Environmental Justice Movement Building: 1990s
In 1990, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality became the first book to chronicle environmental injustice, environmental racism, and the convergence of two major movements—the civil rights and environmental movements—into the environmental justice movement (Bullard, 2000). Dumping in Dixie documented racial dynamics involved in the location of municipal landfills, hazardous waste sites, incinerators, lead smelters, refineries, and chemical plants. The book provided clear examples of “environmental racism 101” and was adopted as a textbook by dozens of U.S. colleges and universities. The southern United States or “Dixie” is different from the rest of the country. The South has a unique legacy of slavery, “Jim Crow” racial segregation, and resistance to equal justice for all its citizens. The South is also the most environmentally degraded region of the country. It is no accident that the modern civil rights and environmental justice movements were born in the South.
A growing grassroots environmental justice movement began to take shape in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The impetus for this growth centered around grassroots activism; the redefinition of environmental rights and civil rights; alliances and coalitions; community-driven research, forums, and conferences; and the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held in October 1991. The summit was attended by more than 1,000 individuals from every state in the U.S. and at least a half-dozen other countries. Summit delegates adopted the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. By the time the June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio Earth Summit) started, the Principles of Environmental Justice had been distributed and translated into a half-dozen languages.
Environmental justice leaders embraced the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of our environmental, health, employment, education, housing, transportation, and civil rights laws (Bullard, 1993a). For decades, hundreds of communities across the nation used a variety of tactics to confront environmental injustice (Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans, 2003; Bullard, 1987, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c, 1994, 2000, 2007; Bullard, Johnson, & Torres, 2011). The federal EPA took action on environmental justice concerns in 1990 only after extensive prodding from grassroots environmental justice activists, educators, and academics who called themselves the Michigan Group, named for environmental justice leaders who were successful in meeting with EPA administrator William Reilly and his senior staff. These meetings resulted in some key first steps in advancing environmental justice at the EPA, including the creation of the Office of Environmental Equity. In 1992, under the George H. W. Bush administration, the EPA produced Environmental Equity: Reducing Risks for All Communities, one of the first federal reports to acknowledge the fact that some populations shouldered greater environmental health risks in some areas than others (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1992).
Thus, environmental justice was not something invented by the EPA. However, in 1992 the EPA arrived at its own definition of environmental justice as “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.” For the EPA, “fair treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1998, p. 2).
In 1994, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations" (Clinton, 1994). This executive order attempted to address environmental injustice within existing federal laws and regulations. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI, which prohibits discriminatory practices in programs receiving federal funds (see Chapter 10) and put the spotlight back on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law that set policy goals for the protection, maintenance, and enhancement of the environment. NEPA’s goal is to ensure for all Americans a safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing environment. NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed statement on the environmental effects of proposed federal actions that significantly affect the quality of human health.
Executive Order 12898 called for improved methodologies for assessing and mitigating health effects from multiple and cumulative exposures as well as impacts on subsistence fishers and consumers of wild game, in addition to the collection of data on low-income and minority populations who may be disproportionately at risk. It also encouraged participation of the impacted populations in the various phases of assessing impacts—including scoping, data gathering, considering alternatives, analysis, mitigation, and monitoring.
In 1999, environmental justice leaders were able to get the national Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM) to examine environmental justice and health in the United States. The IOM study concluded that government, public health officials, and the medical and scientific communities need to place a higher value on the problems and concerns of environmental justice communities (Institute of Medicine, 1999). The study also confirmed what most environmental justice leaders and communities have known for decades. People of color and low-income communities are exposed to higher levels of pollution than the rest of the nation; and they experience certain diseases in greater numbers than more affluent, white communities. In the United States, all communities are not created equal. If a community happens to be poor or working class or is inhabited largely by people of color, it generally receives less protection.
The environmental justice framework challenges the dominant environmental protection paradigm that largely institutionalizes unequal enforcement; trades human health for profit; places the burden of proof on the “victims” and not the polluting industry; legitimates human exposure to harmful chemicals, pesticides, and hazardous substances; promotes “risky” technologies; exploits the vulnerability of economically and politically disenfranchised communities; subsidizes ecological destruction; creates an industry around risk assessment and risk management; delays cleanup actions; and fails to develop pollution prevention as the overarching and dominant strategy (Finkel & Golding, 1994).
The EPA is mandated to enforce the nation’s environmental laws and regulations equally across the board (Collins, 2005). It is also required to protect all persons who live in the United States, not just individuals or groups who can afford lawyers, lobbyists, and experts. Environmental protection is a right, not a privilege reserved for a few who can “vote with their feet” and escape or fend off environmental stressors (Bullard, 2005, p. 20). Companies operating industrial facilities are required to obtain permits from state and sometimes federal environmental agencies and conform to local land-use regulations. However, even when operated according to accepted specifications, industrial facilities can adversely impact nearby residents when leaks, explosions, and accidents occur. Indeed, industrial facilities in some cases have posed serious safety risks to health, property, and quality of life (Baibergenova et al., 2003; Bullard et al., 2008; Edelstein, 2004; Elliot et al., 1993; Fielder et al., 2000; Gerschwind et al., 1992; Nelson et al., 1992; Vrijheid et al., 2002). As a result of these threats, public opposition to industrial facility siting has been nearly universal, especially for high-profile facilities such as incinerators and landfills (Bullard et al., 2008).
The 1990s saw a record number of communities of color “racially profiled” or targeted for polluting operations. Communities all across the country resisted, but most were still vulnerable to industrial facility siting because of their limited financial, scientific, technical, and legal resources (Cole & Foster, 2000; Lerner, 2010; Taylor, 1998). People-of-color environmental justice organizations and networks were still small and underfunded, and only a handful had paid staff. Generally, communities with the greatest needs have the least resources and organization capacity to effectively fend off environmental assaults.
In 1992, the National Law Journal uncovered glaring inequities in the way the EPA enforced its laws related to hazardous waste cleanup (Lavelle & Coyle, 1992). The authors wrote: “There is a racial divide in