EPA closes civil rights investigation into Louisiana pollution
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In a setback for environmental justice advocates, the Biden administration has closed a civil rights investigation of two Louisiana state agencies without finding discrimination in how the agencies regulated chemical plants in the area known as “Cancer Alley.” Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. ArrowRight The move comes after Louisiana challenged the investigation in court. In a filing Tuesday, the EPA said it had taken steps to protect vulnerable communities — including striking agreements with plants to better handle their waste and new proposed rules to limit air pollution — and thus was dropping the probe.
In their filings, the EPA and lawyers at the Justice Department said they will not take civil rights enforcement action against the agencies, Louisiana’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Quality.
The decision is a potential legal setback to the Biden administration’s promise to help poor and minority communities disproportionately subjected to pollution, especially Black neighborhoods in Louisiana. The EPA had been investigating the state in part for its oversight of chemical companies in an industrial corridor along the Mississippi River long plagued by high cancer rates.
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But in recent weeks, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R), also a gubernatorial candidate, has fought the effort with a federal lawsuit claiming the EPA overstepped its authority. The attorney general has asked federal judges in the Western District of Louisiana to block the investigation of Louisiana, saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not, as the EPA claims, give it the power to take action against policies that discriminate by creating a “disparate impact,” such as heavier pollution in Black neighborhoods than others.
The type of legal authority has been rarely invoked but became a key part of the Biden administration’s strategy as it sought to undertake a first-ever effort to address how much more likely minority communities are to be subjected to toxic waste and industrial pollution. In addition to the Louisiana investigation, the effort included civil rights cases against Houston over illegal dumping in Black and Latino neighborhoods and against an Alabama county for neglect and inaction over risks to Black residents from raw sewage.
Federal enforcement under this part of the Civil Rights Act “is a critical component for addressing environmental injustice,” said Patrice Simms, vice president for healthy communities at Earthjustice. “It would be deeply troubling for the EPA to back away from its commitment.”
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Officials at the EPA and Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Health could not immediately be reached for comment. Millard Mule, a spokesman for the Louisiana attorney general’s office, declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
President Donald Trump’s legacy of appointing conservatives throughout lower courts has also left environmental advocates pessimistic about the chances novel legal initiatives have of surviving court challenges.
The EPA investigation examined whether the state’s health department did not provide proper assistance to Black residents on how to reduce exposure to pollution from a neoprene facility operated by Denka, a Japanese chemicals firm. And it was reviewing the state Department of Environmental Quality’s permitting of facilities in St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes, and elsewhere, including a controversial $9.4 billion complex proposed by the Formosa Plastics Group.
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In St. James Parish, where a group called Rise St. James seeks to oust the Formosa plant, Sharon Lavigne described the federal government’s action as hurtful but said she firmly believes in EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
“I feel like we were put on the back burner,” said Lavigne, founder of Rise St. James. But her faith in Regan, the only EPA administrator to personally travel to her home and assure her that the agency about her community’s health, was unshaken. “That shows me that he cares and he’s working on things for us, and I know he’s not lying.”
Down a highway along the Mississippi River where chemical plants stretch for miles, Robert Taylor of St. John the Baptist Parish had a different perspective. “I would never support the government abandoning their obligation,” said Taylor, founder and executive director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John.
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“It will not help the residents here. They know that we are the targets of these industries,” Taylor said, adding that chemical companies and their political supporters “brag that we are the low-hanging fruit. We have the least protection. And now the federal government can’t provide protection.”
Earlier this year in a separate but related action, the Justice Department sued Denka to try to compel it to curb emissions of chloroprene, a carcinogen, according to the EPA. That case is ongoing and expected to continue.
Both Rise St. James and the Concerned Citizens of St. John are scheduled to hold a meeting Tuesday night to consider the way forward. Lavigne said she will place her faith in Regan and continue the fight. Taylor said his group is not done opposing the Denka chemical plant next door.
“We’re going to start our planning all over again,” he said. “We’re not going to give up … The conditions under which the people of Cancer Alley live is not fit for habitation.”
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Source: The Washington Post
