend a holistic, interagency
approach focused on the community as an entity.
The IWG is a forum for ensuring the integration of
health equity and environmental justice
considerations into the policies, actions, and
programs across the federal government. Through
this working group, EPA plans to initiate and
encourage collaboration on policies and programs
that impact health and the environment and
promote sustainability in its stakeholder
communities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRAM SAND
ACTIVITIES
The IWG provides EPA's programs a forum
through which to advance interagency strategies
that meet its mandate of promoting healthier, more
sustainable communities.
MILESTONES
Develop strategies for IWG-member agencies
to provide a roadmap for implementation of
Executive Order 12898 and, more specifically,
to guide integration of environmental justice
into member-agency programs, policies and
activities.
Host regional listening sessions to solicit
stakeholder input into the evolving process for
the IWG.
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Host a White House forum to provide
community leaders with information about the
range and types of federal resources that are
available to their communities.
Establish at least one interagency collaborative
between EPA and one or more federal agencies
through the IWG. This collaborative would
provide a model for how multiple resources can
be targeted to address identified issues in
specific case studies.
ACTION
Partner with HUD and DOT to
Promote Healthy and Sustainable
Communities
BACKGROUND
The interagency Partnership for Sustainable
Communities brings together EPA, HUD and DOT
to support the health and wellbeing of people and
their communities by promoting equitable and
affordable housing, providing more transportation
choices, enhancing economic competitiveness, and
investing in safe and healthy neighborhoods.3
The partnership is guided by six "livability
principles":
Provide more transportation choices: Develop
safe, reliable, and economical transportation
options to decrease household transportation
costs, reduce our nation's dependence on
foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, and promote public
health.
Promote equitable, affordable housing: Expand
location- and energy-efficient housing choices
for people of all ages, incomes, races, and
ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the
combined cost of housing and transportation.
Enhance economic competitiveness: Improve
economic competitiveness through reliable and
timely access to employment centers,
educational opportunities, services and other
basic needs by workers, as well as expanded
business access to markets.
Support existing communities: Target federal
funding toward existing communities
through strategies like transit oriented, mixed-
use development and land recyclingto
increase community revitalization and the
efficiency of public works investments and to
safeguard rural landscapes.
Coordinate and leverage federal policies and
investment: Align federal policies and funding
to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage
funding, and increase the accountability and
effectiveness of all levels of government to plan
for future growth, including making smart
energy choices.
Value communities and neighborhoods:
Enhance the unique characteristics of all
communities by investing in healthy, safe, and
walkable neighborhoods in rural, urban, and
suburban areas.
3 More information on the HUD-DOT-EPA partnership for
sustainable communities can be found at:
http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/partnership/
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BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The partnership's priorities respond directly to the
challenges facing many minority, low-income and
indigenous communities and tribes. America's
decades-long migration of population, jobs and
resources from cities and older suburbs to the
fringes of metropolitan areas has had serious
consequences for low-income and minority
communities, isolating them in neighborhoods that
lack the opportunities, services and social networks
critical for full participation in society.
These communities often live with crumbling water
and transportation infrastructures, inferior
municipal services, brownfields and other toxic and
vacant sites, and blight. They have struggled to
connect with jobs and educational opportunities, to
attract economic activity, and to engage in
decision-making processes.
Many of these communities are eager to revitalize
their neighborhoods and take leading roles in
planning and development, but they lack the
necessary resources and capacity. The partnership's
actions will address these long-standing inequities
by encouraging smart, fair development that
responds to the needs of traditionally underserved
communities, including rural and tribal areas.
Specifically, the partnership will target resources
through grants and other programs so communities
can plan and implement their visions, and it will
provide technical assistance in several pilot projects
around the country.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA recognizes that how and where we build has
serious implications for the environment and public
health.
Housing, transportation, and environmental policy
are inextricably connected. Coordinating federal
investments in infrastructure, facilities, and
services advances EPA's goal of protecting public
health and the environment and furthers other
community objectives. Investing in public transit,
for example, can lower transportation costs, reduce
air pollution, decrease traffic congestion, encourage
exercise, and spur development of new homes and
amenities close to transit centers.
Partnership for Sustainable
Communities Brownfields Pilot
Boston's Fairmount Rail Corridor
The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal
Transit Administration, in collaboration with the
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and
the City of Boston, is supporting four new
commuter rail stations and two station
renovations along a 9-mile rail corridor in the low-
income neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester,
Mattapan and Hyde Park.
Past investment from other federal partners has
included: EPA funding to assess and clean up
more than 30 brownfield sites within a half-mile
of the new and renovated stations, and HUD
funding supporting a significant portion of the
more than 2,000 new housing units being built
along the rail corridor.
Going forward: EPA, HUD and DOT are assisting a
collaborative of four community development
corporations (CDCs) with planning efforts and an
area-wide brownfields revitalization strategy.
MILESTONES
Integrate the livability principles into funding
programs, policies, and legislative proposals for
the three partner agencies.
Convene a working group focused on the
intersection of environmental justice and
sustainability, and develop recommendations
on how each agency can target existing
resources to address environmental justice
needs.
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Award HUD Sustainable Communities
Regional Planning Grants that integrate
housing, land use, economic and workforce
development, transportation and infrastructure
investments, ensuring that grantees engage
populations not traditionally included in
planning.
Provide technical assistance to five brownfields
pilot communities to help them clean up and
reuse contaminated and vacant properties and
support affordable housing around transit
centers.
Award brownfields area-wide pilot projects
and facilitate cross-agency coordination that
informs assessment, cleanup and reuse of
brownfield properties and promotes area-wide
revitalization
Co-host "Achieving Equitable Development:
Strategies to Empower Community
Organizations," held in conjunction with the
New Partners for Smart Growth Conference,
focused on building the capacity of
community-based organizations to engage on
growth and development issues (February
2011).
Convene the Equitable Development Institute
at Brownfields 2011 in Philadelphia (March
2011).
ACTION
Partner with Other Federal
Agencies on the National
Partnership for Action to End
Health Disparities
committed to action . The NPA aims to establish a
nationwide, comprehensive, community-driven,
sustained approach to combating health disparities
and to move the nation toward achieving health
equity.
The NPA serves as a catalyst for collective
leadership action focused on five main goals:
Aw areness: Increase aw areness of the
significance of health disparities, their impact
on the nation, and the actions necessary to
improve health outcomes for racial, ethnic, and
underserved populations.
Leadership: Strengthen and broaden
leadership for addressing health disparities at
all levels.
Health system and life experience: Improve
health and health care outcomes for racial and
ethnic minorities and underserved
populations.
Cultural and linguistic competency: Improve
cultural and linguistic competency and
diversity of the health-related workforce.
Data, research and evaluation: Improve data
availability, coordination, utilization, and
diffusion of research and evaluation outcomes.
The objectives of the NPA are translated into
twenty cross-cutting national strategies designed
to ensure progressive action to address the multiple
determinants of health disparities, including the
environment. The partnership's organizational
structure currently includes a Federal Interagency
Health Equity Team (FIHET) and 10 Regional
Health Equity Councils comprised of community
and other representatives. The FIHET currently
has membership from 12 departments and agencies,
including EPA.
BACKGROUND
The mission of the National Partnership for Action
to End Health Disparities (NPA) is to increase the
effectiveness of programs that target the
elimination of health disparities through the
coordination of partners, leaders, and stakeholders
who share the same goals and vision and who are
4 More information on the NPA can be found at:
http://minoritvhealth.hhs.gov/npa/
5 A map showing the 10 regions can be found at:
http://www.hhs.gov/about/regionmap.html.
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BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Numerous risk factors converge on environmental
justice communities and negatively affect their
health and wellbeing. Exposure to multiple
environmental health hazards is worsened by a lack
of access to affordable preventive and curative
health care and by the absence of accurate health
information, quality education, adequate housing,
physical safety and financial security.
The NPA resulted in the development of the first
National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health
Equity (NSS). This strategy provides a focused,
holistic and multifaceted approach to the issue of
health disparities. The NPA provides a rare
opportunity for cohesion and collaboration across
programs, policies, and activities that impact
community health. Through partnerships under the
NPA, policies and resources within individual
agencies and programs can be leveraged in ways
that are harmonized and complementary and that
ultimately maximize the health equity benefits of
individual programs for stakeholder communities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA recognizes that solutions must be multi-
faceted to effectively address environmental justice
concerns and health inequities. Solutions should
target social, economic, environmental, and cultural
determinants of health. Because EPA's reach is
limited, collaboration with other federal agencies is
necessary to design and deploy such solutions. This
collaboration is a focus area in EPA's Plan EJ 2014.
In the effort to eliminate health disparities and
bring about environmental justice, the NPA creates
an opportunity for EPA to align its programs and
activities with those of other federal agencies, make
environmental health a focus of new policies and
actions, and work collaboratively with federal
partners to integrate equity and sustainability into
federal activities, policies and programs.
MILESTONES
Develop and launch the National Stakeholder
Strategy for Achieving Health Equity.6
Develop implementation, evaluation, and
communication plans for the national strategy.
Enhance federal cross-agency collaboration and
coordination on one or more actions identified
in the national strategy.
Launch 10 Regional Health Equity Councils to
strengthen coordination and action across
states and communities.
ACTION
Support Community-based Projects
that Involve Intcragcncy and Multi-
sectoral Collaboration to Meet
Identified Environmental Health
Needs
BACKGROUND
EPA offers technical assistance, cooperative
agreements, grants, and other mechanisms to help
environmental justice communities identify their
environmental issues, then design and implement
community-driven strategies to address them. This
section highlights community-based projects that
are primarily premised on collaboration across
governmental partners and/or sectors to address
identified environmental health needs in
communities.
More information on the National Stakeholder Strategy for
Achieving Health Equity can be found at:
http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/npa/templates/content.aspx?lvl=l&dvl
id=33&n>286
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Sustainable Skylines Initiative
The Sustainable Skylines Initiative (SSI) is a non-
regulatory pilot program "owned" by individual
cities. The program uses air quality regulatory
needs, climate action goals, and other local
environmental priorities as a catalyst for
integrated sustainability actions.
The SSI brings together the resources of EPA,
other government agencies, nonprofits and
private organizations to support communities.
While the primary focus of SSI is air quality,
communities are encouraged to select activities
that will result in synergistic reductions from all
media, such as water, hazardous/solid waste,
and energy. The SSI helps a community:
Evaluate issues and goals;
Develop projects to address multiple issues
and create complementary benefits (e.g.,
using energy-efficiency measures for ozone
nonattainment, establishing climate action
targets, and promoting stewardship of
government operating funds);
Target available federal, state, regional and
local resources for projects that provide
tangible results;
Create an economy of scale to amplify
media attention, level of support, and
outreach for specific projects while
showcasing a larger sustainability effort;
and
Bridge community and regional
sustainability efforts to re-energize existing
programs and develop key emerging
priorities.
SSI projects result in air quality improvement,
water runoff reductions, energy efficiency, and
greenhouse gas mitigation. This supports
progress toward EPA Administrator Jackson's
priority of improving air quality, as well as Goal 1
of EPA's Strategic Plan (Clean Air and Global
Climate Change).
Based on pilots in Dallas and Kansas City, SSI is
expected to generate over $100,000 in annual
benefits over a three-year period starting in
2008 and yield estimated reductions of carbon
dioxide emissions (5,800 tons), nitrogen oxide
emissions (2 tons) and sulfur dioxide emissions
(2 tons).
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Community-based action initiatives provide EPA's
stakeholders with access to resources that help
develop awareness and knowledge about
environmental health issues; assess, understand and
take action on issues that diminish the quality of
health and the environment in communities; and
develop leadership skills among community
members so that they are stronger advocates for
health and sustainability.
Green Jobs Training Initiative
EPA invests in training the next generation of
workers to contribute to a green economy.
The Agency's Region 1 office has partnered
with the regional Department of Labor (DOL)
Job Corps to develop Growing Responsible
Environmental Employees Now (G.R.E.E.N.).
This is an eight-hour sustainability curriculum,
offered at DOL's training centers, that
introduces green principles into any job
training or education program.
This unique, federally funded program
provides housing, medical care, life skills
training and schooling in dozens of trades
(e.g., auto body, health care, landscaping and
construction) to thousands of at-risk youth.
The G.R.E.E.N. curriculum is available at
www.epa.gov/regionl/education.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRAM SAND
ACTIVITIES
Improved health and wellbeing in affected
communities requires input from multiple
stakeholders, particularly from the community
members, themselves. Through these initiatives,
EPA offers direct assistance to its community
partners by providing them with the tools and
3-8
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training necessary to assess their environments and
to take on leadership roles in addressing the issues.
While these initiatives do not replace the work of
EPA and other regulatory agencies, they empower
community members to bring about healthy
environments, and this contributes significantly to
sustainability.
ACTION
Convene an Intcragcncy Climate
Change Adaptation Task Force
MILESTONES
i Provide support through funding under EPA's
community-based action programs.
i Initiate and complete projects that fund,
empower and enable communities to create
healthy, safe, and sustainable environments.
Safe Drinking Water Act
Compliance in Puerto Rico
The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority
(PRASA) operates an island-wide municipal
drinking water infrastructure. Approximately
120,000 people (3% of Puerto Rico's population)
rely on 252 private, non-PRASA systems that
serve small communities or individual homes.
Non-PRASA systems rarely comply with Safe
Drinking Water Act regulations. They carry out
minimal operation and maintenance practices
and have little, if any, technical or financial
capacity.
During fiscal years 2009 through 2011, EPA
provided technical and financial assistance to
conduct chemical sampling of 64 non-PRASA
systems, install disinfection equipment at 7 non-
PRASA sites, and connect several schools to the
municipal drinking water infrastructure.
BACKGROUND
Vulnerability to climate change differs across
communities and even across households. Social
and economic factors (e.g., economic status, race,
ethnicity, age, gender, and health) can significantly
affect people's exposure and sensitivity to climate
change as well as their ability to recover from its
negative effects. Minorities, the poor, children, the
elderly, the infirm, and tribal communities are the
most vulnerable to climate change impacts.
In 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order
13514, "Federal Leadership in Environmental,
Energy, and Economic Performance," calling on the
Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task
Force to develop federal recommendations for
adapting to climate change. In October 2010, the
task force delivered "Progress Report of the
Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task
Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a
National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy,"
presenting policy goals and recommendations to
reinforce existing efforts, harness a range of
capabilities and resources across the federal
government, and build strong partnerships with
local, state, regional, tribal, and international
stakeholders to advance a common adaptation
agenda.
Merging the goals of Executive Orders 13514 and
12898, the task force identified environmental
justice issues as an important consideration in the
design and implementation of adaptation strategies.
The report states that:
Adaptation plans should prioritize helping
people, places, and infrastructure that are most
vulnerable to climate impacts.
-------
Plans should be designed and implemented
with meaningful involvement from all parts of
society.
Issues of inequality and environmental justice
associated with climate change impacts and
adaptation should be addressed.
The task force report recommended establishment
of a partnership committee consisting of local,
state, tribal and federal government representatives
to exchange information and views on adaptation
needs, including concerns about environmental
justice issues. The committee will identify how
agencies can best coordinate and engage with
stakeholders on an ongoing basis, as the federal
government continues to enhance its support of
adaptation efforts at various scales. The committee
will increase engagement with non-federal
partners, the private sector, and community-based
organizations and networks. Agencies on the task
force will also engage with non-federal partners as
they work to develop agency-specific adaptation
plans, provide accessible information and tools,
foster local-to-global collaboration, and address
stakeholder needs.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRAM SAND
ACTIVITIES
The federal government is pursuing the
recommendations of the October 2010 task force
report to advance a national approach to climate
change adaptation. The recommendations provide
EPA with an opportunity to advance interagency
efforts that will promote healthier and more
sustainable communities.
MILESTONES
Initiate implementation of recommendations in
the October 2010 task force report.
ACTION
Mainstream Climate Adaptation
into EPA's Mission
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The work of the task force has been guided by a
strategic vision of a resilient, healthy, and
prosperous nation in the face of a changing climate.
Through the task force, EPA is able to harmonize
its efforts in particular communities with those of
other federal agencies and improve the delivery of
science, services, decision-support tools, and
assessments. Through this interagency forum, EPA
can encourage the integration of environmental
justice considerations in addressing climate change
adaptation for vulnerable communities across the
country.
BACKGROUND
The increasing rate of climate change poses new
challenges for communities and governmental
institutions alike. With climate change, EPA
encounters more obstacles towards fulfilling its
mission of protecting human health and the
environment. Administrator Jackson advocated for
institutional anticipation for changes in climate and
the importance of adapting EPA's activities to
climate change in the Agency's FY 2011-2015
Strategic Plan. Specifically she noted that the
Agency must incorporate anticipated yet
unprecedented changes in climate into its programs
and rules to continue to fulfill statutory, regulatory,
and programmatic requirements.
In response to this need, EPA established the cross-
EPA Work Group on Climate Change Adaptation
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Planning. The group is charged with developing
and implementing a plan to address the challenges
posed by climate change to its mission, operations,
and programs.
Because certain populations are particularly
vulnerable, EPA's Climate Change Adaptation Plan
will focus on understanding the environmental
justice implications of climate change and climate
adaptation, identifying populations and
communities most sensitive to climate change, and
incorporating consideration of environmental
justice issues into the design and evaluation of
adaptation strategies.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
EPA's efforts to integrate climate adaptation into
its programs, policies, rules, and operations will
help promote resilient, healthy, and prosperous
communities in the face of a changing climate. The
Agency's focus on environmental justice issues will
help the most vulnerable people and places reduce
their exposure and sensitivity to climate change
and improve their capacity to predict, prepare for,
and avoid adverse impacts.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA's Climate Change Adaptation Plan will help
ensure that the Agency's programs, rules, and
operations are effective in a changing climate. A
focus on environmental justice will place a priority
on helping the people, places and infrastructures
that are most vulnerable to climate impacts. By
increasing the adaptive capacity of these groups,
EPA will further its mission to protect human
health and the environment.
MILESTONES
Integrate climate change trends and scenarios
into rule-making processes.
Integrate considerations of climate change
impacts and adaptive measures into financial
agreements (e.g., grants, loans, and contracts)
and technical assistance programs.
Integrate climate change trends and scenarios
into major scientific models and/or decision-
support tools used in implementing EPA
environmental management programs.
Include in annual budget submissions to
Congress explicit commitments with targets
and timetables to attain performance measures.
REFERENCES
US Department of Health and Human Services.
2001. Healthy People in Healthy Communities: A
Community Planning Guide Using Healthy People
2010. Office of Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion. US Department of Health and Human
Services.
US Department of Health and Human Services.
2011. National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving
Health Equity. Office of Minority Health. US
Department of Health and Human Services.
Accessed 2011. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/npa/
templates/content.aspx?lvl=lfelvlid=33&ID=286
U.S. EPA (United States Environmental Protection
Agency). 2010. Fiscal Year 2011-2015 EPA Strategic
Plan: Achieving Our Vision. Washington, D.C.
Accessed 2011. http://www.epa.gov/nscep/
index.html
World Commission on Environment and
Development. 1987. Report of the World
Commission on Environment and Development:
Our Common Future A/42/427. Accessed 2011.
http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm
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The Context
Capacity building is a process of developing
and strengthening the skills, instincts,
abilities, processes and resources that
organizations and communities need to survive,
adapt, and thrive in the fast-changing world.1 It
encompasses the elements of human, scientific,
technological, organizational, institutional, and
resource capabilities.2 Simply put, it is helping
others help themselves.
While capacity building is often used in the
context of international aid, its application is no
less valuable at domestic levels. In a federal
government context, capacity building is used to
transform community and industry approaches to
social and environmental problems. For example,
building capacity among communities can
determine whether or not those with limited
resources can access safe drinking water or
develop a safe waste disposal infrastructure.
"Capacity building refers to
activities that improve an
organization's ability to achieve its
mission or a person's ability to
define and realize his/her goals or to
do his/her job more effectively."
(The Alliance for Nonprofit Management)
While capacity building can be applied to a wide
range of conditions, it is commonly used to
address a lack of connection between a
community's needs and the supplies necessary to
meet them. This may include a lack of funding,
inadequate training materials, or a lack of the
structure, organization and knowledge needed to
bring about change.
1 As cited in: Philbin, A. 1998. Capacity Building Work with Social
Justice Organizations: Views from the Field.
2 United Nations. 1992. Agenda 21: Earth Summit - The United
Nations Programme of Action from Rio.
Typically, the foundations of capacity building are
education and traininghelping others to bring
about positive change. Successful capacity
building creates sustainable solutions by
providing communities with the knowledge, skills
and infrastructure to rise above problems and
limitations.
Voices of Environmental
Justice Advocates and
Symposium Participants
Capacity building plays an especially important
role in minority, low-income, indigenous
communities and tribes with environmental
justice issues. These communities experience
disproportionate exposures to environmental
hazards, such as unsafe conditions from
brownfields and/or Superfund properties and
multiple sources of environmental hazards.
Capacity challenges within minority, low-income
and indigenous communities and tribes include
limited or dilapidated infrastructure; gaps in
technical expertise; difficulties in hiring, training,
and retaining qualified environmental
professionals; and jurisdictional issues with
federal, state and local entities. Obstacles like
these can make managing and resolving
environmental issues overwhelmingly complex.
Through capacity building, these communities
acquire the knowledge and expertise to develop
effective long term or even permanent solutions to
these issues. Environmental justice advocates and
other key stakeholders have established the
following recommendations for building capacity
in communities and increasing the effectiveness of
EPA's policies and programs:
Provide resources to develop capacity within
communities so they can effectively contribute
to and participate in EPA decision-making
processes.
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Develop technical expertise to assess
environmental issues within communities.
Enhance the capacity of Minority Serving
Institutions (MSIs), including tribal colleges,
to engage in relevant research and workforce
training and to provide training opportunities
for minority students in relevant fields of
study.
Increase the capacity of tribal governments to
protect environmental health.
An EPA Strategy
Several programs and regions within the EPA have
some degree of involvement in capacity building,
as the Agency has long recognized the value of
stakeholder involvement in defining and
addressing local environmental problems.
Initiatives generally center on information sharing,
empowerment, and skills development. They
involve partnerships with a range of stakeholders,
including communities, tribes, and MSIs.
To address stakeholders' suggestions for
integrating environmental justice into capacity
building, EPA has undertaken the following
strategies:
Provide access to expertise and funding for
stakeholder communities and organizations to
enhance their technical, legal, and
organizational skills; address their
environmental problems; and participate
effectively in government decisions on land
cleanup as well as emergency preparedness,
response and management.
Initiate and provide support for community
outreach and engagement efforts both inside
and outside the Agency.
Increase the capacity of tribes and tribal
colleges to assess and address relevant
environmental issues.
Build and strengthen the technical capacity of
community-based organizations and
environmental justice and health leaders
EPA's approach to building capacity embraces
critical objectives of Plan EJ 2014 under
"Supporting Community-based Action Programs,"
and the EPA Administrator's priority of
"Expanding the Conversation on
Environmentalism and Working for
Environmental Justice." The Agency aims to
empower overburdened communities to improve
their health and environments through funding
mechanisms, training, technical assistance, and
access to information and analytical resources.
EPA also supports continued engagement and
community empowerment at all levels, from basic
educational and leadership development to
achieving healthy, sustainable and green
communities.
Words to Action
EPA has undertaken the following actions to build
capacity within minority, low-income and
indigenous communities and tribes:
Initiate a Community Engagement Initiative
(CEI) through EPA's Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response (OSWER).
Provide access to grant funding and technical
assistance through Community Action for a
Renewed Environment (CARE) to help
communities form and sustain partnerships
and reduce toxic exposures.
Increase the capacity of tribes and tribal
governments to protect environmental health
through training, skills development,
information exchange and technical
assistance.
Build local capacity among communities to
improve the health of waterways and
waterfronts through the Urban Waters
Initiative.
Facilitate intergenerational engagement in
environmental decision making through
programs that build knowledge of
environmental justice issues among minority
and low-income youth.
Provide access to funding for community-
based organizations through the
Environmental Justice Small Grants Program.
Strengthen technical capacity of community-
based organizations and environmental justice
leaders.
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Enhance the capacities of minority-serving
institutions to engage in research and
workforce training.
Each of these is described in detail in the following
pages.
ACTION
Initiate a Community
Engagement Initiative
BACKGROUND
EPA has a responsibility to help stakeholder
communities share local needs and concerns and
participate meaningfully in the decision-making
process. Collaborating in this way makes EPA's
waste programs more effective and builds trust
and long-term relationships.
OSWER's Community Engagement Initiative
(CEI) aims to improve transparency and upfront
collaboration with communities through
authentic and meaningful engagement during EPA
decision-making processes for the cleanup of
contaminated sites, emergency preparedness and
response, and management of hazardous
substances. When communities are involved
effectively, they are better able to understand their
opportunities to influence decisions on
environmental cleanups. The CEI is responsive to
the EPA administrator's priority of "Expanding the
Conversation on Environmentalism and Working
for Environmental Justice," as well as the
principles of the Open Government Directive:
transparency, collaboration and participation.3
Supporting Community
Engagement and Innovative
Community^based Approaches to
Environmental Protection
EPA continues to explore opportunities to
improve capacity building among its stakeholders,
particularly among communities and tribes. On
April 8, 2010, EPA, in collaboration with four
White House offices, hosted a workshop at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, B.C., to
explore the roles that federal agencies play in
catalyzing and supporting innovative community-
based approaches and to pinpoint barriers to
leveraging innovation for much greater impacts.
This meeting brought together several community
and tribal leaders from across the nation.
Resulting recommendations to federal agencies
include:
Create a more dynamic and interactive
infrastructure to enable engagement and
contributions from all organizations;
Create more community partnership projects
that cross agency and sector boundaries;
Create a small office within a federal agency to
foster interagency coordination across all
government community programs and help
communities access specific programs to meet
their needs.
EPA has a long-term commitment to enhance
community and stakeholder engagement and
foster better interagency coordination.
Highlighted examples of these activities are
discussed in Chapter 3, "Healthy and Sustainable
Communities."
More information on the Open Government Directive can be
found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-
go vernment- directive
Since its release in May 2010, OSWER has made
progress on the CEI implementation plan and has
developed recommendations for moving forward
in several key areas. Over the next year OSWER
will work toward implementing specific
recommendations to improve and expand
community engagement planning, develop an
enhanced training strategy, and build a network to
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collaborate and share community engagement
practices.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The CEI focuses on communities and stakeholders
affected by OSWER program activities. These
include communities adjacent to Superfund sites,
along with those planning to develop abandoned
industrial properties, those affected by
environmental disasters, and those impacted by
hazardous waste management regulations. The
CEI aims to strengthen relationships between the
OSWER programs, its partners, and the
communities they serve through improved
collaboration and information sharing. Enabling
communities to participate effectively in decision-
making processes builds public trust in EPA and
the federal government.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
The CEI activities enhance the capacity of
OSWER programs to help communities
participate in meaningful ways. When
communities are actively involved and given
opportunities to provide input, EPA can establish
stronger relationships, fully consider community
issues and local knowledge, avoid costly delays
because of misunderstandings, and help
communities identify and leverage available
resources.
MILESTONES
Revise planning processes to actively assess
community needs and include community
engagement activities.
Improve outreach and education to increase
community awareness and understanding of
the availability of technical assistance.
Initiate a national, multi-stakeholder dialog to
solicit input regarding community
engagement in OSWER National Regulation
and Guidance Development.
Assess the effectiveness of Superfund site
information repositories and identify potential
barriers and solutions to information delivery,
including electronic access/digital divide.
Develop an OSWER-wide training strategy to
ensure key personnel are trained in
community engagement.
Develop an ongoing Community Engagement
Network to showcase, share and exchange
community engagement practices among EPA
waste programs, regions, states, tribes and
stakeholders.
Develop an annual progress report for the CEI.
ACTION
Provide Access to Grant Funding
and Technical Assistance through
Community Action for a Renewed
Environment (CARE)
BACKGROUND
Community Action for a Renewed Environment
(CARE) provides grant funding and technical
assistance to reduce toxic pollution and improve
community health in sustainable ways. The
program complements national regulatory
approaches by building communities' capacity to
address local environmental concerns. Through
CARE, community leaders develop expertise in
sustaining partnerships and addressing
environmental issues, providing a strong basis for
continued action as other environmental threats
emerge. These competitive grants help minority,
low-income and indigenous communities and
tribes form collaborative partnerships, develop an
understanding of the local sources of risk from
toxic pollutants, and carry out projects to reduce
risks through collaboration in ways that will
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continue beyond the two-year grant period. CARE
grants foster federal-to-local partnerships that
complement EPA's traditional regulatory and
enforcement efforts by providing targeted
assistance to communities at highest risk.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
CARE grants can be awarded to local nonprofit
organizations, tribal governments and Native
American organizations, local governments,
colleges and universities. State agencies are not
eligible but are encouraged to be partners. There
are currently 68 CARE communities, over 90
percent of which have environmental justice
concerns.
The CARE Program in Action
CARE communities have provided information
and/or environmental testing to over 4,000
homes; involved more than 6,000 young people in
community-based environmental protection;
worked to reduce risks in almost 300 schools; and
provided environmental information to more than
2,800 businesses and 50,000 individuals.
50 percent of CARE communities are working
on projects that improve air quality;
50 percent of CARE communities have
practices in place to ensure the safety of
chemicals;
30 percent of CARE communities are cleaning
up their local environments;
30 percent of CARE communities are working
on projects to protect America's waters; and
25 percent of CARE communities are taking
action on climate change.
enhance communities' ability to set priorities
for risk-reduction activities; and
establish self-sustaining, community-based
partnerships.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
CARE communities form partnerships across a
broad range of stakeholder groups to identify,
assess, and address local priority risks and
environmental concerns resulting in cleaner,
healthier and more productive communities. These
partnerships are essential to the successful
reduction of small pollution sources and therefore
complement and strengthen EPA's regulatory
programs. The CARE program is responsive to all
of EPA Administrator Jackson's priorities and
supports the Plan EJ 2014 goal and crosscutting
focus area of "Empowering Communities to Take
Action that Will Improve their Health and
Environment" and "Supporting Community-based
Programs."
MILESTONES
Monitor and report on the number and
percent of communities that have developed
and agreed on a list of priority toxic and
environmental concerns using the CARE
partnership process (annual and cumulative).
Evaluate implementation of local solutions to
address an agreed-upon list of priority toxic
and environmental concerns using the CARE
partnership process (annual and cumulative).
The CARE program complements EPA's efforts to:
reduce exposures to toxic pollutants through
collaborative action at the local level;
increase understanding of all potential sources
of exposure to toxic pollutants;
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ACTION
Increase the Capacity of Tribes to
Protect Environmental Health
BACKGROUND
Tribal communities face many challenges to
maintaining healthy environmental conditions.
Development, maintenance and enhancement of
tribal environmental programs and related
activities are essential to ensure the health, safety
and welfare of tribal communities and members.
Under EPA's 1984 Policy for the Administration of
Environmental Programs on Indian Reservations,
the Agency recognizes tribal governments as the
primary parties for setting standards, making
environmental policy decisions and managing
programs for reservations.
EPA commits to taking affirmative steps to
encourage and assist tribes in assuming regulatory
and program management responsibilities for
reservation lands. However, much more in the way
of technical, policy, organizational and
infrastructure capacity is needed by the tribes and
their governments to meet these expectations.
Through a variety of initiatives across some of its
programs and regions, EPA is advancing the
development of capacity to protect health and
environment for tribal communities.
National Tribal Water Council
EPA's Office of Water (OW) programs work with
federally recognized tribes on a government-to-
government basis and also with vulnerable, at-risk
tribes in the context of environmental justice. An
important focus of the EPA's National Water
Program is to work cooperatively with tribes and
to build their capacity to develop and implement
water protection programs under the Clean Water
Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to achieve
the nation's water quality goals and promote safe
management of community water resources.
Specifically, these programs aim to:
generate funding for environmental program
capacity building;
close gaps in technical assistance and
expertise;
address difficulties in hiring, training, and
retaining qualified environmental
professionals;
address jurisdictional issues with federal,
state and local entities that can make
managing and resolving environmental issues
more difficult; and
improve limited tribal infrastructure.
To further create opportunities for building
capacity within tribal governments, OW intends
to support the National Tribal Water Council
(NTWC). The NTWC is a technical and scientific
body created to assist federally recognized Indian
tribes, including Alaskan natives and their
associated communities and organizations, with
research and information on water issues and
programs that impact Indian and Alaska native
tribal members. NTWC will play an important
role in facilitation, ongoing interaction,
coordination, and education among tribes and
between tribes and the EPA on issues related to
the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water
Act.
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Memorandum of Understanding
between EPA, the Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and
Salish Kootenai College
On February 17, 2007, EPA signed a memorandum
of understanding (MOU) with the Salish Kootenai
College (SKC) and the Confederated Salish and
Kootenai Tribes. The intent of the MOU is to
increase the capacity of tribal governments to
protect environmental health. Specifically, the
MOU aims to:
support and strengthen the chemistry,
biology, and environmental science programs
at Salish Kootenai College and incorporate
areas of study that are of interest to the EPA;
support Executive Order No. 13270 (Tribal
Colleges and Universities) to increase the
number of qualified and diverse candidates for
environmental careers;
expand opportunities for faculty enrichment
and student training;
develop and implement programs that will
motivate high school students to pursue
environmental careers;
increase the capability of SKC, a minority-
serving institution in EPA Region 8, through
its partnership with the Office of Human
Resources and the Office of Pollution
Prevention and Toxics, and assist EPA in its
commitment to protecting human health and
the environment; and
support the President's Management Agenda
as it relates to the strategic management of
human capital (i.e., identifying and hiring
talented individuals using innovative and
progressive tools for recruitment).
la
Under this MOU, EPA's Office of Chemical Safety
and Pollution Prevention has established a
contract to train members of the Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes to conduct asbestos
inspections and abatement work on tribal lands.
Once trained, members will be able to inspect for
and safely manage, repair or remove asbestos-
containing material on tribal lands pursuant to the
EPA Asbestos Model Accreditation Plan (40 CFR
Part 763, Subpart E, App. C).
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Programs that transfer knowledge, empower tribal
colleges, grow an environmentally conscious
workforce in the reservations, and develop the
capacity of tribal governments to be effective at
managing their environment and health confer
valuable benefits on tribal communities. These
programs will help to:
reduce stakeholder communities' exposure to
environmental hazards;
enhance the ability of tribal governments to
deliver environmental protection services; and
improve workforce development in tribal
communities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA's actions to improve tribal governments and
communities' capacity to address environmental
issues are in keeping with the EPA
Administrator's priority of "Expanding the
Conversation on Environmentalism and Working
for Environmental Justice." Through these
initiatives, EPA demonstrates a commitment to
achieving equity in health and environmental
conditions for all populations.
MILESTONES
Promote future collaboration between EPA
and tribal communities, colleges and/or
governments on issues related to protecting
health and the environment.
Conduct information-sharing activities
between the National Tribal Water Council
and tribes and between tribes and the EPA on
related Office of Water Programs issues for
fiscal year 2011.
Train interested members of the Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes to conduct
asbestos inspection and abatement on tribal
land.
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ACTION
that are sustainable beyond the terms of EPA
involvement.
Build Local Capacity to
Improve the Health of
Waterways and Waterfronts
Through the Urban Waters
Initiative
BACKGROUND
Access to clean and safe drinking water and access
to healthy ecosystems are important basic needs
for all communities. Urban waters acquire large
amounts of pollution from a variety of sources,
including polluted runoff from urban landscapes,
which create public and environmental health
hazards. Urban development often makes
waterways inaccessible to adjacent
neighborhoods. Lack of access limits the ability of
communities to reap the benefits of living close to
the water. The Urban Waters Initiative assists
communities, especially underserved communities,
to access, improve and benefit from their urban
waters and the surrounding land.
Through the Urban Waters Initiative, EPA is
working with federal agency partners and local
communities, especially those in urban
watersheds, to improve the health of the water
and the land while addressing community-
identified priorities. EPA's activities under this
initiative include:
aligning its programs with other federal
government programs in these communities;
expanding its partnerships;
building local capacity; and
finding innovative ways to communicate the
potential of safe and clean urban waters.
Through building capacity and networks of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
governmental agencies, the Urban Waters
Initiative seeks to build long-term partnerships
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
This initiative will promote community
stewardship by increasing the capacity of local
groups to better understand their watersheds,
which will lead to better decision making and
improved restoration and protection efforts. The
initiative will help EPA to:
accelerate watershed protection at the local
level through support of local watershed
organizations and communities;
enhance public participation and awareness of
water quality issues at the community level;
promote knowledge transfer among urban
watershed organizations;
increase w atershed know ledge and
information available to local decision-makers
who write and implement laws, ordinances,
and permits; and
improve water quality over the long-term,
including delisting of streams and increased
recreational uses of water bodies as described
by Clean Water Act Section 303(d).
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA's Urban Waters Initiative is a collaborative
among numerous EPA offices, including the Office
of Water, Office of Environmental Information,
Office of Environmental Justice, Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response, Office of the
Administrator, and regional offices. This initiative
facilitates cross-program collaboration toward
EPA's mission and strategic goals to improve and
restore impaired water quality on a watershed
basis and facilitate ecosystem-scale protection and
restoration.
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MILESTONES
Fund urban watershed capacity building
projects.
Conduct general risk assessments of urban
watersheds.
Map community assets to serve the needs of
urban watersheds.
Host urban watershed community
roundtables to develop partnerships.
Conduct educational programs for local land
use decision-makers on addressing
degradation and impairment of waters.
Provide outreach and technical support to
funded entities to broaden participation in
urban capacity building projects (e.g., training
in sustainable financing and environmental
leadership coaching).
ACTION
Facilitate Intergenerational
Engagement in Environmental
Decision Making
BACKGROUND
Young people experience the world through a
different lens that allows them to bring innovative
ideas to the table. Innovation, coupled with
intergenerational information transfer, can bolster
efforts to address complex environmental issues.
EPA is committed to ensuring that minority and
historically underrepresented adult and youth
populations participate in the process of
environmental decision making in a meaningful
way.
In an effort to promote intergenerational
engagement and encourage public participation,
the EPA Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) is
hosting several workshops to educate minority
and low income youth about environmental justice
issues, job opportunities, and the skills necessary
to address critical environmental concerns.
Fourteen to 25 year-olds from communities with
environmental concerns and/or with an interest in
environmental health science are the targets of this
initiative. Workshops are held in collaboration
with community-based partners.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
In support of EPA's priority to expand the
conversation on environmentalism and to work for
environmental justice, the youth workshops are
co-located with meetings of the National
Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC)
to provide civil engagement and networking
opportunities for participants. Workshops help
participants to:
promote environmental justice in their
communities;
identify opportunities to participate in
environmental decision making;
join the workforce to contribute to
environmental change; and
craft and deliver messages during public
comment periods in EPA's decision-making
processes.
Workshop participants have reported feeling
empowered to engage in the environmental
decision-making process and to join the workforce
that brings about environmental change.
Attendees have also stated that information
provided at the workshops increased their
knowledge of environmental activities and their
understanding of how communities engage in
these activities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
The workshops allow EPA to expand its
previously limited engagement with minority and
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low-income youths. Workshops also create an
opportunity to work collaboratively across
program offices, including the Office of Children's
Health Protection, the Office of Human Resources,
the Office of Public Engagement, and local
partners. Through this initiative, EPA supports a
new generation of environmental health
researchers, practitioners, and advocates, which
aligns with the Agency's priority of "Expanding
the Conversation on Environmentalism and
Working for Environmental Justice."
MILESTONES
Develop a template for hosting workshops
that can be replicated in other regions.
Conduct youth workshops in several regions.
Increase youth exposure to environmental
policy issues.
Provide a venue for civil engagement through
participation in public comment venues.
Inform EPA outreach strategies by identifying
social media outlets that are used by young
people.
Pilot workshops among middle school, high
school and college students.
ACTION
Provide Access to Funding
Through Environmental Justice
Small Grants Program
BACKGROUND
Successful collaborative partnerships involve well-
designed strategic plans to build, maintain and
sustain them. In Fiscal Year 1994, the Office of
Environmental Justice (OEJ) established the
Environmental Justice Small Grants Program
(EJSG). Grants assist community-
based/grassroots organizations, churches and
tribal governments in building collaborative
partnerships to help them understand and address
local environmental and public health issues in
their communities.
Since its inception, the EJSG program has awarded
more than $21 million in funding to 1,200
community-based, local, and tribal organizations.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
EJSG stakeholders include, but are not limited to,
community-based nonprofit organizations, local
government agencies, federally recognized tribal
governments, tribal organizations, foundations,
and academic researchers. EJSG grants can be
awarded to community-based nonprofit
organizations, including environmental justice
networks, faith-based organizations, and those
affiliated with religious institutions, federally
recognized tribal governments, and tribal
organizations.
Each project reveals solutions to the diversity of
problems found in neighborhoods and
communities across the country. Projects place a
premium on community and family health.
Examples of benefits to past and current grantees
include:
increased understanding of the potential
sources of exposure to environmental hazards;
education for migrant farmworker
communities about coliform contamination on
farms and in labor camps through community
awareness conferences and by involving
federal and state agencies with jurisdiction
over water supplied to affected communities;
increased awareness about environmental
health hazards, such as lead-based paint;
development of educational materials and
outreach strategies for reducing risks posed by
environmental hazards in neighborhoods;
protection of surface w ater and groundw ater
on Native American reservations through the
development of national criteria for
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abandoned wells and by strengthening the
cooperative working relationships with non-
tribal units of government; and
development of an interactive approach to
helping children recognize and manage
asthma symptoms and improve their academic
performance through Open Airways for
Schools, an innovative asthma education
program.
In addition to improving conditions in specific
communities, many of the projects serve as models
that can be applied in similar situations across the
country.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA recognizes that community involvement is
critical to environmental decision making. The
EJSG program is responsive to EPA's early
commitment to invest resources in projects that
benefit minority, low-income, indigenous
communities and tribes. The EJSG program
advances EPA's Plan EJ 2014 goal to "Empower
Communities to Take Action that will Improve
their Health and Environment."
MILESTONES
Announce solicitations and award grants for
$1.2 million for projects to research, educate,
empower and enable communities to
understand and address local environmental
and public health issues for fiscal year 2011.
Forty grants of up to $25,000 support
projects that address local environmental
issues through collaborative partnerships.
Four grants of up to $50,000 support
research on the environmental and
human- health impacts of exposure to
multiple sources of pollution in
communities.
Grants totaling $200,000 in fiscal year
2011 to support communities directly
impacted by the British Petroleum oil
spill.
ACTION
Strengthen Technical Capacity of
Community-based Organizations
and Environmental Justice
Leaders
BACKGROUND
Community capacity has been defined as "a set of
dynamic community traits, resources, and
associational patterns that can be brought to bear
for community-building and community health
improvement."4 Community capacity building
emphasizes assets and empowerment (versus
disease and deficiency), bottom-up, community-
determined processes and agendas (versus top-
down/externally determined ones), and the
processes for developing community competence.
A commissioned paper on capacity building,
presented at the 2010 symposium, identified
important activities to strengthen community
capacity. These include leadership, participation,
skills, resources, social and organizational
networks, and sense of community. Also essential
are an understanding of community history,
power, values, cohesion, and language capacity.
Strategies for enhancing community capacity may
include training and technology transfer, technical
assistance, community-based participatory
research (CBPR), empowerment approaches, and
community organizing/social action.
4Norton, B., et al. 2002. Community capacity: Concept, theory and
methods. DiClemente, R, et al. eds. Emerging Theories in Health
Promotion Practice and Research; Strategies for Improving Public
Health. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. 2002.
5 The commissioned paper on community capacity is available at
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/calendar/2010/marl7/papers.html
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The paper's authors noted that capacity-building
strategies giving more control to communities
(e.g., CBPR, empowerment, and community
organizing) may better address the fundamental
causes of environmental disparitieswhich stem
from the lack of political powerthan agency-
controlled processes like training and technical
assistance. These community-driven strategies,
however, require a higher level of commitment
from communities, researchers and agencies, as
well as a new set of capabilities on the part of
agency personnel with regard to the skills needed
to facilitate meetings, communicate clearly, and
create an atmosphere of inquiry and trust.
In order to more effectively reduce disparate
environmental exposure and engage the public in
making environmental policy decisions, EPA must
involve relevant constituencies early in the
process, provide them with the resources and
information for effective participation, and ensure
that the outcomes reflect their participation.
Helping communities develop the capacity to
create, access, interpret, and use scientific
information and changing agency practices to
better incorporate community voices in activities
and decisions will be a key task. The following
actions, if applied, will help to establish programs
and provide federal government support that will
increase technical and scientific capacity in
communities.
In response to the growing asthma problem
that disproportionately affects minority and
low-income populations, the EPA's Office of
Air and Radiation (OAR) established the
Asthma Program Through this program, OAR
collaborates with partners to support research
and educate the public about asthma and
ways to manage environmental triggers.
Partners include government agencies,
universities/research centers, the healthcare
community, nonprofit organizations and
community programs. Major program
activities are centered on the Communities in
Action for Asthma-Friendly Environments
initiative. They include support for peer-to-
peer learning, technology transfer, and
resources for community-based asthma
programs through
www.AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org, the
National Asthma Forum, and regional events.
They also benefit from support to nonprofit
organizations focused on healthcare provider
training, improving school environments, and
raising public awareness about asthma.
OAR has a long history of supporting capacity
building through its partnership with the
Institute for Tribal Environmental
Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona
University. OAR supports the training and
educational efforts of ITEP in the areas of air
quality, climate change impacts, and
adaptation planning, as well as the work of
the Tribal Air Monitoring Support (TAMS)
Center, which builds and strengthens the
technical capacity of tribal staff.
ORD proposes a program, in partnership with
other government agencies, private nonprofhs,
professional societies and private foundations,
to develop the capacity of community leaders
to understand the role of science in decision
making and to use data to document
disparities and concerns in their communities.
EPA proposes periodic trainings on applying
for research and program grants for
community-based organizations through its
grants office and ORD.
Several research solicitations are under
consideration to address topics raised at the
symposium. Projects will employ CBPR
approaches, such as establishing Centers of
Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities. They will examine the joint impacts of
social and physical environmental conditions and
processes on health, link with community health
clinics to increase their capacity to address
occupational and environmental health concerns,
and design policy solutions to prevent and
ameliorate disparities. Additionally, the Agency is
considering establishing a research capacity-
building grant program for community-based
organizations.
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BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
These capacity-building actions can help the
public address environmental health issues and
will allow communities to participate effectively
in decision making. They will also increase
confidence that concerns about power dynamics
between academic or government researchers and
communities will be taken seriously.
Actions undertaken by the Asthma Program, for
example, will equip stakeholder communities and
organizations to assess, organize and deploy
community resources to reduce or eliminate
exposure to asthma triggers and improve health
outcomes for people with asthma. The actions
help support and strengthen the capacity of
healthcare and environmental professionals,
schools, and community-based organizations to
develop comprehensive asthma care strategies in
partnership with impacted communities. By
sharing their results, they can accelerate
improvements across the national asthma care
landscape.
Through the partnership with ITEP, tribes are
better able to fashion their own responses to
environmental issues, such as climate change, and
acquire a better understanding of how to
participate effectively in the environmental
decision making of federal, state, and local
regulatory agencies.
Proposed research will inform programs, policies,
and strategies for more effective environmental
health protection for disadvantaged, underserved,
and environmentally overburdened groups.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
The Communities in Action initiative and the
Asthma Community Network will introduce
community strategies that the Asthma Program
will use to bolster the Agency's national asthma
education and outreach efforts. When tribal
perspectives are effectively communicated, EPA is
more cognizant of tribal issues and is able to make
better-informed decisions concerning its rules,
programs, and policies. As tribes take on more
responsibility for implementing air programs, EPA
may be able to reduce some of its implementation
efforts.
Air Pollution Monitoring in
Tribal Communities
The EPA has a longstanding partnership with
tribal organizations to support three important
network sites on tribal lands of the Cherokee,
Alabama-Coushatta and Santee Sioux. Established
in 1987, the Clean Air Status and Trends Network
(CASTNET) monitors several air pollutants with
negative environmental and health effects.
Locating monitoring sites on tribal lands enhances
a tribe's ability to develop and run their own
programs, protecting their communities and
environments. Collected data enable communities
to better understand the air quality issues they
face. For more information see
http ://w ww. epa. gov/cas tnet.
lunities
they
The proposed research-oriented activities will
help institute program development and strategic
institutional change within EPA regarding the
conduct of research and the application of science
in decision making. The goal is to increase
democratization in the conduct ofand
community access toEPA/ORD research.
Activities will produce principles of community
engagement in research, science and results that
are more relevant to environmental problems faced
by the public; and research results that are more
easily translated to inform policy change and
interventions.
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MILESTONES
ACTION
Support and grow an online community
network of stakeholders that serves as a real-
time resource for mentoring and collaboration
to support community asthma management
programs (fiscal year 2011 and ongoing).
Develop Web-based tools that facilitate
collaboration, problem solving, and learning
among leaders of asthma programs (fiscal year
2011 and ongoing).
Facilitate knowledge transfer among
stakeholders through EPA sponsorship of
pacing events including Webinars, the
National Asthma Forum, and regional events
for community-based asthma programs (fiscal
year 2011 and ongoing).
Train healthcare professionals to better
integrate the assessment of environmental
factors into a comprehensive, culturally
appropriate asthma care plan based on
national standards of care for fiscal year 2011.
Continue funding for ITEP and the TAMS
Center.
Continue OAR involvement in developing
ITEP's curriculum and training and continue
oversight of the TAMS Center.
Institute a pilot program for up to fifteen
community leaders to meet the decision-
makers on environmental health and
environmental justice by late fiscal year 2013.
Issue a joint RFA with National Institute of
Health (NIH) National Institute on Minority
Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to
establish national research Centers of
Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities by fiscal year 2012.
Enhance the Capacities of
Minority-serving Institutions to
Engage in Research and
Workforce Training
BACKGROUND
EPA has a long-standing interest in cultivating
future environmental professionals and increasing
the diversity of students pursuing environmental
careers. Minority academic institutions, such as
historically black colleges and universities
(HBCUs), need to be more involved in addressing
environmental justice and new and expanded
areas of research on environmental health
disparities.
ORD/NCER's fellowship program is implementing
initiatives to strengthen EPA efforts that
encourage and support environmental justice
research among the next generation of
environmental scientists and engineers. For
example, environmental justice research topics are
highlighted in the Science to Achieve Research
(STAR) Fellowships RFA, and environmental
justice considerations have been included as
review criteria under "Broader Societal Impacts"
for all fellowship applications.
Further, as part of the Greater Research
Opportunities (GRO) fellowship, ORD has a goal
to enhance capacity at academic institutions that
receive less than $35 million in annual federal
funding for environmental research. NCER has
added resources to the program to increase GRO-
funded students.
OSWER will support research through the
Faculty and Student Teams (FaST) program,
which is a cooperative effort between the
Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and
the National Science Foundation (NSF). Faculty
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from colleges and universities with limited
research facilities and those institutions serving
underrepresented populations, such as women,
and minorities, in the fields of science, engineering,
and technology are encouraged to apply. The FaST
program will support a team comprised of one
faculty member and two to three undergraduate
students, providing hands-on research
opportunities in DOE or EPA national laboratories
during the summer. The faculty member identifies
a mutually beneficial research area amenable to
collaboration with the laboratory scientist.
An EPA Region 6 initiative will nurture
partnerships between universities and community
groups to increase the capacity of minority, low-
income, indigenous communities and tribes to
address environmental challenges through
technical assistance. MOU's are currently in place
between the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP)
and EPA Region 6, EPA's Office of Water, and
Texas A&M Kingsville.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
This opportunity nurtures a new generation of
environmental scientists, engineers, and policy-
makers who can apply their acquired knowledge
of environmental justice to future research that
will promote broad environmental protection.
Increasing the reach of the GRO program will
promote research and training at minority-serving
institutions that may have special expertise on
environmental justice matters. Through the
Region 6 partnership with University of Texas,
EPA will increase knowledge about technical
capacity of partnering universities and a
community perspective regarding the need for
technical assistance.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PROGRAMS AND
ACTIVITIES
Including environmental justice considerations as
review criteria can serve as a model for other
competitive EPA programs and promote a culture
that considers environmental justice implications
in relevant agency funding activities. The process
of increasing the reach of the GRO program will
translate into stronger outreach to MSIs and
highlight the critical role they play in the nation's
R&D enterprise to address environmental
protection challenges.
Region 6's existing MOU's are intended to
improve the quality of environmental science and
technical education, increase the relevance of
UTEP research projects to EPA's environmental
and public health mission, and increase the
number of culturally diverse students pursuing
graduate study and careers in science, engineering,
and mathematics. It is expected that UTEP's
capacity to develop environmental specialists for
EPA employment will be significantly enhanced,
while important contributions will be made to
EPA's overall research and development programs.
MILESTONES
Increase number of STAR fellows pursuing
research directly related to environmental
justice and the concerns of impacted
communities.
Measure success of EPA Region 6 initiatives
with universities by the activity of the
workgroups and the number of projects that
result from the initiatives.
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REFERENCES
Philbin, A. 1998. Capacity Building Work with
Social Justice Organizations: Views from the Field.
A Report for the Ford Foundation.
United Nations. 1992. Agenda 21: Earth Summit -
The United Nations Programme of Action from
Rio.
U.S. EPA (United States Environmental
Protection Agency). 1984. Policy for the
Administration of Environmental Programs on
Indian Reservations. Accessible at:
http://www.epa.gov/tp/pdf/indian-policy-84.pdf
4-17
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CHAPTER 5
Science
-------
The Context
The importance of science in EPA's work
underscores the need for scientific data
that are defensible, reproducible, and
informative. In addition, for environmental justice
stakeholders, in particular, it is essential that the
science underlying EPA's policies accounts for
cumulative impacts from multiple exposures to
chemical stressors.
The real-world context in which exposures to
environmental contaminants occur also needs to
be reflected in EPA's work, as emerging evidence
demonstrates that social context may heighten the
toxic effects of these exposures. Such
considerations require new models for assessing
the toxicity of environmental hazards, advanced
methods for analyzing complex interactions
between multiple stressors, and enhanced access
to community-level knowledge and resources.
The importance of science in EPA's
work underscores the need for
scientific data, that are defensible,
reproducible, and informative.
Advancement of EPA's scientific agenda, methods,
models, research, and information resources is
necessary to address concerns about the
environment, sustainability, and health
inequalities. These advancements take on
additional importance when viewed in the context
of the Agency's mandate to achieve environmental
justice as required by Executive Order 12898 and
its ability to contribute effectively to Healthy
People 2020's goals of eliminating health
disparities and creating social and physical
environments that promote health for all
populations.
Voices of Environmental
Justice Advocates and
Symposium Participants
A consistent theme throughout EPA's March 2010
forum, "Strengthening Environmental Justice
Research and Decision Making: A Symposium on
the Science of Disproportionate Environmental
Health Impacts," was the connection between
science and policy. Discussions focused on
identifying research and scientific needs to ensure
that environmental justice concerns are
incorporated into EPA's policies.
1 More information on Healthy People 2020, can be found at:
http:// www.healthypeople.gov/
Environmental justice advocates suggested that
EPA work toward a more holistic understanding
of environment and health, offering the following
specific recommendations:
Create and institute a new scientific research
approach focused on developing a more
holistic understanding of environment and
health that encourages the formation of
multidisciplinary teams, incorporates the
concept of vulnerability, and takes into
account the impacts of inequality, racism and
other social issues.
Integrate perspectives from community
decision-makers in developing EPA's scientific
5-2
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research agendas, conducting exposure/risk
assessments, and making risk management
decisions.
Fund community-based participatory
research, community-owned research, and
trans-disciplinary research that benefits
disadvantaged, underserved, and
environmentally overburdened communities
and groups.
Collaborate with other federal government
agencies to conduct research that addresses
environmental health disparities and to
integrate environmental justice into all
research activities.
Enhance the capacities of minority academic
institutions to engage in scientific research
and workforce training.
Develop and implement a multimedia
approach for addressing cumulative
contaminant exposures in environmental
justice communities.
Provide federal government support and
establish programs to increase technical and
scientific capacity in communities.
Develop analytic tools, assessment tools, and
data collection approaches that can be used by
community health advocates and
environmental justice groups.
Build capacities and skills among staff and
scientists in EPA's Office of Research and
Development to conduct research and other
science-related activities in equal partnership
with impacted communities.
Although not a focus of the symposium,
sustainability of the natural environment and
protection/restoration of ecosystem services is also
important for reducing environmental as well as
health disparities. Part of the environmental-
inequity problem is that people living, working,
and learning in degraded and/or polluted areas
lack equal access to benefits of the natural
environment, as well as being at higher risks of
exposure to environmental contaminants. It is
important that programs aimed at solving these
problems take a systems approach to community
needs, integrating environmental, social and
economic considerations to generate better
decisions.
An EPA Strategy
EPA's vision, goals and strategies on science to
support environmental justice and achieve health
equity are informed by several published conceptual
frameworks (CSDH, 2008; Gee and Payne-Sturges,
2004; Habermann and Gouveia, 2008; Krieger, 2001;
Morello-Frosch, 2002; Morello-Frosch and Shenassa,
2006; Norton et af, 2002; Schulz et af, 2002;
Wakefieldetal.,2010).
The Agency projects that by 2015 its research will
employ participatory principles and integrate
social and physical sciences to bring about
solutions to environmental and health inequalities
among minority, low-income, and indigenous
communities and tribes. The overarching goal is to
advance the scientific basis for policy decisions to
ensure that everyone enjoys the same degree of
protection from environmental and health
hazards, along with equal access to the decision-
making process, in order to have a healthy
environment in which to live, learn, work, and
play.
EPA's ongoing and proposed actions are reflected
in strategies to:
apply trans-disciplinary and community-
based research approaches that address
multimedia, cumulative impacts in
environmental health;
create mechanisms to incorporate
perspectives from community-based
organizations and community leaders into
EPA research;
leverage partnerships with other federal
agencies on issues of research, policy, and
action to address health disparities; and
build and strengthen the capacity of Office of
Research and Development (ORD) scientists
on conducting research in partnership with
impacted communities and translating
research results to inform change.
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Words to Action
EPA has undertaken the following actions to
identify research and scientific needs to ensure
that environmental justice concerns are
incorporated into EPA's policies:
Develop trans-disciplinary research programs
on environment and community health.
Develop guidance, methods, tools, and data to
integrate environmental justice into decision
making.
Conduct exposure and health research in
near-roadway environments.
Incorporate perspectives from community-
based organizations and engage in
collaborative partnerships.
Partner with other federal agencies in the
Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities
Research (FCHDR).
Enhance EPA's capacity for science
partnerships with impacted communities.
Each of these is described in detail on the
follow ing pages.
ACTION
Develop Trans-disciplinary
Research Programs on
Environment and Community
Health
should share fully in making decisions that affect
their health and environment.
The administration at EPA, particularly in the
ORD, recognizes that fragmented research
programs cannot solve twenty-first century
environmental challenges. Under the leadership of
Assistant Administrator Paul Anastas, ORD is
integrating tw elve media-specific research
programs into four trans-disciplinary programs
aligned with EPA's new strategic plan. Sustainable
and Healthy Communities, a trans-disciplinary
research program on environmental and
community health, aims to address several topics
raised at the symposium and conducts research in
a manner consistent with principles of
community-based participatory research. For the
program to be successful, incorporating
community perspectives and implementing the
recommended actions on capacity building is
critical.
As part of the new Healthy and Sustainable
Communities research program, several EPA
Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant
solicitations are being considered to support
environmental health research in tribal
communities and to establish Centers of
Excellence on Environment and Health
Disparities. The centers will examine the joint
impacts of social and physical environmental
conditions, processes, and systems on health RFA
in collaboration with NIH's National Institute on
Minority Health and Health Disparities
(NIMHD).
BACKGROUND
Social, economic, physical, chemical and biological
factors contribute to these hazards, so research
and tools that inform policy need to better account
for the complex interactions that result in unequal
environmental health conditions and
disproportionate impacts among minorities, low-
income and indigenous communities and tribes.
Furthermore, members of these communities
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
ORD's new research program is responsive to
suggestions from symposium participants for EPA
to create and institute a scientific research
approach that facilitates a more holistic
2 More information on STAR grants can be found at:
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/
5-4
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understanding of health and the environment. The
program presents an opportunity for ORD to
better integrate perspectives from community
residents and leaders, community-based NGOs,
and community health and environmental quality
advocates into the development of the research
plan.
The hallmark of the proposed trans-disciplinary
approach is "systems thinking," which examines
the complex interactions among social, natural
and built environmental systemsthe conditions
and policies that impact human health and
wellbeing. To address environmental justice
concerns, this program will need to direct its
attention to how these complex interactions result
in inequitable environmental health conditions
and disproportionate impacts among
disadvantaged population groups, communities,
neighborhoods and individuals.
Anticipated outcomes include new information
and tools to incorporate more holistic
environmental decision making at national,
regional, state, and local levels. As this program is
designed to support environmental justice
concerns, it will also inform strategies for
alleviating systemic drivers of racial and socio-
economic disparities in access to healthy
environments.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
Input on the proposed Sustainable and Healthy
Communities Research Program is being sought
from a variety of environmental justice
stakeholders. These stakeholders include federal,
state, county, and local governmental officials,
community groups and leaders, and industry
representatives. By bringing together a diversity of
disciplines to plan and implement this type of
integrated research program, EPA can more
effectively develop innovative and sustainable
solutions to complex, twenty-first century
environmental problems that are responsive to
stakeholder needs. Several external advisory
committees continue to recommend this approach.
MILESTONES
Host regional listening sessions to gather
input from communities.
Incorporate ideas and concerns from
stakeholders and representatives of
disproportionately impacted communities and
populations.
3TION
op Guidance, Methods,
Tools, and Data to Integrate
Environmental Justice into
Decision Making
BACKGROUND
EPA's regulatory decision making is informed by
scientific data and analysis. To facilitate the
process, EPA scientists and decision-makers, as
well as communities, community advocates and
other stakeholders, require systematic guidance on
how to conduct these analyses. They depend on
scientifically valid tools and methods and on
information communicated by environmental data.
While tools for advancing environmental health
protection have seen significant investment by the
EPA, they have not been fully developed to
specifically address environmental justice.
EPA's commitment to integrating environmental
justice into all of its decisions, policies and
programs is evident in the ongoing development of
technical guidance, analytic methods, tools, and
data. To further the initiative, ORD, in
collaboration with the Office of Environmental
Justice and the Office of Children's Health
Protection, commissioned scientific papers on the
factors prevalent among minority and low-income
5-5
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populations that are associated with
disproportionate exposures and/or health risks.
The papers, a focus of the March 2010 symposium,
cover both subject matter reviews and
methodological issues. They will serve as resources
for the proposed technical guidance tool and will
inform EPA about scientific gaps in order to
advance the development of analytical methods for
integrating environmental justice considerations
into analytical frameworks.
Meanwhile, EPA's Office of Air and Radiation
(OAR) is piloting several analyses that will reveal
the potential implications of air rules on minority,
low-income and indigenous populations.
Analytical approaches now under evaluation
include:
proximity-based socio-demographic analyses
that highlight the characteristics of those
living closest to sources of air pollution;
exposure and health-risk modeling that
breaks out data based on socio-demographic
characteristics (e.g., race, income); and
benefits mapping that shows the distribution
of benefits of a regulation to various socio-
demographic groups.
Additional related ORD activities include:
developing an index to measure county-level
environmental quality, which will increase
understanding about the contributions of
multiple stressors to health disparities in
minority, low-income, and indigenous
communities and tribes;
evaluating existing tools developed by its
scientists with respect to appropriateness and
ease of use for experts in communities;
working with stakeholders to develop a series
of free trainings and partner with various
organizations to host a tools-training
workshop;
implementing a multimedia approach to
cumulative contamination exposures in
communities facing environmental justice
issues; and
developing cumulative risk/impact assessment
tools, techniques, and mapping that can be
applied on multiple geographic scales. For
example, the office recently committed $8
million in research investment through STAR
grants on cumulative risk assessment methods
that incorporate community social contexts
(non-chemical stressors) and indicators of
population vulnerability.3 Results will be
disseminated for use in EPA program offices.
EPA's Office of the Science Advisor and ORD's
National Exposure Research Laboratory have
launched an initiative to develop the web-based
Cumulative Risk Assessment Environmental
Justice Wizard (CRA-EJ wizard). The CRA-EJ
wizard is being designed as a tool for communities
to assess multi-media environmental and
socioeconomic risks as well as a means to develop
and test environmental justice issues within the
context of developing cumulative risk assessment
guidelines for EPA. The project recognizes the
relationship between vulnerability and health
disparities and the need to explore both concepts
within the risk assessment paradigm. Developers
will engage stakeholders to inform the
development of the CRA-EJ Wizard. The effort
aims to build skills among EPA/ORD scientists to
design research and risk assessment protocols
informed by collaboration with affected
communities.
The CRA-EJ Wizard will be a walk-through tool
in EPA's Community-Focused Exposure and Risk
Screening Tool (C-FERST)4'5. It will evolve
toward an automated guide for cumulative
exposure and risk assessments with special
considerations for environmental justice. The
CRA-EJ Wizard will use data sources in C-
FERST, both current and planned, but will also
include other factors often considered in
3 More information about these STAR grants is available at
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/cumulativerisk.
4 C-FERST; http://www.epa.gov/heasd/c-ferst;
5 Zartarian, VG, Schultz, BD, Barzyk, TM, Smuts, M, Hammond,
DM, Medina-Vera, M, Geller, AM. "The EPA's Community-
Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) and its
potential use for environment justice efforts," AJPH, in press.
5-6
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environmental justice analyses such as community
assets. This broader framework for decision
making should lead to more sustainable outcomes
as a result of a more complete understanding of the
factors constituting and contributing to risk in the
identified populations.
Participants in the March 2010 symposium
requested that EPA develop easy-to-use GIS tools.
ORD's National Atlas of Ecosystem Services is
developing an urban atlas, which will include
high-resolution mapping for 100 to 250 urban
areas selected along several gradients of concern
(e.g., size, location, and environmental and health
conditions). This program is expected to:
measure and communicate the type, quality,
and magnitude of services that people receive
from ecosystems so their true value is
considered in decision making;
reveal underserved areas w here management
to enhance specific ecosystem services would
benefit community health and wellbeing;
identify low -income and other vulnerable and
underserved sub-populations that may benefit
disproportionately from "green"
infrastructure;
stratify urban areas to develop separate
estimates of ecosystem services for
communities identified as socially vulnerable;
and
incorporate accessible health data to map
aspects of population susceptibility to
diminished or degraded services.
EPA is conducting this project in collaboration
with multiple federal agencies, including the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service,
the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, as well as
academic and other educational organizations.
EPA regions and ORD are interacting with
communities to identify priority issues and build
capacity for working with mapping tools that will
inform risk evaluation and management decisions.
EPA's National Clean Diesel
Campaign Tools and Resources
EPA recognizes the health risks associated with
diesel emissions and has classified diesel exhaust
as a likely carcinogen at existing ambient
concentrations. Many scientific studies link
diesel exhaust and its components, such as
particulate matter (PM or soot), ground-level
ozone (smog) and other air toxics, to serious
respiratory and cardiac health damage, heart and
lung disease, chronic bronchitis, exacerbation of
asthma symptoms, and premature mortality.
Minority and disadvantaged populations may
receive disproportionate impacts from diesel
emissions. Activities of the National Clean
Diesel Campaign (NCDC) further EPA's
commitment to reduce health and
environmental harm from diesel emissions
across the country. Comprehensive tools and
resources, including funding information, state
and local toolkits, best practice materials, case
studies, and the Diesel Emissions Quantifier tool
to estimate emissions reductions, are available
on NCDC's Website, www.epa.gov/cleandiesel.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The guidance, methods, tools and data to advance
the integration of environmental justice into EPA's
decision-making processes represents several
symposium participant comments. These activities
address suggestions for EPA not only in science
but across policy, capacity building and promoting
healthy and sustainable communities to:
Adopt multimedia, cross-program approaches
to address cumulative environmental
exposures in stakeholder communities and re-
structure risk assessment to better account for
multiple stressors;
Integrate environmental justice into all of its
decisions, which will help EPA staff develop
regulatory options to fully protect the
5-7
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environment and health of all individuals and
help communities better understand their
environmental problems.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
These actions are responsive to several core focus
areas of EPA's Plan EJ 2014 and the principles of
environmental justice articulated in EPA's FY
2011-2015 Strategic Plan. They also address the
Executive Order 12898 mandate requiring that
EPA identify and respond to disproportionate
human health effects of its policies, programs and
activities on minority, low-income, and
indigenous communities and tribes.
Research grants on cumulative risks and
impacts should bring about new approaches
to incorporating community knowledge into
the development of tools and the application
of qualitative approaches and social science
methods into cumulative impact assessments.
The Urban Eco-services Atlas, C-FERST and
CRA-EJ Wizard will benefit EPA programs by
engaging with stakeholders to address the
community-based assessment of cumulative
risks. The tool will improve the capacity of
EPA regional risk assessors to assist
communities in understanding the complexity
of risk and means by which to identify
priorities.
Initial community interaction for the
development of the urban atlas will proceed
through existing EPA initiatives such as the
CARE and EJ Showcase programs and the
EPA/HUD/DOT Partnership for Sustainable
Communities. Information about ecosystem
services will expand options for improving
community health and wellbeing and will
clarify economic and other trade-offs involved
in alternate environmental mitigation and
remediation decisions. The selection of focal
urban areas along several gradients will
facilitate the application of observed linkages
between community welfare and ecosystem
services to additional populated areas of
concern.
MILESTONES
Develop and refine screening tools that
identify air rules that raise potential
environmental justice concerns.
Identify analytical tools that are most
appropriate for particular types of air
rulemaking activities.
Host community-based tools workshop(s)
with a focus on environmental justice and
health disparities to inform EPA's actions
under Plan EJ 2014.
Develop and finalize the Environmental
Quality Indicator (EQI).
Issue RFA on innovative applications of
Health Impact Assessment process and
related decision support tools (CIS mapping,
indices of disproportionate impacts) to
environmental regulatory decisions.
Develop and beta-test the CRA-EJ Wizard by
the end of 2011.
Complete the first phase of the urban atlas
and the second phase of C-FERST in fiscal
year 2013.
, ct Exposure and Health
Research in Near-roadway
Environments
BACKGROUND
Studies have shown that people who live, work, or
attend school near major roadways have an
increased incidence and severity of certain health
problems. Health effects include reduced lung
function and impaired development in children,
asthma, cardiovascular disease, low birth weight,
pre-term newborns, and premature death.
-------
EPA's Air, Climate, and Energy Research Program
has launched a multidisciplinary series of near-
roadway studies. The research objectives are to:
identify and define mobile source emissions by
monitoring near roadways with varied traffic
levels and vehicle classifications;
assess factors affecting the variability of near-
roadway air pollutants, such as traffic activity
and roadway-design features;
improve modeling tools for near-roadway air
quality and human exposure assessments; and
assess the health effects of near-roadway
exposures.
Key scientific questions include:
How do traffic and roadway emissions affect
exposures and adverse health effects for
populations living, working, or going to
school near roadways?
What tools for use in regulatory decision
making and transportation planning are
available, or can be produced, to identify the
relationship between traffic emissions and
adverse health effects?
Do public facilities near major roadways
present a health risk to their occupants?
This research program is being conducted in
collaboration with EPA policy-makers and with
the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Field data collection has been completed in
Raleigh, N.C., and Las Vegas, N.V. EPA scientists
plan to continue their collaboration with the
FHWA to measure, define and profile roadway air
pollutants with a study in Detroit, MI. In addition,
EPA researchers will begin a year-long study with
researchers from the University of Michigan to
examine potential health effects of air pollution to
asthmatic children living near busy highways in
Detroit. The collaboration will enable further
investigation into the types of pollutants common
near roadways, the ways people are exposed to
them, and the relationship between types and
extent of exposures and the severity of certain
health effects. Researchers will evaluate the
likelihood of traffic-related pollution being the
cause of severe asthma attacks and respiratory
viral infections in children between the ages of six
and fourteen.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
The near-roadway research will provide important
scientific data and tools for federal, state and local
governments and organizations to make decisions
about future road projects and to address health
concerns related to roadways. Results are
expected to inform the development of federal
regulatory and voluntary programs to reduce air
pollution along highways. State highway and
environmental agencies can use the science to
assess the local health impacts of transportation
decisions. The information also can assist local
school districts with decisions on whether to
locate new schools near large roadways and how
to mitigate impacts of local roadways on existing
schools.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
ORD is working closely with the Office of Air and
Radiation to develop and implement this research
program. In addition to informing ORD and OAR
policies and programs, the results will help
researchers improve the ability of computer
models to reliably estimate traffic emissions and
the concentrations of traffic-related air pollutants
near roadways in urban areas.
MILESTONES
Use data collected from roadway studies and
scientific papers and products to improve
knowledge about the impacts of traffic
emissions on air quality near roadways and
the possible links to adverse health effects.
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Incorporate Perspectives from
Community-based Organizations
and Engage in Collaborative
Partnerships
BACKGROUND
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has
championed "Expanding the Conversation on
Environmentalism and Working for
Environmental Justice." These goals can be
accomplished through the cooperation of
numerous agencies, organizations, and
stakeholders and through activities ranging from
dissemination of information to community
consultations and technical assistance.
EPA recognizes that community perspectives
must influence the design of its studies,
particularly those that address environmental
health disparities among minority, low-income,
and indigenous communities and tribes. The
Agency employs community-based participatory
research (CBPR) methods to engage communities
in research, disseminate results in an effective
manner, and involve stakeholders in the review
and evaluation of recommendations.
EPA's commitment to community engagement has
already launched several significant programs.
EPA's EJ Showcase Community pools the
collective resources and expertise of
governmental and non-governmental
organizations.
Community Action for a Renewed
Environment (CARE), a competitive grant
and technical assistance program, offers an
An Environmental Profile for
Port Arthur, Texas
As part of the Environmental Justice Showcase
Community effort in Port Arthur, Texas, EPA's
Region 6 will develop and annually update an
environmental profile for the city. The profile will
be a clear, concise outreach document for the
west side of Port Arthur that summarizes joint
EPA/state evaluations of the best available
information about environmental conditions. The
document will also inform the public of federal
and state permits and authorizations and identify
opportunities for input into permit conditions.
This project is multimedia and cross-divisional.
The profile will require data and input from EPA
staff and managers regarding air modeling, air
monitoring, air planning and ozone designation,
drinking water, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act program, water quality, water
permits, Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act Underground Storage Tanks, and emergency
response.
Upon completion, the environmental profile will
help the community establish baseline
environmental data and identify and prioritize
environmental concerns. It will also inform the
public of federal and state permits and
authorizations and identify opportunities for
input into permit conditions.
innovative way for communities to reduce
toxic pollution in their environments.
The Regional Applied Research Effort
Program (RARE) provides each EPA regional
office with $200,000 annually for a joint
research project with ORD to meet local
needs.7 Each EPA regional science liaison
coordinates RARE Program activities and is
responsible for ensuring that research results
are effectively communicated and utilized.
6 More information about the EJ Showcase can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/environmentarjustice/grants/ej-
showcase.html.
7 More information about RARE can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/osp/regions.htm.
5-10
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Addressing En vironmental and
Health Concerns in Mossville,
Louisiana
EPA Region 6 developed a five-year community
action plan to address the longstanding
environmental and health concerns of Mossville,
Louisiana, residents. The plan, launched in
October 2010, incorporates input from the July
2009 Environmental Justice Listening Session.
Components of the plan include:
investigating the long-term legacy of
contamination;
conducting an assessment of M ossville's
drinking water system and working with the
community to address related issues;
pursuing enforcement actions against major
industrial facilities;
securing Supplemental Environmental
Projects (SEPs) to benefit the community;
working with the state and industries to limit
flaring and accidental releases;
working with the community to address
health concerns; and
coordinating with Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry ATSDR to
improve awareness and availability of data
and information for the community.
To solicit maximum public input, particularly
from stakeholders, ORD plans to utilize new
approaches to engagement and collaboration (e.g.,
regional outreach, RARE, and partnerships with
EPA program offices and other federal agencies).
EPA plans to re-establish a health and research
working group within the National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) that will advise
the EPA administrator and ORD in scientific
research, health impacts, and environmental
exposures and risks that directly relate to
environmental justice.
EPA will integrate participatory research methods
into ORD's new research program on Healthy and
Sustainable Communities, and the EJ Showcase
program will bring together EPA Region 6 and its
host communities to develop an environmental
profile for Port Arthur, Texas.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
These actions reflect suggestions from symposium
participants to integrate community members'
perspectives into the development of EPA's
scientific research plans and data collection. Re-
establishing a NEJAC health and research working
subcommittee would provide a critically needed
formal mechanism for stakeholders, including
community-based organizations to provide input
and feedback into EPA/ORD research initiatives.
This ensures that community wisdom,
perspectives and values are accommodated in the
development of ORD's new research program.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
ORD will utilize the advice of the proposed
NEJAC working group to develop the Healthy and
Sustainable Communities initiative. Engaging
NEJAC in these early stages is extremely beneficial
in terms of setting the course, identifying critical
research questions, soliciting input, and
developing partnerships with community-based
organization and environmental justice leaders.
Also, engaging stakeholder communities in the
Port Arthur and Mossville projects in EPA's
Region 6 will ensure that both projects utilize and
yield locally accurate information for identifying
and addressing environmental health issues and
needs for these communities.
5-11
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MILESTONES
Establish a NEJAC working group on research
to advise ORD on its key initiatives.
Develop an environmental profile for the
community of Port Arthur, Texas, using OEJ's
EJ Showcase communities program.
Implement components of the 5-year
community plan to assess and address
environmental health concerns in Mossville,
Louisiana.
Partner with Other Federal
Agencies on the Federal
Collaboration on Health
Disparities Research (FCHDR)
BACKGROUND
Environmental justice and related concerns for
health inequities are multi-dimensional, and
solutions require interagency actions.
Environmental justice is not solely an EPA
responsibility, just as health disparities cannot be
seen solely as a Department of Health and Human
Services problem. At present, the federal
government approach to promoting and managing
health and the determinants of health (e.g., the
environment) is fragmented. Symposium
participants voiced the need for a multi-
stakeholder, multisystem approach to achieving
environmental justice. We also need to strengthen
interagency collaboration to improve research that
can impact environmental and health practice,
programs, and policy.
EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD)
will participate in the interagency Federal
Collaboration on Health Disparities Research
(FCHDR) and represent EPA on the Executive
Steering Committee. The FCHDR executive
committee brings together agency representatives
who seek practical solutions to advance health
disparities research and foster greater federal
coordination, collaboration, and communication
regarding the elimination of health disparities.
Federal departments represented on the
committee include:
Department of Education
National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research
Department of Housing and Urban
Development
Department of Justice
Department of Veterans Affairs
Environmental Protection Agency
National Science Foundation
Department of Health and Human Services
FCHDR members will explore opportunities for
pooling scientific expertise and resources to
conduct, translate, and disseminate research that
will accelerate the elimination of health
disparities. Their goals and strategies are to:
ensure that health disparities research is
conducted as an integrated and inclusive field
of study, rather than as an aggregate of
independent research activities in separate
domains;
identify health disparities challenges,
including the scientific and practical evidence
most relevant to future policy and action;
increase and maintain awareness about federal
government efforts and opportunities to
address health disparities;
determine how evidence can be translated into
practice to address health disparities and
promote innovation;
advise on possible objectives and measures for
future research, building on the successes and
experiences of health disparities experts; and
publish reports that will contribute to the
development of the FCHDR strategic vision
and plan.
8 More information about this interagency collaboration can be
found at http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/fchdr/
5-12
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In addition, EPA's Office of Air and Radiation,
Office of Children's Health Protection, ORD and
others are collaborating with additional federal
agencies on the newly re-established President's
Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and
Safety Risks to Children. One focus of the task
force is asthma among minority and disadvantaged
children. A workshop on asthma disparities was
held in Washington, B.C., in December 2010 to
foster interagency coordination on the
development and implementation of a detailed
federal plan to address this problem.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
EPA's initiatives will bring better-coordinated
federal approaches to research, policy and action
to address environmental health disparities. This
will allow more efficient use of federal resources to
maximize the impact of federal government
research and policy-related activities on
communities' ability to address these
environmental health disparities.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
EPA's participation in these two federal initiatives
will identify and create opportunities to tackle
disparities in health and access to clean
environments. They will increase EPA/ORD access
and exposure to bring non-traditional EPA
disciplines, such as social science, and concepts,
such as social determinants of health.
MILESTONES
Increase interagency collaboration and joint-
funding of solutions-driven research with
other federal agencies on topics relevant to
environmental justice and health disparities.
Develop a joint research solicitation w ith NIH
National Institute on Minority Health and
Health Disparities on the roles of the social
and physical environments in contributing to
health disparities by fiscal year 2012.
Participate with other federal agencies on the
President's Task Force on Environmental
Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children to
work on asthma disparities among minority
and disadvantaged children by fiscal year
2011-2015.
CTION
Enhance EPA's Capacity for
Science Partnerships with
Impacted Communities
BACKGROUND
In addition to increasing technical capacity in
communities, EPA needs to build its capacity to
work with communities. Related
recommendations from the symposium that
address this issue include the following:
Train EPA staff to engage in effective outreach
and dialog with communities.
Consider using qualitative approaches in risk
assessment.
Create and support multidisciplinary teams in
environmental health research.
Examine upstream factors: social and political
processes that ultimately process the
disparities in risks and health outcomes.
Explore approaches for interacting with
communities that can build collective efficacy
and social capital.
Support communities as equal partners in
research.
Include community representatives and
perspectives in research design.
Both ORD and the Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response (OSWER) intend to provide
training to scientists on principles of community -
5-13
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based participatory research, health disparities,
environmental justice and social justice and will
look for opportunities to collaborate. OSWER's
Community Involvement and Program Initiatives
Branch (CIPIB) sponsors training courses for
Superfund program Community Involvement
Coordinators (CIC) and other EPA and EPA-
affiliated staff. These courses provide the
necessary skills, techniques, and practices to
engage the community in the Superfund process.
Community Involvement University (CIU)
courses could be modified to address community
engagement in more of the research context and
offered to ORD scientists.
National Center for Environmental Research
(NCER) is developing an ORD research plan for
behavioral and social sciences as they impact
environmental protection and the evolution of
policy. Environmental justice consideration will be
critical to this agenda. ORD will conduct
individual and group interviews of
behavioral/social science experts to identify the
most relevant research as well as known gaps in
the areas of behavioral economics, decision theory,
management science, and risk perception.
Additionally, ORD plans to establish a cooperative
agreement with a professional society concerned
with applying social science research to
contemporary environmental health issues.
Activities under the cooperative agreement might
include:
training for ORD staff on incorporating
qualitative approaches and social science
methods into cumulative impact assessments;
approaches to incorporate community
knowledge in such tools for cumulative
impact assessments; and
training to cultivate analytical skills among
ORD staff to examine the social and economic
systems that create cumulative adverse
environmental impacts in communities.
Office of Pesticide Programs
Pesticide Training
The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has
created a new training module as part of its
regular staff training program to ensure that
environmental justice and sensitive population
considerations are fully incorporated in the
pesticide risk assessment process. The first
component of the module addresses general
background on environmental justice. To date,
160 OPP staff have completed training sessions on
the first component of the program. The second
focuses on integrating environmental justice
considerations through OPP risk management for
the consideration of any environmental justice
issues identified by the risk assessments. EPA
aims to ensure that 100 percent of risk assessors
and managers are trained by the end of fiscal year
2012.
Enhanced risk assessment methodologies will
result from a closer look at the toxicity and
exposure patterns specific to each pesticide that
could present a disproportionate risk. Areas now
included in pesticide risk assessment (hazard
assessment, dietary exposure, occupational and
residential exposure, and incident data) will be
considered through an environmental justice lens.
By improving the way environmental justice is
incorporated by risk managers, the OPP training
program will influence pesticide registration and
re-registration decisions to better incorporate
environmental justice considerations.
BENEFITS TO EPA'S
STAKEHOLDER
COMMUNITIES
Community input in the scientific process is
essential to ensure that community perspectives
are adequately reflected in scientific work that
informs EPA's decision-making process. Also,
increasing the capacity at EPA to conduct multi-
disciplinary research guarantees that multiple
determinants of health and how they interact with
environmental exposures to drive disparities are
5-14
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understood. Initiatives to enhance the capacity of
EPA to partner with impacted communities and
conduct multidisciplinary research will improve
the science of environmental justice and
knowledge of determinants of environmental
health disparities, and subsequently help EPA
identify sustainable solutions to environmental
justice issues.
IMPACTS ON EPA
PRO GRA MS AND
ACTIVITIES
We anticipate improvements in the capacity of
Agency scientists to conduct research in
partnership with impacted communities, to
understand and employ social science methods in
environmental research and translate research
results to inform change. This will help enable
ORD's Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Research Program to meet its stated objectives.
MILESTONES
Design a research capacity training program
for ORD scientists that may include self-paced
training on community-based and
participatory research by 2012.
Host workshop to develop strategy for
incorporating behavioral and social sciences in
ORD research plans by late fiscal year 2011.
Increase use of social science methods and
approaches in ORD research and risk
assessments conducted by EPA.
Complete the new OPP module on risk
management training and ensure that 100
percent of risk assessors and managers trained
by the end of fiscal year 2012.
REFERENCES
CSDH (Commission on Social Determinants of
Health). 2008. Closing the gap in a generation:
Health equity through action on the social
determinants of health. Final Report of the
Commission on Social Determinants of Health.
Geneva. World Health Organization.
Gee, G.C. and Payne-Sturges, D.C. 2004.
Environmental health disparities: A framework
integrating psychosocial and environmental
concepts. Environmental Health Perspectives. 11(17),
1645-1653.
Habermann, M. and Gouveia, N. 2008.
Environmental justice: An ecossocial health
approach. Rev Saude Publica. 42(6), 1-7.
Krieger, N. 2001. Theories for social epidemiology
in the 21st century: An ecosocial perspective.
International Journal ojEpidemiology. 30(4), 668-677.
Morello-Frosch, R.A. 2002. Discrimination and the
political economy of environmental inequality.
Environment andPlanning C: Government andPolicy.
20(4), 477-496.
Morello-Frosch, R. Shenassa, E.D. 2006. The
environmental "riskscape" and social inequality:
Implications for explaining maternal and child
health disparities. Environmental Health Perspectives.
114(8), 1150-1153.
Norton, B., McLeroy, K, Burdine, J, Felix, M., and
Dorsey, A. 2002. Community capacity: Concept,
theory and methods. DiClemente, R, Crosby, R,
and Kegler, M., eds. EmergingTheories inHealth
Promotion Practice andResearch; Strategies for Improving
PuHicHealth. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. 2002.
Schulz, A.J., Williams, D.R., Israel, B.A., and
Lempert, L.B. 2002. Racial and spatial relations as
fundamental determinants of health in Detroit. The
Milbank Quarterly. 80(4), 677-707.
Wakefield, S.E.L., & Baxter,]. 2010.Linking health
inequality and environmental justice: Articulating
a precautionary framework for research and
action. Environmental Justice. 3(3), 95-102.
5-15
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Appendix A: Acronyms
CARE: Community Action for a Renewed Environment
CASTNET: Clean Air Status and Trends Network
CBPR: community-based participatory research
CDC: community development corporation
CEI: Community Engagement Initiative
C-FERST: Community Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool
CIPIB: Community Involvement and Program Initiatives Branch
CIC: community involvement coordinators
CIU: Community Involvement University
CRA-EJ Wizard: Cumulative Risk Assessment Environmental Justice Wizard
DOE: Department of Energy
DOL: Department of Labor
DOT: Department of Transportation
EJ: environmental justice
EJSEAT: Environmental Justice Strategic Enforcement Assessment Tool
EJSC: Environmental Justice Showcase Community
EJSG: Environmental Justice Small Grants Program
ELG: Effluent Limitations Guidelines
EQI: Environmental Quality Indicator
FaST: Faculty and Student Teams
FCHDR: Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities Research
FHWA: Federal Highway Administration
FIHET: Federal Interagency Health Equity Team
A-l
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GREEN: Growing Responsible Environmental Employees Now
GRO: Greater Research Opportunities
HUD: Department of Housing and Urban Development
ITEP: Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
IWG: Interagency Working Group
MOU: memorandum of understanding
MSI: Minority Serving Institutions
NCDC: National Clean Diesel Campaign
NCER: National Center for Environmental Research
NCMHD: National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities
NEJAC: National Environmental Justice Advisory Council
NGO: nongovernmental organization
NIH: National Institute of Health
NPA: National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities
NSF: National Science Foundation
NSS: National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity
NTWC: National Tribal Water Council
OAR: Office of Air and Radiation
OPP: Office of Pesticide Programs
OCSPP: Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
OECA: Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
OP: Office of Policy
ORD: Office of Research and Development
OSWER: Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
OW: Office of Water
A-2
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PRASA: Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority
RARE: Regional Applied Research Effort Program
RFA: request for application
SSI: Sustainable Skylines Initiative
STAR: Science to Achieve Research
TAMS: Tribal Air Monitoring Support
USDA: United States Department of Agriculture
A-3
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Appendix B: Executive Order 12898
Federal Register
Vol. 59, No. 32
Wednesday, February 16, 1994
Presidential Documents
Title 3
The President
Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994
Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in
Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1-1.Implementation.
1-101. Agency Responsibilities. To the greatest extent practicable and per-
mitted by law, and consistent with the principles set forth in the report
on the National Performance Review, each Federal agency shall make achiev-
ing environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing,
as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environ-
mental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations
and low-income populations in the United States and its territories and
possessions, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
and the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands.
1-102. Creation of an Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice.
(a) Within 3 months of the date of this order, the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency ("Administrator") or the Administrator's
designee shall convene an interagency Federal Working Group on Environ-
mental Justice ("Working Group"). The Working Group shall comprise the
heads of the following executive agencies and offices, or their designees:
(a) Department of Defense; (b) Department of Health and Human Services;
(c) Department of Housing and Urban Development; (d) Department of Labor;
(e) Department of Agriculture; (f) Department of Transportation; (g) Depart-
ment of Justice; (h) Department of the Interior; (i) Department of Commerce;
(j) Department of Energy; (k) Environmental Protection Agency; (1) Office
of Management and Budget; (m) Office of Science and Technology Policy;
(n) Office of the Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Policy;
(o) Office of the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy; (p) National
Economic Council; (q) Council of Economic Advisers; and (r) such other
Government officials as the President may designate. The Working Group
shall report to the President through the Deputy Assistant to the President
for Environmental Policy and the Assistant to the President for Domestic
Policy.
(b) The Working Group shall: (1) provide guidance to Federal agencies
on criteria for identifying disproportionately high and adverse human health
or environmental effects on minority populations and low-income popu-
lations;
(2) coordinate with, provide guidance to, and serve as a clearinghouse
for, each Federal agency as it develops an environmental justice strategy
as required by section 1-103 of this order, in order to ensure that the
administration, interpretation and enforcement of programs, activities and
policies are undertaken in a consistent manner;
(3) assist in coordinating research by, and stimulating cooperation among,
the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other
agencies conducting research or other activities in accordance with section
3-3 of this order;
(4) assist in coordinating data collection, required by this order;
(5) examine existing data and studies on environmental justice;
B-l
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Federal Register/Vol. 59, No. 32/Wednesday, February 16, 1994/Presidential Documents
(6) hold public meetings as required in section 5-502 (d) of this order;
and
(7) develop interagency model projects on environmental justice that
evidence cooperation among Federal agencies.
1-103. Development of Agency Strategies, (a) Except as provided in section
6-605 of this order, each Federal agency shall develop an agency-wide
environmental justice strategy, as set forth in subsections (b)-(e) of this
section that identifies and addresses disproportionately high and adverse
human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities
on minority populations and low-income populations. The environmental
justice strategy shall list programs, policies, planning and public participation
processes, enforcement, and/or rulemakings related to human health or the
environment that should be revised to, at a minimum: (1) promote enforce-
ment of all health and environmental statutes in areas with minority popu-
lations and low-income populations; (2) ensure greater public participation;
(3) improve research and data collection relating to the health of and environ-
ment of minority populations and low-income populations; and (4) identify
differential patterns of consumption of natural resources among minority
populations and low-income populations. In addition, the environmental
justice strategy shall include, where appropriate, a timetable for undertaking
identified revisions and consideration of economic and social implications
of the revisions.
(b) Within 4 months of the date of this order, each Federal agency shall
identify an internal administrative process for developing its environmental
justice strategy, and shall inform the Working Group of the process.
(c) Within 6 months of the date of this order, each Federal agency shall
provide the Working Group with an outline of its proposed environmental
justice strategy.
(d) Within 10 months of the date of this order, each Federal agency
shall provide the Working Group with its proposed environmental justice
strategy.
(e) Within 12 months of the date of this order, each Federal agency
shall finalize its environmental justice strategy and provide a copy and
written description of its strategy to the Working Group. During the 12
month period from the date of this order, each Federal agency, as part
of its environmental justice strategy, shall identify several specific projects
that can be promptly undertaken to address particular concerns identified
during the development of the proposed environmental justice strategy, and
a schedule for implementing those projects.
(f) Within 24 months of the date of this order, each Federal agency
shall report to the Working Group on its progress in implementing its
agency-wide environmental justice strategy.
(g) Federal agencies shall provide additional periodic reports to the Work-
ing Group as requested by the Working Group.
1-104. Reports to the President. Within 14 months of the date of this
order, the Working Group shall submit to the President, through the Office
of the Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Policy and the
Office of the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, a report that
describes the implementation of this order, and includes the final environ-
mental justice strategies described in section l-103(e) of this order.
Sec. 2-2. Federal Agency Responsibilities for Federal Programs. Each Federal
agency shall conduct its programs, policies, and activities that substantially
affect human health or the environment, in a manner that ensures that
such programs, policies, and activities do not have the effect of excluding
persons (including populations) from participation in, denying persons (in-
cluding populations) the benefits of, or subjecting persons (including popu-
lations) to discrimination under, such programs, policies, and activities,
because of their race, color, or national origin.
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Sec. 3-3.Research, Data Collection, and Analysis.
3-301. Human Health and Environmental Research and Analysis, (a) Envi-
ronmental human health research, whenever practicable and appropriate,
shall include diverse segments of the population in epidemiological and
clinical studies, including segments at high risk from environmental hazards,
such as minority populations, low-income populations and workers who
may be exposed to substantial environmental hazards.
(b) Environmental human health analyses, whenever practicable and appro-
priate, shall identify multiple and cumulative exposures.
(c) Federal agencies shall provide minority populations and low-income
populations the opportunity to comment on the development and design
of research strategies undertaken pursuant to this order.
3-302. Human Health and Environmental Data Collection and Analysis.
To the extent permitted by existing law, including the Privacy Act, as
amended (5 U.S.C. section 552a): (a) each Federal agency, whenever prac-
ticable and appropriate, shall collect, maintain, and analyze information
assessing and comparing environmental and human health risks borne by
populations identified by race, national origin, or income. To the extent
practical and appropriate, Federal agencies shall use this information to
determine whether their programs, policies, and activities have disproportion-
ately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority
populations and low-income populations;
(b) In connection with the development and implementation of agency
strategies in section 1-103 of this order, each Federal agency, whenever
practicable and appropriate, shall collect, maintain and analyze information
on the race, national origin, income level, and other readily accessible and
appropriate information for areas surrounding facilities or sites expected
to have a substantial environmental, human health, or economic effect on
the surrounding populations, when such facilities or sites become the subject
of a substantial Federal environmental administrative or judicial action.
Such information shall be made available to the public, unless prohibited
by law; and
(c) Each Federal agency, whenever practicable and appropriate, shall col-
lect, maintain, and analyze information on the race, national origin, income
level, and other readily accessible and appropriate information for areas
surrounding Federal facilities that are: (1) subject to the reporting require-
ments under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act,
42 U.S.C. section 11001-11050 as mandated in Executive Order No. 12856;
and (2) expected to have a substantial environmental, human health, or
economic effect on surrounding populations. Such information shall be made
available to the public, unless prohibited by law.
(d) In carrying out the responsibilities in this section, each Federal agency,
whenever practicable and appropriate, shall share information and eliminate
unnecessary duplication of efforts through the use of existing data systems
and cooperative agreements among Federal agencies and with State, local,
and tribal governments.
Sec. 4-4. Subsistence Consumption of Fish and Wildlife.
4-401. Consumption Patterns. In order to assist in identifying the need
for ensuring protection of populations with differential patterns of subsistence
consumption of fish and wildlife, Federal agencies, whenever practicable
and appropriate, shall collect, maintain, and analyze information on the
consumption patterns of populations who principally rely on fish and/or
wildlife for subsistence. Federal agencies shall communicate to the public
the risks of those consumption patterns.
4-402. Guidance. Federal agencies, whenever practicable and appropriate,
shall work in a coordinated manner to publish guidance reflecting the latest
scientific information available concerning methods for evaluating the human
health risks associated with the consumption of pollutant-bearing fish or
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wildlife. Agencies shall consider such guidance in developing their policies
and rules.
Sec. 5-5. Public Participation and Access to Information, (a) The public
may submit recommendations to Federal agencies relating to the incorpora-
tion of environmental justice principles into Federal agency programs or
policies. Each Federal agency shall convey such recommendations to the
Working Group.
(b) Each Federal agency may, whenever practicable and appropriate, trans-
late crucial public documents, notices, and hearings relating to human health
or the environment for limited English speaking populations.
(c) Each Federal agency shall work to ensure that public documents,
notices, and hearings relating to human health or the environment are con-
cise, understandable, and readily accessible to the public.
(d) The Working Group shall hold public meetings, as appropriate, for
the purpose of fact-finding, receiving public comments, and conducting in-
quiries concerning environmental justice. The Working Group shall prepare
for public review a summary of the comments and recommendations dis-
cussed at the public meetings.
Sec. 6-6. General Provisions.
6-601. Responsibility for Agency Implementation. The head of each Federal
agency shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with this order. Each
Federal agency shall conduct internal reviews and take such other steps
as may be necessary to monitor compliance with this order.
6-602. Executive Order No. 12250. This Executive order is intended to
supplement but not supersede Executive Order No. 12250, which requires
consistent and effective implementation of various laws prohibiting discrimi-
natory practices in programs receiving Federal financial assistance. Nothing
herein shall limit the effect or mandate of Executive Order No. 12250.
6-603. Executive Order No. 12875. This Executive order is not intended
to limit the effect or mandate of Executive Order No. 12875.
6-604. Scope. For purposes of this order, Federal agency means any agency
on the Working Group, and such other agencies as may be designated
by the President, that conducts any Federal program or activity that substan-
tially affects human health or the environment. Independent agencies are
requested to comply with the provisions of this order.
6-605. Petitions for Exemptions. The head of a Federal agency may petition
the President for an exemption from the requirements of this order on
the grounds that all or some of the petitioning agency's programs or activities
should not be subject to the requirements of this order.
6-606. Native American Programs. Each Federal agency responsibility set
forth under this order shall apply equally to Native American programs.
In addition, the Department of the Interior, in coordination with the Working
Group, and, after consultation with tribal leaders, shall coordinate steps
to be taken pursuant to this order that address Federally-recognized Indian
Tribes.
6-607. Costs. Unless otherwise provided by law, Federal agencies shall
assume the financial costs of complying with this order.
6-608. General. Federal agencies shall implement this order consistent
with, and to the extent permitted by, existing law.
6-609. Judicial Review. This order is intended only to improve the internal
management of the executive branch and is not intended to, nor does it
create any right, benefit, or trust responsibility, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or equity by a party against the United States, its agencies,
its officers, or any person. This order shall not be construed to create
any right to judicial review involving the compliance or noncompliance
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of the United States, its agencies, its officers, or any other person with
this order.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 11, 1994.
[FR Citation 59 FR 7629]
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