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Legal Tools Development
Plan EJ 2014
- Plan EJ 2014 Home
- Read Plan EJ 2014 (PDF) (189 pp, 2.32MB, About PDF)
Cross-Agency Focus Areas
- EJ in Rulemaking
- EJ in Permitting
- Compliance & Enforcement
- Community-Based Action
- Administration-Wide Action
Tools Development
Supplements
Goal
To provide legal assistance to EPA policy makers and other Agency decision-makers to advance EPA's environmental justice objectives and achieve the Agency’s vision of using the law as a tool to advance environmental justice.
Read the implementation plan on legal tools development (PDF) (8 pp, 499K, About PDF).
The EJ Legal Tools document is designed to identify existing legal tools to help EPA advance its goal of environmental justice in the United States. It provides an overview of a number of discretionary legal authorities that are or may be available to EPA under federal statutes and programs.
EJ Legal Tools (PDF) (120 pp, 1.1MB)
EPA General Counsel Scott Fulton Remarks on the Legal Tools (PDF) (5 pp, 61K) - EPA's General Counsel Scott Fulton spoke about the importance of Environmental Justice and EPA's legal tools to advance Environmental Justice on February 23, 2012 at the National Press Club.
Background
EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) worked with the programs and regions to identify opportunities to utilize the Agency’s statutory authorities to advance environmental justice. Our vision is that the Agency will use law as a tool to advance environmental justice. OGC’s advice will help EPA to implement forward-leaning environmental justice policies with acceptable legal risk and to identify new opportunities to promote its environmental justice policy objectives.
Strategy
- OGC will accomplish its goal of providing legal assistance to EPA policy makers and other Agency decision-makers to advance their environmental justice objectives by providing legal support to each Cross-Agency Focus Area workgroup. OGC’s activities will promote a sound legal framework for the tools and programs developed by the five focus area workgroups. OGC will conduct this activity concurrently with the work of the five Cross-Agency Focus Areas.