In 2024 the Biden-Harris Administration, expanded on the supporting frameworks of Executive Order 14008 - Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (2021) and Executive Order 14096 - Revitalizing our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All (2023), establishing tools and strategies to address inequities experienced in environmental justice communities and communities throughout the country.
In late 2023 and throughout 2024, many federal agencies held virtual community engagement listening sessions, as departments accepted public comments and input in drafting their environmental justice strategic plans. The Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Interior(DOI), Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) each released updated Environmental Justice Strategic Plans in 2024. In May 2024, President Biden announced twelve additional members to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, created by E.O. 14008.
In May 2024, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Implementing Regulations Revisions Phase 2 rule. The Phase 2 rule directs agencies to consider “disproportionate and adverse effects on communities with environmental justice concerns” when determining the appropriate level of NEPA review, considering alternatives, and analyzing the proposed action’s environmental impacts. Soon thereafter, twenty states filed a lawsuit against the White House CEQ attempting to block the rulemaking. On November 12, 2024, in Marin Audubon Society v. FAA, a divided panel of D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the rules as “ultra vires” and are non-binding on federal agencies.
On April 23, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released their Environmental Justice Clearinghouse website providing an online collection of environmental justice resources to assist stakeholders. In July, the Biden Administration updated the Environmental Justice Scorecard to Phase Two. The Environmental Justice Scorecard is a government-wide assessment of Federal agencies’ efforts to advance environmental justice, providing transparency and accountability to the federal government’s efforts to secure environmental justice for all. Additionally in July, EPA updated the EJScreen tool to EJSCREEN 2.3, adding data on nitrogen dioxide levels, drinking water non-compliance, Superfund sites boundaries, extreme heat, private drinking wells, air toxics cancer risk, and EJ grants from EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR).
In 2024, approximately 50% of EPA inspections and enforcement cases addressed facilities in overburdened and underserved communities. In fiscal year (FY) 2024, the EPA concluded forty-nine enforcement cases, including agreements to perform voluntary Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs), collectively generating more than $9.5 million. Some notable enforcement cases include: The County of Hawai’i and the Guam Waterworks Authority Clean Water Act wastewater treatment cases, including more than $1 billion of injunctive relief; a $1.4 million settlement with Sasol Chemicals over violations of the chemical accident prevention provisions of the Clean Air Act at the company’s facility in Westlake, Louisiana, near the historic Mossville community; and the Heritage Crystal-Clean, LLC settlement for violations of hazardous waste and used oil waste management requirements in communities overburdened by pollution, including Indianapolis, IN; Shreveport, LA; Atlanta, GA; Fairless Hills, PA; and Denver, CO.
DOJ, in conjunction with the EPA, concluded significant environmental enforcement cases resulting in notable impacts for environmental justice communities, such as a Hilcorp Energy Company settlement resolving Clean Air Act violations at the company’s oil and gas production operations in New Mexico resulting in the reduction of more than 113,000 tons’ of CO2; the Lima Refining Company settlement enforcing a civil penalty of $19 million and implementation of an estimated $150 million in capital investments, for unlawfully exposing the surrounding community in Ohio to toxic benzene emissions and other hazardous pollutants; and the $310 million settlement reached with Norfolk Southern to address harms caused by the East Palestine Train Derailment. Information about other significant enforcement actions is found in the Department of Justice Comprehensive Environmental Justice Enforcement Strategy Second Annual Report, December 2024.
The EPA proposed a suite of regulatory actions in 2024, several with Environmental Justice implications. In late March - early April, the EPA released multiple rules targeting the reduction of hazardous air pollutants ethylene oxide and chloroprene, including fenceline monitoring. In June 2024, the EPA released its Climate Adaptation Plan promoting efforts to prepare for climate impacts, build resilience, and support climate-smart solutions and investments that work for communities across the country. In October, EPA finalized strengthened standards for identifying and cleaning up lead paint dust in pre-1978 homes and childcare facilities and finalized a rule to Protect Farmworkers, Families and Communities from Pesticide Exposures. In November 2024, the EPA proposed New Source Performance Standards on Stationary and Combustion Turbines - to help limit harmful nitrogen oxide pollutants.
One of the most monumental regulatory actions by the Biden-Harris Administration was the issuance of a final rule requiring drinking water systems across the country to identify and replace lead pipes within ten years, paired with the investment of $2.6 billion in newly available drinking water infrastructure funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Finally, in late 2024, the EPA released a draft of the Interim Framework for Advancing Consideration of Cumulative Impacts,providing agency programs and regional offices with tools and principles to consider cumulative impacts in their work.
Under Administrator Michael Regan, EPA has accepted for investigation an unprecedented number of civil rights complaints filed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as part of an agency-wide commitment to enforce civil rights and advance environmental justice. Title VI prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin with the potential to provide a remedy for decades of discriminatory decisions that have shaped access to clean air, water, soil, and now protection from extreme weather. EPA recently published a transparent, searchable database of the agency’s civil rights docket, joined DOJ in issuing a 2024 Joint Interagency Statement of Shared Commitment to Ensure Compliance with Civil Rights Laws and Advance Environmental Justice and issued Civil Rights Guidance on Procedural Safeguards: Requirements and Best Practices.
In February 2024, EPA entered an Informal Resolution Agreement with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, committing Illinois EPA to address civil rights and environmental justice in construction air permitting for major sources. The agreement resolved a Title VI complaint filed by a coalition of two Chicago-based environmental justice organizations regarding the proposed relocation of the General Iron metal shredding operation from a predominantly wealthy white area to Chicago’s Southeast Side, a neighborhood with significant populations of residents of color and non-English speakers and already overburdened by polluting facilities. The resolution agreement requires Illinois EPA to screen permit applications for potential disparate impacts and, in such cases, consider past compliance history, cumulative impacts, and potential mitigation through increased agency resources or permit conditions for disproportionate and adverse impacts identified through the analysis. The agreement follows a May 2023 agreement resulting from findings of noncompliance relating to the same proposed General Iron relocation by HUD. The HUD negotiations spurred the issuance of Chicago’s Executive Order to Advance Environmental Justice and a baseline Cumulative Impacts Assessment co-designed by the City and community representatives, environmental leaders, and local partners. The City met many of its obligations under that agreement in 2023, however, progress on others stalled in 2024.
Resolving a civil rights complaint filed through a State of Michigan grievance procedure, Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) entered into an agreement on August 29, 2024, with members of Detroit’s Eastside community regarding the renewal of a hazardous waste facility license. The agreement commits EGLE to conduct environmental justice analyses and cumulative impact reviews before issuing or renewing a license to a hazardous waste facility and must deny such a license if it will cause unlawful impacts to the environment or human health.
On August 22, 2024, Judge James D. Cain, Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana issued a permanent injunction against EPA and DOJ, blocking them from enforcing their disparate impact regulations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ruling came in the Louisiana v. EPA case filed in 2023.
The suit responded to EPA’s investigation and a subsequent Letter of Concern issued in response to three civil rights complaints filed by residents of St. John the Baptist and St. James Parishes in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. These complaints alleged racial discrimination under Title VI in the permitting of industrial facilities in communities long facing some of the nation’s highest cancer risks from toxic air pollution. The EPA Letter of Concern outlined the “substantially disproportionate” cancer risk borne by Black residents living nearest to sources of harmful emissions and identified a possible “causal link” between state agency action and “the adverse and disproportionate distribution of the cancer and toxicity risks” for Black residents.
The permanent injunction followed a preliminary injunction issued in early 2024, prohibiting both agencies from enforcing the decades-old disparate impact provisions of their Title VI regulations against the state of Louisiana or any Louisiana state agency, and expanded its reach to any entity receiving federal funds. In dicta, Judge Cain wrote he “agrees that the unlawful disparate-impact regulations are illegal anywhere in the United States.” On September 19, 2024, Louisiana filed a Motion to Amend the Judgment requesting that the court vacate EPA’s and DOJ’s disparate impact regulations “without any geographic limitations.”
On April 16, 2024, prior to the Louisiana v. EPA ruling, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a petition for rulemaking on behalf of a twenty-three state coalition requesting EPA rescind its disparate impact regulations. The petition has garnered responses from advocacy groups and a coalition of attorneys general. To date, Judge Cain has not ruled on the Motion to Amend, nor EPA on the petition for rulemaking.
On December 12, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration announced nearly $1.6 billion in Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants to 105 applicants. EPA cited the Community Change Grants Program as “the single largest investment in environmental and climate justice in history.” The grant program dedicates $600 million to Target Investment Areas intended to benefit disadvantaged communities with unique circumstances, geography, and needs, including approximately $150 million for Alaska Native communities and organizations.
In December 2023, EPA awarded $600 million to eleven Grantmakers in each of EPA’s regions through the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking program. These funds are intended as sub-grants to community-based nonprofits and other eligible subrecipients to alleviate much of the burden that the federal grants process places on small, resource-constrained community-based organizations supporting underserved communities and marginalized populations. Grantmakers in most regions began accepting applications in 2024.
2024 saw New York adopt or institute several EJ-related measures. On December 21, 2024, Governor Hochul signed into law S.8357/A.8866, which expands the state’s ban on hydraulic fracturing by prohibiting the use of carbon dioxide in the process, in part to advance EJ. On December 26, 2024, the Governor signed into law S.2129-B/A.3351-B, which establishes a “Climate Superfund,” making large fossil fuel companies responsible for climate change adaptation projects in the state. Lastly, on December 30, 2024, Section 70-0118 of the Environmental Conservation Law went into effect, which prohibits state agencies from issuing permits that would impose a “disproportionate pollution burden” on an EJ community.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll released the first-ever Environmental Justice Strategy on February 15, 2024. The strategy aims to integrate environmental justice principles into state policies and programs, ensuring equitable environmental protections for all residents. The plan includes meaningful community engagement, analysis of project benefits and burdens, staff training, and progress tracking, as well as each agency’s plan to incorporate environmental justice initiatives into their work.
On October 1, 2024 Maryland enacted HB 233. This bill updates the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Critical Area Protection Program to require equity in the distribution of burdens and benefits associated with development, restoration, conservation, and adaptation efforts, including public access to water, shorelines, and other natural areas, particularly for underserved or overburdened communities.
On December 18, 2024, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that the state’s constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment includes a right to a stable climate system. The court found that the state’s prohibition on consideration of greenhouse gas emissions during environmental reviews harmed the youth plaintiffs.
On October 29, 2024, a New Jersey appellate court affirmed the trial court’s denial of leave to amend the complaint to include substantive due process claims, finding that a fundamental right to a stable environment is not explicitly stated in the New Jersey Constitution and is not “objectively and deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of [New Jersey].”
In January 2024, a state trial court held that Louisiana’s public trust doctrine “requires consideration of ‘economic, social, and other factors’ broad enough to constitute an analysis of environmental justice, as defined by EPA.” The court nonetheless decided that LDEQ’s EJ analysis was sufficient. The Louisiana Supreme Court declined to review the decision.
In September 2024, North Carolina’s Environmental Justice Community Action Network agreed to a proposed consent decree with the owners of North Carolina’s largest landfill following two notices of intents to sue. The agreement mandates the elimination of PFAS discharges, the implementation of air monitoring systems, and other protections for the rural, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood of Snow Hill in Roseboro, North Carolina.
On December 4, 2024, the Town of Carrboro, North Carolina brought suit against Duke Energy Corporation on behalf of underserved and marginalized communities, alleging that the company engaged in a deception campaign regarding the dangers of fossil fuel that contributed to the climate crisis. The lawsuit includes claims for negligence, public nuisance, and private nuisance.
In 2021 the ABA House of Delegates adopted Resolution 513, which committed the ABA to advancing environmental justice principles and considerations in its programs, policies, and activities, with the ABA Board of Governors concurrently establishing the “Environmental Justice Task Force” (EJTF) to lead implementation efforts.
The EJTF and Section co-sponsored a spate of EJ programs in 2024. On October 30, 2024, they co-hosted a webinar, “Environmental Justice: Where are We Now and Where are We Headed.” This was a pre-symposium webinar to explore the legal strategies, challenges, and future of environmental justice, including recent legal actions against the EPA and shifts in policy.
On November 14, 2024, they co-sponsored an Environmental Justice Day of Service. Section members and other program partners visited classrooms in three Washington, D.C. schools to discuss the history and current practice of environmental protection and justice in the United States, offering insight into the role of environmental law in addressing daily issues and shaping equity.
On November 15, 2024, they co-sponsored an Environmental Justice Symposium, "Legal Strategies & Solutions for Putting Equity into Action," at Howard University School of Law. The symposium was preceded by a career roundtable and reception geared toward students and early-career professionals in environmental law and policy, pairing senior mentors from the Section and other program partners with mentees to discuss the diverse ways in which legal practice incorporates environmental justice.
