"The Justice Department’s new environmental justice team spent its first year busily bringing cases, forging settlements, and building a national infrastructure of environmental justice-focused prosecutors, according to the group’s first-ever annual report.
The Office of Environmental Justice was unveiled in May 2022, along with a comprehensive enforcement strategy intended to reach a key Biden administration goal of protecting historically underserved communities.
DOJ has taken a wide range of actions since then, such as reaching an agreement in the Civil Rights division’s first ever environmental justice investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act over whether Alabama’s Department of Public Health discriminated against Black residents in operating its wastewater disposal program; settling with the City of Houston over illegal dumping in Black and Latino neighborhoods; and negotiating an interim order with Jackson, Miss., to stabilize its drinking water system.
Each of the 94 US Attorneys’ offices has also appointed at least one civil or criminal prosecutor to serve as an environmental justice coordinator, according to the report released Oct. 13. Among those offices, 91 have created environmental justice community reporting systems to make it easier for community members to report their concerns."
Stephen Lee reports for Bloomberg Environment October 16, 2023.
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