Environmental Justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of every person, regardless of race, color, national origin, income, faith, or disability, regarding the development, implementation, or enforcement of any environmental law, regulation, or policy.”¹ No one should have their health, home, or livelihood negatively impacted by the built environment around them. For too long, certain neighborhoods have suffered disproportionately from higher asthma rates, lower amounts of green space, and higher concentrations of pollution from living near heavy industries. Recent studies have found that communities of color are consistently exposed to higher levels of fine particulate matter air pollution², and because of these exposures, communities of color experienced 7.5 times higher pediatric asthma rates and 1.3 times higher premature mortality from particulates compared with mostly White communities³.

It is long past time that all Virginians are treated fairly and are free from environmental hazards that negatively impact their health and wellness. There is no quick fix to centuries of injustice, but there are currently opportunities to create employment and new healthy resources in the very communities that have faced unfair treatment and disinvestment.

The movement for environmental justice (EJ) has roots in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and gained momentum throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as Black communities organized to oppose the siting of toxic facilities in their neighborhoods, and academics and government agencies began studying racial disparities in the siting of solid waste landfills⁴. In the 1990s, the U.S. EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which holds public meetings to discuss EJ issues across the country⁵. Executive Order 12898 (1994) directed federal agencies to identify and address the adverse environmental and health impacts that agency actions have on minority and low-income populations, and it established an Interagency Working Group to coordinate federal efforts to address environmental injustices⁶.

Virginia has lagged behind. Virginia established its first Advisory Council on Environmental Justice under Executive Order 73 (2017)⁷, and the council was reestablished under Executive Order 29 (2019)⁸. The General Assembly established the council as a permanent advisory body in the executive branch in 2020.⁹

In 2020, the General Assembly went further and passed the Environmental Justice Act, which determined that it is “the policy of the Commonwealth to promote environmental justice and ensure that it is carried out throughout the Commonwealth.”¹⁰ Since that time, the integration of environmental justice into agency operations has been uneven. For example, Virginia DEQ commissioned a report with recommendations on EJ from a consulting group, but the agency has not acted upon or achieved several of these goals.¹¹ In addition, the agency published draft guidance on how to incorporate EJ into permitting processes,¹² but the draft guidance failed to account for the full spectrum of adverse impacts and did not discuss the circumstances under which DEQ would deny a permit or impose additional permit conditions based on disproportionate impacts. To date, the guidance has not been finalized.¹³

Map of Virginia Environmental Justice Communities. Image Credit: Virginia DEQ

Virginia can improve its implementation of the Environmental Justice Act by following examples from across the nation. For instance, while DEQ’s EJ guidance for permitting sits on the shelf, Executive Order 14008 reinvigorated federal commitment by, among other things, directing EPA to provide real-time data on current pollution levels in fenceline communities.¹⁴ To carry this out, the agency is in the process of strengthening its scientific research processes to better understand cumulative adverse impacts.¹⁵ Establishing current exposure levels to a variety of environmental stressors is a necessary step for incorporating EJ into permitting decisions, and these new federal resources could assist Virginia DEQ in doing so.

The federal government recently broadened its approach to EJ with Executive Order 14096, which creates a “whole of government” approach to environmental justice.¹⁶ The Order includes the first-ever government-wide definition of environmental justice and applies it to all executive agencies (as opposed to the 13 agencies named in the 1994 EO).¹⁷ The Order directs all agencies to incorporate EJ into their decisions and activities, including “any agency rulemaking, guidance, policy, program, practice, or action that affects or has the potential to affect human health and the environment, including an agency action related to climate change.”¹⁸

Virginia should follow these examples by ensuring that all agencies of the Commonwealth provide for fair treatment and meaningful involvement of environmental justice and fenceline communities, whether in permit decisions or any other policy, program, or action.

¹ Va. Code § 2.2-234.

² Tessum, Christopher W., David A. Paolella, Sarah E. Chambliss, Joshua S. Apte, Jason D. Hill, and Julian D. Marshall, “PM2.5 Polluters Disproportionately and Systemically Affect People of Color in the United States.” Science Advances 7 (18), (2021), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf4491.

³ “Communities of Color across the US Suffer a Growing Burden from Polluted Air | Milken Institute School of Public Health | the George Washington University.” n.d. Milken Institute School of Public Health. https://publichealth.gwu.edu/communities-color-across-us-suffer-growing-burden-polluted-air.

⁴ “Environmental Justice,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, (February 6, 2019). https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ “Summary of Executive Order 12898 – Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, (September 10, 2019). https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-executive-order-12898-federal-actions-address-environmental-justice.

⁷ “PDS SSO.” 2024. Lib.va.us. (2024). http://digitool1.lva.lib.va.us:8881/R/QBN4UTS2Y2ENIKVAS1BN1I4B7F7EQAPENYJR3PSSQK4I9CA11V-00944?func=results-jump-full&set_entry=000099&set_number=612684&base=GEN01 (Gov. Terrence McAuliffe, E.O. 73 (2017)).

⁸ Williams, Emma, 2019-2020 “Report of the Secretary of the Commonwealth to the Governor and General Assembly of Virginia,” Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, (January 2020). https://www.bluebook.virginia.gov/media/governorvirginiagov/bluebook/2019-2020-Bluebook-of-the-Commonwealth-of-Virginia.pdf.

⁹ 2020 Va. Acts Ch. 113, 1274.

¹⁰ Va. Code § 2.2-235.

¹¹ ”Environmental Justice Study for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality,” Skeo Solutions, Inc. and Metropolitan Group, (October 2020). https://www.deq.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/8624/637727534058630000.‌

¹² ”Draft Guidance Memo No. 23-XXXX – Environmental Justice in the Permitting Process,” Virginia Department of Environmental Quality,(Accessed August 1, 2024). https://www.deq.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/17431/638144773847470000.

¹³ “Environmental Justice,” Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, (Accessed August 1, 2024). https://www.deq.virginia.gov/our-programs/environmental-justice.

¹⁴ “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” 2021. Federal Register. (February 1, 2021). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/02/01/2021-02177/tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad.

¹⁵ US EPA, ORD. 2022. “Cumulative Impacts Research.” www.epa.gov. (January 27, 2022). https://www.epa.gov/healthresearch/cumulative-impacts-research.

¹⁶ “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” Executive Office of the President, Executive Order 14096, (April 21, 2023). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/26/2023-08955/revitalizing-our-nations-commitment-to-environmental-justice-for-all.

¹⁷ Perls, Hannah, “President Biden Issues Long-Awaited Update to Clinton-Era Environmental Justice Executive Order Executive Summary,” Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program, https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/HPerls_EJ-EO-Analysis_FINAL-8.2.23.pdf.

¹⁸ Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment,” Executive Office of the President.
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