Environmental governance is at a pivotal moment. With the shifting legal landscape over the last eight years, including the spate of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings earlier this summer, environmental protections are being undermined from multiple angles. The future of environmental regulations and the regulatory state are perhaps more vulnerable than at any other time in recent history.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) held a Surplus Plutonium Disposition Public Comment Meeting on September 4, 2012 at the North Augusta, SC Municipal Building. By Gretchen Gehrke and Alejandro Paz A spate of US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings decided this summer will have dramatic and damaging effects on how federal agencies issue and enforce … Read more
EDGI’s Environmental Enforcement Watch (EEW) team hosted ‘Building Civic Technologies for Environmental Data Justice,’ a five-part workshop series that explored the tools they’re building for contextualizing hard-to-access EPA data. The tools focus on analyzing cumulative impacts, mapping schools near hazardous air pollutants, and summarizing enforcement of and compliance with laws like the Clean Air Act … Read more
Today EDGI launched our Public Comments Initiative, a project that aims to help people and organizations understand and more effectively engage in the public commenting process when new rules are proposed by federal agencies. While federal agencies do take seriously the role of public comments in the regulatory process (e.g. GAO, 2020), public commenting remains … Read more
This comment stresses that the federal government should strive to increase the tangible impact of public participation in federal decision-making. To do this, EDGI recommends OMB design public participation processes that have the appropriate timing and depth to meaningfully influence government actions, and to develop standards for information management to ensure the public can easily learn about issues and opportunities for input.
Join the EDGI team! We’re looking to hire a a summer research intern to help coordinate a public online research project. This role will be investigating and making available federal environmental records from FOIA requests, helping build community-led resources (maps, info sheets, etc.), and assisting with online/digital humanities projects. Anticipated Start Date: Beginning of June, … Read more
The EPA released draft Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formulation last year. This is a crucial step for the agency to meaningfully examine and address compounding environmental risks as part of a larger picture on human health and environmental justice. Nonetheless, there are several major concerns. Below are key points addressed in … Read more
Late last fall, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) sought to gather information and feedback for developing a coordinated Federal strategy to identify and address gaps in science, data, and research related to environmental justice. EDGI submitted a public comment responding to OSTP’s questions. Below are key points addressed in EDGI’s response: The … Read more
Join us! We are looking to hire a new, collaborative team member to join EDGI to help with communications—network-wide and with the broader public.
A paradigmatic case of the “sacrifice zone,” West Port Arthur and similar neighborhoods in Beaumont also epitomize the cumulative impacts faced by America’s most environmentally burdened communities.