Environmental Justice Health Alliance

Michele Roberts, 62, has worked in the environmental justice space for more than 20 years. Now she advises the Biden administration as a member of the recently-formed White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, while also serving as national co-coordinator for the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. Now a longtime resident of northeast D.C., Roberts also created a community-based special justice arts program based out of her church in her hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. 

The CEQ today announced that Version 1.0 of the CEJST includes nine new datasets that expand its criteria for disadvantage, and now capture projected climate risk, lack of indoor plumbing, linguistic isolation, redlining data, legacy pollution, and water pollution. These added indicators help the tool better identify farmworker communities, who often experience unsafe housing conditions, and communities who experience environmental injustices due to the legacy of racist public policy. The CEJST also identifies lands that are within the boundaries of Federally Recognized Tribes and locations of Alaska Native Villages as disadvantaged communities. These improvements to the CEJST directly incorporate several of our recommendations, and reassure us that the CEQ is laying out a more transparent, iterative and democratic process for identifying communities eligible for Justice40 benefits.

On Monday, October 31st, 2022, 86 organizations, including Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA) submitted a joint public comment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on proposed revisions to its Risk Management Program (RMP) rule. The EPA intends these revisions to “make communities safer by reducing the frequency of chemical releases and their adverse effects.” But in their comment letter, the organizations stress that the proposed rule is too weak to prevent future chemical disasters. “Fenceline communities, facility workers, and a wide variety of experts have demonstrated conclusively to EPA that voluntary measures are not working to prevent chemical incidents,” states the letter. “There is abundant evidence available to EPA of policies and methods proven to reduce and remove hazards. EPA needs to finally deliver the basic and common-sense protections that communities, workers, and safety experts have been seeking for too long.”

On September 26-28, 2022 the EPA held a set of public hearings on proposed changes to its Risk Management Plan rule, which regulates approximately 12,000 facilities that use or store hazardous chemicals nationwide. Our members, staff, and partners turned out in force to speak in favor of strengthening the rule to prevent chemical disasters. Here’s what they had to say:

The Environmental Justice for All Act (EJ for All Act) is an essential federal legislative effort to begin remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice in the United States, including the cumulative and disproportionate pollution burdens threatening communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous nations and communities across the country. Importantly, this landmark bill has been developed in close partnership with leaders in the environmental justice movement. The extensive public input process that informed the EJ for All Act’s creation has produced legislation uniquely shaped by the same people and communities that will benefit directly from its policy improvements. Accordingly, the EJ for All Act recognizes that meaningfully improving the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color requires transformative change led by those on the frontlines. As described by Michele Roberts, National Co-Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, “This is legislation that our affiliates see themselves in.”

28 organizations today joined Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform in expressing strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021), sponsored by Representatives Raúl Grijalva and Donald McEachin. In a letter, they urged the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee to “advance this important legislation quickly to begin remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that affects communities across the country.”