Environmental justice gets boost from White House

environmental justice.

The term sounds great. The concept, however, has a long way to go.

While poor areas bear the brunt of a long list of environmental hazards and toxic sites, the bad stuff can get buried or float in the air or water in any ZIP code. Progress has a way of doing things and dealing with the consequences later.

But Obama took the call.

This week, Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resurrected the Interagency Task Force on Environmental Justice.

Big deal, right? Maybe not. But it is something and at least a positive move by the Obama administration to push federal protection against environmental and health hazards for all. The language of a press release reminds me of the conversations in the political living room meetings I grew up with in Alaska.

I can hear my activist parents, Willie and Mary Ratcliff, editors of the San Francisco Bayview, saying the same thing 30 years ago.

“Pollution like dirty air and polluted water can have significant economic impacts in overburdened and low-income communities, driving away investment in new development and new jobs and exposing residents to potentially costly health threats.” The words took me momentarily back in time.

My activist parents continue to fight the battle they started as teenagers in the 1950s, my mother in Oberlin, my father as a black concrete contractor in California and up the coast to the Last Frontier. I can best describe his message over the years by citing Jesse Jackson’s jobs, peace and freedom demanding justice.

Environmental justice is a big part of this, and its effects can be seen in any poor community around the world. Immigrant entry points in big cities are overlooked, as are rural areas. Do you have something toxic? Give it to poor people under the auspices of jobs.

The jobs never materialize, but the toxic ones remain.

I generalize, but I dig a bit and the examples are there.

EPA’s new call for environmental justice is supposed to “guide, support, and enhance federal environmental justice and community activities.” Officials say the effort will help federal agencies identify projects “where federal collaboration can support the development of healthy and sustainable communities.”

Who knows if it will mean more than more high- and low-level bureaucratic meetings? I am optimistic. Just talking about it raises the political capital of the environmental movement and the drive to generate interest and jobs in a clean energy economy.

Groups like 350.org will gain grassroots members, and the 10/10/10 movement may get a little push to identify and tackle projects that make the world a better place.

I’m inspired by something US Attorney General Eric Holder said: “In too many areas of our country, the burden of environmental degradation falls disproportionately on low-income and minority communities, and more often than not, on children living in those communities. Our environmental laws and protections must extend to all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.”