Minorities are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution … is suspected of posing the greatest health danger, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
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• The Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this year that EPA devoted little attention to environmental equality when it developed three major rules to implement the Clean Air Act between 2000 and 2004.
• The EPA’s inspector general reported last year that the agency hadn’t implemented Clinton’s order nor “consistently integrated environmental justice into its day-to-day operations.” The watchdog said EPA had not identified minority and low income groups nor developed any criteria to determine if those groups were bearing more than their share of health risks from environmental hazards.
• The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded two years ago after an investigation that “federal agencies still have neither fully incorporated environmental justice into their core missions nor established accountability and performance outcomes for programs and activities.”
