The White House Council on Environmental Quality on Thursday announced a tool to identify communities that fall under the environmental justice initiative of the Biden administration.
The criteria, which were unveiled Thursday by the White House via a press conference, include a number axes upon which a community may be considered disadvantaged. The tool contains 21 indicators and the threshold that will make a community disadvantaged.
A community may be considered disadvantaged under the climate change category, for example, if it has low income and falls within the 90ThFederal Emergency Management Agency. If a community is low-income, it is considered to be in the 90 percentile for clean transportation.ThPercentile for diesel particulate matter and traffic proximity/volume
CEQ defines low-income communities as those that are in their census tracts 65thpercentile and above for residents with incomes at least twice the federal poverty level.
The tool also provides socioeconomic metrics like unemployment rate, high school graduation rate and median home value in each community.
Reporters were informed by White House officials that the designations will be solely based upon socioeconomic and environmental indicators. They would not consider race as a factor. The legacy of historical inequalities and neglect of minorities often lead to environmental justice issues that are racially based. However, the White House could be sued if it uses race as a metric for allocating federal funds.
CEQ chairwoman said that we are trying set up a framework that will survive and connect to the on-the ground impacts that people are feeling. Brenda Mallory
Brenda MalloryWhite House unveiled a tool to determine eligibility for Environmental Justice Aid Energy & Environment Interior in hot chair after court halts drilling sale EPA presses USPS not to purchase up to 165K gasoline-powered vehicles MORE TelledThe New York Times published this article earlier in the week. We can do that if we use race-neutral criteria.
