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This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on February 22, 2013. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2013. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): EPA Rights Complaint Process Changes Fail To Ease Petitioner Concerns
On July 17, 2012, Rosemere Neighborhood Association submitted a public comments letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on EPA’s Draft Supplement: Advancing Environmental Justice Through Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
The public comments letter in part includes:
Despite Rosemere’s lawsuit and the subsequent national debate of the failures of the OCR, and despite your continued promises for EPA to increase efficiency in that office to make Environmental Justice a national priority, the OCR continues to fail in its intake and investigation guidelines in regard to Title VI complaints. To date, the EPA has ignored Rosemere’s various requests to meet with you and to voice our concerns and share our experiences in order to offer suggestions to improve OCR’s operations. And to date, only one case has ever attained a ruling of discrimination in support of Title VI claims [Angelita C. v. California Department of Pesticide Regulations] and it took more than ten years to achieve that result. Most cases are dismissed outright, claiming jurisdictional issues or other bureaucratic problems. Many groups across the country wonder why the OCR functions under such a dismal record, and this points succinctly to how OCR is disconnected from the disparate impacts that can be suffered by Environmental Justice populations nationwide.
Environmental Justice Enforcement is a very important tool that should be used to address discrimination that can cause adverse health impacts and environmental harm to neighborhoods where low income and minorities live and work. Whereas we appreciate the Title VI Supplement’s attempt to begin to fine tune the various agency failures, we feel that the timelines are vague and deficient and that they need to be more detailed to ensure future compliance success. We offer the general comment that EPA’s enforcement model under the supplement attempts only gentle compliance — collaboration, and conciliation rather than the promise of clearly defined relief. For example, in the Angelita case, the state of California did not experience the withholding of federal funds as required under Title VI guidelines when a real first-time case discrimination was established. We acknowledge that the state of California is currently experiencing a serious budgetary crisis, and that a freeze of federal funds as mandated under Title VI could be very serious, but without consistent penalties for discriminatory behavior there can be no success in altering the on-the-ground conditions that contributed the disparate impacts.
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It is reasonable for the community to request EPA to be more open, to collaborate with the complainants as well as the agencies that are the target of complaints. Please don’t let this process degrade further into a debate limited to state’s rights of self government v. federal regulation. That argument is easily used to dismiss valid claims of discrimination and only points out how civil rights violations continue unabated in our nation.
To view the letter in its entirety (pdf format): Rosemere Neighborhood Association Comments on EPA Draft Title VI Supplement
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on April 19, 2012. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2012. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): EPA Plan Expected to Limit New Title VI Petitions
Representatives from community and environmental groups from across the United States and Puerto Rico have signed a letter to Dr. Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and Mathy Stanislaus, Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator, urging more comprehensive transparent and inclusive discussions on military cleanup regulatory requirements.
We are representatives of communities that host active, closing, and former military facilities. We ask that we, as well as state and tribal regulatory agencies, be brought into this important conversation.
We are sympathetic to the desire to have a consistent set of regulatory requirements from U.S. EPA or other regulatory agencies. However, twenty-six years after the establishment of the Defense Environmental Restoration Program, we expect some natural evolution in cleanup regulation as new problems are discovered and the scientific knowledge of the impacts of pollutants changes.
We support Congressman Sam Farr’s suggestion that a forum be created in which regulators, the military components, and affected communities seek common ground to achieve faster, more efficient, and more protective cleanups.
The letter dated April 14, 2012, was signed by Rosemere Neighborhood Association along with representatives of environmental and community groups, including Earth Island Institute, Arc Ecology, United Tribe of Shawnee Indians, and representatives of the Restoration Advisory Boards of former Defense sites in a dozen states.
To view the letter please click here: Communities Letter on Military Cleanup
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on January 27, 2012. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2012. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): EPA Takes Steps To Resolve Civil Rights Concerns IEPA 01-12.pdf
View the DRAFT Report from EPA Civil Rights Executive Committee here: Recommendations for Developing a Model Civil Rights Program at The Environmental Protection Agency
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on September 2, 2011. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2011. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): Equity Advocates Issue ‘Demands’ For EPA To Reform Civil Rights Agenda
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on August 12, 2011. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2011. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): Agencies’ Pact Seen Forcing Action To Address Environmental Justice
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on July 8, 2011. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2011. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): EPA Faces New Suit For Stalled ‘Rights’ Petitions
This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on April 15, 2011. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2011. No further distribution is permitted.
Click here to view article (pdf format): Report Attacks EPA Civil Rights Office As DOJ Fights Pollution Complaint
EPA, under the direction of Administrator Lisa Jackson, has released a redacted version of the Deloitte Consulting LLP Final Report on the Evaluation of the EPA Office of Civil Rights (OCR).
Rosemere Neighborhood Association (RNA) Title VI Complaint and subsequent Settlement Agreement between RNA and EPA of March 2010 figure prominently in the Report (See page 2 of Deloitte Report, link provided below):
This situation has exposed EPA’s Civil Rights programs to significant consequences which have damaged its reputation internally and externally. In the Rosemere Neighborhood Association case regarding the timeliness of a Title VI complaint response, it was found that “OCR’s failure to process the Retaliation Complaint in accordance with the timeline set forth in 40 C.F.R. S7.115(c)(1) constitutes agency action unlawfully withheld pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. S706(1).” 5 OCR’s performance has also damaged its reputation within EPA. It was noted repeatedly in interviews with EPA staff and management that OCR has been viewed as an organization that performs poorly and does not offer specialized expertise.
Deloitte’s assessment reveals a bleak accounting of the anti-discrimination processes within the OCR, listing, among others, these issues:
