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August 9, 2022

Biden’s Justice40 initiative picking up speed after slow start

More than a year and a half after the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping commitment to bring opportunities and aid to disadvantaged communities, environmental justice advocates are calling on the White House to move faster with its implementation of its Justice40 Initiative.

Advocates fear some programs targeted in the initiative could be jeopardized if Democrats lose the White House in the 2024 presidential elections; and that some programs could be impacted even sooner if mid-term elections this November hand control of the House of Representatives to Republicans.

“My big hope is that the administration prioritizes and senses the urgency that we have to capture this opportunity to redirect investments,” said Ana Baptista, associate director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in New York. Her research focuses on climate and environmental justice issues.

The Justice40 initiative, which President Joe Biden initiated through a January 2021 executive order, calls for delivering 40 percent of overall benefits of certain types of federal investments to disadvantaged communities around the country.

May 31, 2022

In South Carolina, residents battle paper mill pollution and say EPA falling short

A group of residents who say they are “prisoners” in their homes because of ongoing pollution from a South Carolina paper mill will have their complaints aired in federal court on Wednesday as the mill seeks to dismiss their class action lawsuit.

Two North Carolina and eight South Carolina residents, all living within a range of 2-1/2 to roughly 14 miles from the paper mill, are the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They blame the mill for alleged “egregious and wrongful emission of foul and harmful hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, methanol, and other pollutants and contaminants to the air,” along with discharging “inadequately treated wastewater” into the Catawba River.

They are asking the court to stop the plant from continuing to release the pollutants. The complaint includes data and reports showing that state regulators and federal regulators ordered the plant to clean up its operations more than a year ago. The finalization of a consent decree is still pending, however.

The pollution stemming from operations at New-Indy Catawba LLC in Catawba, South Carolina affects potentially more than one million people who live and work in the region, according to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina.

March 1, 2022

Justices question scope of EPA’s power to regulate utility greenhouse gases

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on February 28 in a case debating the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Air Act power to regulate greenhouse gases, a case in which the ruling is likely to have significant implications for the Biden administration’s plan to fight the climate crisis.

A West Virginia-led coalition of states wants a ruling from the court that would curtail the EPA’s authority, but faces pushback from the agency and some of its unlikely utility industry allies.