Kerry releases IG report criticizing EPA environmental justice reviews

[ProSense]

EPA inspector criticizes agency reviews

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 54 minutes ago

Snip...

The report by the EPA's inspector general, made public Tuesday, says senior EPA officials have not required regional offices and department heads to conduct environmental justice reviews despite a requirement for such reviews dating back to 1994.

A survey by the IG's office found 60 percent of the respondents — regional offices and program departments — had not conducted the reviews and 87 percent said they had not been asked to do them, according to the report.

Such reviews were required by an executive order President Clinton issued in 1994. It was reaffirmed by EPA administrators in 2001 and again last year, said the report by acting Inspector General Bill Roderick.

Until adequate reviews are conducted, "the agency cannot determine whether its programs cause disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority and low-income populations," the report said.

Snip...

A copy of the IG report, dated Sept. 18, was released Tuesday by Sen. John Kerry's office, which said the findings show the EPA is failing to protect minority and low-income communities.

Kerry, D-Mass., said the report shows "this administration couldn't care less" about minority and low-income neighborhoods that often are the site of industrial zones, refineries and power plants.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_go_ot/environmental_justice_1

[blm]

1. Kerry has always shone a light on environmental racism - the racism that

rarely gets in the news.

[ProSense]

3. From 2004 Grist interview w RFK Jr.:

Q. We often think of environmental justice as the term that describes the intersection of civil-rights issues and the environment.

A. That's certainly a critical part of it. In terms of the conventional way that we think of civil rights, the burden of environmental injury always falls on the backs of the poorest people. Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood. The largest toxic-waste dump in America is in a community in Alabama that is 85 percent black. The highest concentration of toxic-waste dumps is in the South Side of Chicago. The most contaminated ZIP code in California is East L.A. There's 150,000 Hispanic farm workers that are poisoned by pesticides every year. And God knows what's happening to their families. Navajo youth have 17 times the rate of sexual-organ cancer as other Americans because of the thousands of tons of toxic uranium tailings that have been dumped on their reservation land. So the poor are shouldering the burden for pollution-based prosperity by large corporations who have control of the political process.

Really all environmental injury is an assault on democracy, because the most important measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it distributes the goods of the land, the commons. Democracy must ensure that the public-trust assets stay within the hands of the people.

[blm]

4. This is the type of issue you won't hear from network news in discussing

the candidates.

[bananas]

2. k&r nt

[texpatriot2004]

5. K & R nm

[Coexist]

6. knr