AEPA
190B12017
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan
Cross-Cutting Fundamental Strategy: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
Work to reduce and prevent harmful exposures and health risks to children and underserved,
disproportionately impacted low-income, minority, and tribal communities, and support community
efforts to build healthy, sustainable green neighborhoods.
Advancing environmental justice and protecting children's health must be driving forces in our decisions
across all EPA programs. The underlying principles for this commitment are reducing exposures for
those at greatest risk and ensuring that environmental justice and children's health protection are
integral to all Agency activities. Minority, low-income, and tribal/indigenous populations that are
vulnerable to environmental pollution are at risk of having poor health outcomes. These vulnerabilities
may arise because of higher exposures to pollution in places where they work, live, and play, and/or
diminished abilities to withstand, cope with, or recover from exposure to environmental pollution.1
Children are often most sensitive to environmental stressors. Research has demonstrated that prenatal
and early life exposures to environmental hazards can cause lifelong diseases, medical conditions, and
disabilities.2
Environmental justice and children's health protection will be achieved when all Americans, regardless
of age, race, economic status, or ethnicity, have access to clean water, clean air, and healthy
communities. To accomplish this, EPA will use a variety of approaches, including regulation,
enforcement, research, outreach, community-based programs, and partnerships to protect children and
disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations from environmental and human health hazards.
Our success in advancing environmental justice and children's health protection will result from fully
incorporating these priorities into all of our activities across each of the strategic goals of the Agency.
We anticipate that our leadership in advancing environmental justice and children's health protection
will inspire and engage a broad spectrum of partners in the public and private sector to do the same.
To achieve this goal, EPA will:
1. In our regulatory capacity, implement the nation's environmental laws using the best science and
environmental monitoring data to address the potential for adverse health effects from
environmental factors in disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations and vulnerable age
groups. EPA programs will incorporate environmental justice and children's health considerations
at each stage of the Agency's regulation development process and in implementation and
enforcement of environmental regulations.
2. Develop and use environmental and public health indicators to measure improvements in
environmental conditions and health in disproportionately impacted communities and among
vulnerable age groups.
3. In our work on safe management of pesticides and industrial chemicals, take into account
disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations and vulnerable age groups and encourage
the use of "green chemistry" to spur the development of safer chemicals and production processes.
4. Apply best appropriate scientific methods to assess the potential for disproportionate exposures
and health impacts resulting from environmental hazards on minority, low income and tribal
populations, women of child-bearing age, infants, children, and adolescents to support EPA
decision-making, and develop the tools to assess the risk from multiple stressors.
FY 2013 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health 1
-------
5. Fully engage communities in our work to protect human health and the environment. EPA will align
multiple community-based programs to provide funding and technical assistance to communities to
build capacity to address critical issues affecting children's health and disproportionately impacted,
overburdened populations.
6. Work with other federal agencies to engage communities and coordinate funding and technical
support for efforts to build healthy, sustainable, and green neighborhoods, and work with residents
to promote equitable development.
FY 2013 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
This Action Plan lists the specific actions that the EPA will carry out in FY 2013 to achieve the principles
of the Strategy for Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health described in the FY 2011-
2015 EPA Strategic Plan. Annual action plans will be developed for each year of the Plan.
Interaction with States and Tribes
1. Take additional steps to communicate and work with the states in critical activities to enhance
consideration of environmental justice and children's health. In addition to their roles as regulators
states are also critical partners in non-regulatory activities that promote EJ and CH
(Supports Principle 1).
• In FY 2013, Regions will enhance communications about EJ and CH and will work together with
their states through Continuing Environmental Programs (CEP) grant work plans or National
Environmental Performance Partnership System (NEPPS) agreements to identify shared
opportunities that can yield significant benefits for Environmental Justice and/or Children's
Health, e.g., lead poisoning, asthma, air and water pollution from concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs), and multiple or cumulative exposures to air pollution. These
communications will emphasize (1) improving environmental conditions and public health in
minority, low-income, tribal, and other vulnerable communities, and/or (2) advancing children's
health. By September 30, 2013, each Region will submit to the Office of Environmental Justice
(OEJ) and Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP) a brief narrative summary describing
its EJ and CH communication efforts in working with states through CEP grant work plans or
NEPPS agreements.
Regulatory, Enforcement and Training Actions
2. Build on previous efforts to implement Action Development Process (ADP) Guidance for
considering EJ and CH when developing regulations related to the protection of human health
(Supports Principles 1 and 4). To supplement ADP training opportunities:
• Develop a webinar-based training available to all EPA staff, but targeting regulation developers,
to enhance understanding of children's environmental health and its application within EPA's
regulatory process by September 2013.
• Establish an intranet EJ in Rulemaking web page and training materials to increase awareness
of guidance and other support materials that will promote early consideration of EJ in the action
development process by January 2013.
3. Work with EPA enforcement staff and manage interagency National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) workgroup to develop tools to support the consideration of children's health and
environmental justice by all federal agencies (Supports Principles 1, 4, 5, and 6).
FY 2013 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
-------
• The Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP) will partner with the Office of Federal
Activities (OFA) to integrate children's health considerations into EPA's NEPA and Section 309
reviews of federal environmental impact statements (EISs) and other NEPA documents. In FY
2013, each Region will participate in and propose children's health considerations for at least
one NEPA review.
• Produce and distribute training materials, including best practices, for federal government and
external stakeholders that advance consideration of environmental justice in the NEPA review
process government-wide.
Environmental Justice
4. EPA will apply recommendations identified in FY 2012 for improving and advancing EPA's work
with communities, especially those that have underserved and overburdened populations, in one
pilot community or area in each Region and optimize available training resources for Agency staff in
how best to work in and with communities (Supports Principles 5 and 6).
• Convene two meetings of senior Agency officials to review and discuss the progress of the
Regional community pilot projects and the lessons learned from their implementation. Target
meeting dates of February 1, 2013 and August 1, 2013.
• By September 30, 2013, compile: (1) a brief summary of the ten Regional pilots; (2) the
recommendations identified in FY 2012 that each pilot was designed to test; (3) the lessons
learned implementing the Regional community pilots; and, (4) a limited set of recommendations
for integrating promising practices from the pilots into appropriate Agency programs as results
from the pilots become available and recommendations are reviewed and approved by senior
Agency officials.
• Compile promising practices identified by the Regions in FY 2012 into a resource for Agency
community practitioners by April 2013.
• Review existing staff training opportunities for working with communities and develop a training
plan to fill any gaps as warranted by September 30, 2013.
5. NPMs will promote the use of "EJ Legal Tools and Activities to Promote Environmental Justice in
the Permit Application Process" and collect examples and best practices of their use and impact
(Supports Principle 1).
• By September 30, 2013, NPMs will collectively identify 50 examples of the use of EJ legal tools
to more fully ensure that its programs, policies, and activities fully protect human health and the
environment in minority and low-income communities.
• By September 30, 2013, NPMs will collectively identify 20 best practices illustrating the use of
the EPA activities to promote EJ in the permit application process.
Children's Health
6. Assess the results of the OCHP and Regional Schools Coordinators' focused outreach and
technical assistance to identify opportunities to increase adoption of EPA's guidelines and
programmatic school environmental health tools (Supports Principle 5).
• By September 2013, schools staff will participate in at least 20 outreach forums (webinars,
conferences, technical assistance sessions, trainings, etc.) and evaluate effectiveness of
activities to direct the FY 2014 outreach plan.
FY 2013 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health 3
-------
7. OCHP will monitor the implementation of Agency-wide Children's Environmental Health training at
headquarters and Regional offices by tracking completion and offering group and web-based
sessions. Work to reach 10% completion rate by September 2013. Training will be revised as
appropriate and made available to federal, state, tribal, and local partners as well as non-
governmental stakeholders by September 2013 (Supports Principles 5 and 6).
1 WHO (2006). Principles for Evaluating Health Risks in Children. Environmental Health Criteria 237
EPA (2003). Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment. Risk Assessment Forum, US Environmental Protection
Agency. EPA/630/P-02/001F.
NEJAC (2004). Ensuring Risk Reduction in Communities with Multiple Stressors: Environmental Justice and
Cumulative Risks/Impacts. National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
2 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2008). Linking Early Environmental Exposures to Adult
Diseases. National Institute of Health. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Research Triangle
Park, NC. http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/docs/linking-exposures.pdf.
FY 2013 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
------- |