Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice is important because it ensures that all communities, regardless of socioeconomic status or race, have equal access to a clean and healthy environment.

Prioritizing Environmental Justice (EJ) helps to prevent marginalized groups from bearing a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards, such as pollution and toxic waste.

Moreover, promoting environmental justice supports the overall health, well-being, and sustainability of all communities, fostering fairness and equity in environmental policies and practices.

In California, many low-income and minority communities are disproportionately affected by the state's environmental hazards, such as wildfires, drought, extreme heat, and air pollution.

These communities often lack the resources to adequately prepare for or recover from such events, leading to greater health risks and economic hardships.

Addressing environmental justice ensures that all Californians have equitable access to resources and protections, helping to mitigate the impacts of these environmental threats and improve overall resilience and public health.

The EPA defines Environmental Justice (EJ) as "the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people:

• Are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens, and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers.
• Have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship, and engage in cultural and subsistence practices.

As part of the EJ process and outcome, meaningful involvement means:

• Providing timely opportunities for members of the public to share information or concerns and participate in decision-making processes.
• Fully considering public input provided as part of decision-making processes.
• Seeking out and encouraging the involvement of persons and communities potentially affected by Federal activities by:
  • Ensuring that agencies offer or provide information on a Federal activity in a manner that provides meaningful access to individuals with limited English proficiency and is accessible to individuals with disabilities.
  • Providing notice of and engaging in outreach to communities or groups of people who are potentially affected and who are not regular participants in Federal decision-making.
• Addressing, to the extent practicable and appropriate, other barriers to participation that individuals may face.
• Providing technical assistance, tools, and resources to assist in facilitating meaningful and informed public participation, whenever practicable and appropriate.

Several Environmental Justice Orders (12898, 14096, 14008) and Laws and Statutes exist to guide and regulate federal agencies and governmental activities to ensure EJ concerns are addressed.

Specifically Executive Order 12898, the first of its kind, requires that each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.

Plans of Action from federal agencies ranging from USDA and EPA to DOT are released to the public to explain how they are working on addressing environmental injustice.

California was one of the first states in the nation to codify environmental justice in statute. Currently, CalEPA works with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to achieve environmental justice through various efforts.

Across the state, Executive Orders, Senate and Assembly Bills have been used to promote environmental justice across several issues including:

• Addressing pollution and climate change impacts (SB 535).
• Reducing air pollution through enhancing air quality monitoring and establishing community emission reduction programs (AB 617).
• Recognizing the human right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water in their policies and actions (AB 685).
• Setting a goal for all new passenger vehicles sold in California to be zero-emission by 2035. (EO N-79-20).
• Cities and counties to incorporate environmental justice elements into their general plans, addressing issues such as pollution exposure, food access, and safe and sanitary housing for disadvantaged communities (SB 1000).

One approach used by the agencies is to develop and provide local and county level data to understand the environmental burdens of various communities across the state, working with local communities to improve data gaps.

Key tools that are available to California's communities include:

• CalEnviroScreen: A screening tool used to identify California communities disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution, tailored towards California's critical environmental issues.

• Disadvantaged Communities Designation: Formal designation of four categories of geographic areas as disadvantaged and thus prioritized for investment. These communities are:

  1. Census tracts receiving the highest 25 percent of overall scores in CalEnviroScreen 4.0.
  2. Census tracts lacking overall scores in CalEnviroScreen 4.0 due to data gaps, but receiving the highest 5 percent of CalEnviroScreen 4.0 cumulative pollution burden scores.
  3. Census tracts identified in the 2017 DAC designation, regardless of their scores in CalEnviroScreen 4.0.
  4. Lands under the control of federally recognized Tribes.

Additionally, CalEPA provides two grant programs - the Environmental Justice Actions Grants and Small Grants - to address environmental injustices impacting California Native American Tribes, low-income communities, and communities of color by funding actions on four key areas of concern: supporting emergency preparedness; protecting public health; improving environmental and climate decision-making; and strengthening enforcement.