Assisting Congress to Better Understand Environmental Justice

West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. believes that a majority of members of Congress do not fully understand the interaction between environmental health and federal policies on clean air, toxic exposures and climate change, and its impact on low-income communities of color and Indigenous populations. West Harlem Environmental Action would like to create a very practical resource for Congress that identifies and discusses 2-3 fully developed case studies, at least one in an urban area and at least one in a rural area. The cases would include the following information: (1) toxic exposures (using TRI and other available data), (2) number and types of permitted facilities, (3) community health profiles, (4) socioeconomic and demographic information, (5) urban heat island potential, (6) potential climate change impacts, (7) access to health care resources and health care costs, (8) access to energy resources and energy costs, and (9) local/state health and environmental policies/compliance. The workshop group would then create an index or environmental/health scorecard which may be compared to the overall environmental well-being generally in the states in which these case study areas are located.

Environmental Justice advocates hypothesize that there will be distinct differences between the indices in the case study areas and those in the relevant states generally. Overall, the goal would be to create and test a “method” that can be used (and replicated) to identify areas where environmental justice issues are valid concerns and demonstrate concrete difference between life in those areas and in the rest of the state. West Harlem Environmental Action has suggested the southwest Detroit community as a possible case study area, but research may identify other areas as well.