Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2022, Op-Ed: How can the White House fix environmental injustice if it won’t take race into account?
In mid-February, when the White House unveiled the beta version of its Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, it was met by sharp criticism from environmental justice advocates: A mapping tool designed to identify disadvantaged communities neglected to use race as a criterion.
The screening tool, when finalized, will govern President Biden’s Justice40 initiative, which requires that at least 40% of federal investments in climate-change mitigation and clean energy benefit neighborhoods and communities that are, in the administration’s words
, “marginalized, underserved and overburdened by pollution.”
But race never factors in the tool’s calculus, an omission that runs counter to science. It turns out that the No. 1 predictor of whether you live perilously close to a polluting facility is race. Income is important, but it is generally the second-best indicator. For example, moderate-income Black neighborhoods are often more exposed to hazards than low-income white neighborhoods.
