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Compliance and Enforcement Annual Results:
FY2007 Environmental Justice
FY2007 Annual Results Topics
The Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance serves as the National Program Manager for EPA’s Environmental Justice program. Environmental Justice ensures protection of minority and/or low-income communities that may be exposed disproportionately to environmental harms and risks. Ensuring environmental justice means not only protecting human health and the environment for everyone, but also ensuring that all people are treated fairly and are given the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. In Fiscal Year 2007, several significant steps were taken to further environmental justice, including:
- Implementing Executive Order 12898
- Capacity Building and Partnering for Maximum Effect
- The Power of Collaborative Problem-Solving
Implementing Executive Order 12898, "Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations
Implementing Environmental Justice in Federal Agencies
EPA is the lead for implementing Executive Order 12898 (PDF) (6 pp, 122K,About PDF), which directs Federal agencies to "make achieving environmental justice part of its mission." As lead agency for the Executive Order, EPA provides technical assistance to other Federal agencies on integrating environmental justice. In Fiscal Year 2007, EPA has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop an environmental justice policy. EPA also is working with CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to develop a strategy for integrating environmental justice goals within its programs and operations. On July 18, 2007, EPA, CDC and ATSDR announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on data gathering and sharing, and to find solutions for community health problems that could be linked to environmental hazards. Environmental justice was an important consideration in developing this MOU.
Implementing Environmental Justice at EPA
EPA has developed Environmental Justice Action Plans (“EJ Action Plans”) which establish measurable commitments that address the Agency’s national environmental justice priorities. These priorities, articulated by Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in his memorandum entitled, “Reaffirming the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Commitment to Environmental Justice (PDF),” (2 pp, 3.6MB,About PDF) create an Agency-wide focus on matters that environmental justice advocates and others have identified as critical environmental justice issues.
Capacity Building and Partnering for Maximum Effect
EJ Grants Programs
In 2007, EPA awarded $1 million in Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreements to 10 community-based organizations, and an additional $1 million in Environmental Justice Small Grants to 20 community-based organizations, to raise awareness and build their capacity to solve local environmental and public health issues.
Since 1993, EPA has awarded more than $31 million in grants to more than 1,100 community-based organizations and others to take on an active role in our nation's environmental stewardship. These environmental justice grants promote community empowerment and capacity-building - essential ingredients to maximize meaningful participation in the regulatory process.
The Power of Collaborative Problem-Solving
EJ Collaborative Problem-Solving documentary film
In June 2007, the Office of Environmental Justice released a documentary film entitled, “Environmental Justice: The Power of Partnerships.” This film demonstrates not only EPA’s success, but the success of other Federal, state, and local partners, and community groups. This film builds on the 2006 manual on the EPA’s EJ Collaborative Problem-Solving (CPS) Model (PDF) (44 pp, 701K,About PDF). The CPS Model represents a systematic, community-based approach for stakeholders to achieve lasting solutions to local environmental and/or public health issues using collaborative partnerships. There are seven elements in the CPS Model which can be used in distressed communities where people are committed to working together to bring about positive change.
EPA produced this documentary film as a training tool to put thousands of communities on the path of collaborative-problem solving. It provides the example of the ReGenesis Environmental Justice Partnership, led by a community-based organization in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which began in 1999 with a $20,000 EJ grant to address local environmental, health, economic and social issues. The Partnership used elements of the CPS Model to leverage the initial grant from EPA to generate more than $166 million in funding, including over $1 million from EPA Region 4.
ReGenesis marshaled the collaboration of more than 200 partner agencies, and local residents, industry, and a university to revitalize two Superfund sites and six Brownfields sites into new housing developments, an emergency access road, recreation areas, green space, and job training that are vital to the community’s economic growth and well-being.
Annual Results by Fiscal Year:
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