Friday’s release by the EPA saw a series of improvements made to its mapping tool, which helps pinpoint communities that are most affected by legacy environmental pollution.
The new version of EJScreen 2.0 is broadly designed to assist government agencies in making more accurate permitting and enforcement, compliance, compliance, outreach decisions. This is consistent President Joe Bidens goal to address environmental justice.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are also new data that shows gaps in food availability, medical services and broadband internet. Data on health inequity has been updated to show metrics about life expectancy, asthma and heart disease. It draws from data from the Centers for Disease Control.
Other changes include a new indicator on underground storage tanks and new drought and fire data. The EPA also stated that there was an updated demographic data to reflect U.S. Census.
These updates were made on the same day as the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which was unveiled by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ map, which is more focused than EJScreen2.0, serves to show federal agencies which areas may qualify under Biden’s plan for 40% of federal investments to climate and clean energy to be directed to communities most affected by pollution.
The EPA stated that it will train users on the new tool and will make additional changes to EJScreen in the latter part of the year.