Since the inception of the environmental justice (EJ) movement, EJ leaders have called for accountability by the federal government for meeting the needs of communities that for generations have been systematically excluded, environmentally overburdened, and starved of much needed and deserved resources.
The federal government has responded in many ways over the ensuing decades, from the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) original 1983 study on the siting of hazardous waste facilities, to President Clinton’s 1994 executive order 12898 on environmental justice, to then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson’s ambitious Plan EJ 2014 strategic plan.
While valiantly cultivating the bureaucratic soil, none of these efforts offered the promise of holding government accountable when making one of the most fundamental decisions of…
Read the full article originally published at blog.ucsusa.org.