Great Lakes Law

Searching for solutions to environmental injustice

Low income and minority communities across the country from Detroit to Los Angeles continue to struggle for environmental justice. The relatively strong pollution control laws and legal enforcement tools that work in most settings consistently fail to remedy the ongoing problem of toxic hot spots, dirty air, and polluted rivers that disproportionately afflict these neighborhoods. This week, a new Title VI Civil Rights administrative complaint was filed by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment against the California Air Resources Board over California’s greenhouse gas cap and trade program, which could concentrate more conventional and toxic emissions in already polluted communities. (For excellent commentary on the complaint, see Prof. Alan Ramo’s post, and counterpoints by Prof. Dan Farber and Prof. Shi-Ling Hsu).

Much closer to home, environmental injustice continues to put a terrible burden on Southwest Detroit. Former Wayne Law student Laura Rogers-Raleigh (who will be joining the Warner Norcross & Judd law firm this fall) has written a superb paper detailing how and why the environmental and civil rights legal systems consistently fail to protect these communities, and what can be done instead. Her paper, When all else fails: Can industry mitigate environmental injustice in Southwest Detroit?, takes a critical look at the expansion of Marathon Petroleum Company’s refinery in southwest Detroit and the company’s offers to purchase homes of affected residents as a form of corporate social responsibility. In a landscape of imperfect solutions, this can be a tool to help achieve environmental justice for some communities. But we need significant legal reform in this area to protect all citizens, regardless of wealth or race, from environmental pollution.

Water access and shut-offs in Detroit: a legal analysis – guest post by Matthew Clark

Water affordability and access is a complex and contentious issue, even in regions that enjoy a relative abundance of freshwater. Widespread poverty, state tax policy, and years of infrastructure underinvestment have made water shut-offs a pressing challenge in Detroit. This guest post by Matthew Clark summarizes the legal issues and offers some suggestions for policy reform. Matt will be graduating from Wayne Law this spring, and his experience includes clerking with a local law firm, practicing as a student attorney with the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Project, and interning with the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice in Detroit. Prior to law school, Matthew worked for U.S. Senator Carl Levin. Matthew has assisted the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center through Wayne Law’s Transnational Environmental Law Clinic on many issues, including water affordability in Detroit, and has authored a research paper examining the legal issues and opportunities for policy reform.

Detroit, the largest city in a state surrounded by the world’s largest body of fresh water, faces a dire crisis of water access. Every year, tens of thousands of Detroit residents face water shut-offs in their homes because they cannot pay their bills. My research paper details the legal aspects of this crisis, as well as prospective solutions. Ultimately, a solution must come from the political process, not the courts. However, any solution must successfully navigate the law, which presents substantial challenges.

From the international to the local, the law provides no enforceable right to water access for those who cannot afford it. International law recognizes a human right to water but provides no binding enforcement mechanism. Federal law does not provide a right to access, or protection against shut-offs. Furthermore, Michigan law explicitly authorizes local units of government to shut off water services to residents delinquent in paying their bills, regardless of poverty or other hardships. This authorization was upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court in Ripperger v. City of Grand Rapids, 338 Mich. 682 (1954).

A solution must therefore come from the political process, and the state and local arenas present the most potential in this regard. Michigan could emulate Massachusetts, for instance, which provides substantial protection against shut-offs for households facing hardships. Detroit can also implement its own local solution. In fact, the city already approved the comprehensive Detroit Water Affordability Plan seven years ago. If implemented, this plan would subsidize low-income household water bills down to an “affordable burden,” so that they constitute no more than 2-3 percent of household income. To pay for these subsidies, the plan would impose an additional charge to each Detroit customer’s monthly water bill, ranging from $1 for residential customers to $275 for industrial customers.

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has refused to implement this plan. But even if implemented, the plan would face two principal legal challenges. The first is whether imposing extra costs on ratepayers to subsidize an economically poor class would violate DWSD’s duty, under Michigan law, to set water rates at a reasonable level that is not undue or excessive. This legal standard is largely undefined, and the issue is one of first impression in Michigan. However, other state judiciaries have dealt with the issue. States are split in how narrowly to construe what constitutes an unduly discriminatory utility rate. A narrow construction strikes down any plan that subsidizes one ratepayer class at the expense of another, absent explicit legislative authorization to do so. In contrast, a relaxed construction allows subsidized rates for disadvantaged classes, provided that the plan’s cost is not excessive, the subsidized class is sufficiently narrow, and similar factors are adequately balanced. It is unclear how Michigan courts would construe the “unreasonable, undue, and excessive” standard. However, the less the plan costs, and the narrower its subsidized class, the greater the chance it will pass judicial scrutiny.

The second legal challenge is whether the Plan would violate the Headlee Amendment to the Michigan Constitution, Art. IX, Sec. 31. The Headlee Amendment prohibits local government from raising taxes on its citizens above that already authorized by law, absent voter approval. The Headlee Amendment prohibits taxes, but not fees. Though the distinction between the two is not always clear-cut, taxes tend to serve a revenue-raising purpose, are out of proportion to the necessary cost of the service rendered, and are involuntary. Fees, in contrast, tend to serve a regulatory purpose, are proportionate to the service cost, and are more voluntary.

In this case, the Water Affordability Plan’s per-customer charges would likely be closer to a tax than a fee, and would thus not survive a Headlee Amendment challenge. The charges explicitly raise revenue solely for the subsidized class of customers, and not for a general regulatory purpose. For this same reason, the charges would not be proportionate to the general service rendered to ratepayers. Finally, paying the charge would not be voluntary; customers cannot realistically forego water services from DWSD. All of this points to the charge being a tax. A more unorthodox analysis, in contrast, would view the charge in context of the entire water bill, rather than in its separateness. Under this analysis, the plan’s relatively slight water bill increase would be a valid regulatory action under Detroit’s general police powers to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of its residents. The more typical Headlee Amendment analysis, however, views charges in their separateness. In any case, this challenge could be sidestepped by funding the plan through general volumetric water rate increases, rather than separate per-customer charges. 

Michigan Supreme Court to decide case involving divestment of a public park on the shores of Lake Michigan

This is a guest post by Nick Schroeck, Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. Nick is the lead attorney for the environmental groups in the Supreme Court case described below.

The Michigan Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument in Carol Drake and Clellen Bury v. City of Benton Harbor and Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Corporation to address whether the City of Benton Harbor may lease a portion of Jean Klock Park to Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Corporation to develop 3 holes of a proposed 18-hole championship Jack Nicklaus golf course. The court will consider whether the lease may violate: (1) the restriction set forth in the 1917 deed from John Klock to the City of Benton Harbor which created the Park; or (2) the January 27, 2004 consent judgment in an earlier lawsuit between the plaintiffs and the City relating to the City’s sale of a portion of Jean Klock Park to Grand Boulevard Renaissance, LLC, for the construction of a residential development.

The Friends of Jean Klock Park have created an excellent history of the Park, and their efforts to protect it, available online (see www.savejeanklockpark.org). In 1917, John Klock donated the property to the City of Benton Harbor in memory or his daughter Jean, with the intent that “the lakefront always be preserved in its natural state and be a playground for the children and a bathing beach for all the people.” To allow the City of Benton Harbor, after ninety-three years, to divest the public of its interest in the park would not only defeat the intent of Mr. Klock, but could also subject numerous other public properties in the state to the possibility of private sale and to the exclusion of the public.

The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, joined by the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance, Defense of Place, Preserve the Dunes, and West Michigan Environmental Action Council, have filed an amicus curiae brief to address two significant legal issues presented in this case: (1) whether the language of the existing deed is sufficiently ambiguous to allow appellant to introduce extrinsic evidence as to the drafter's intent; (2) whether the development of a golf course violates the restrictive covenant requiring that Jean Klock Park be “open for the use and benefit of the public.” As Amici point out in their brief, in light of current economic pressures:

“Michigan’s publicly held lakeshore properties are threatened by sale, lease or development and none of more import than the ecologically unique freshwater dunes that line the western shore of the Lower Peninsula. Our tourism industry depends on public access to these unparalleled natural assets, not to mention the health and sustainability of the ecosystem itself. The threat is not just to the residents who will no longer be able to use the land for the purpose that it was intended, but also to the land itself.  No public land would be safe from the threat of private development.  No future generation would be assured public access to any undeveloped land that was gifted to the public.  Without protection those who would dedicate property for public use in perpetuity will not be guaranteed that their intent will be satisfied, and the public will suffer.”

Hopefully the Supreme Court will agree that that public lands deserve protection and that the intent of Mr. Klock’s gift, and others like it, should be respected so that the public will continue to have access to parklands and the Great Lakes.
 

New study shows that black Americans in Midwestern metro areas are far more likely to live within a mile of a polluting industrial facility than white Americans

A new study has provided empirical evidence of what many environmental justice advocates have long known – black Americans are far more likely to live near pollution than white Americans.  The disparity occurs in most parts of the country, and in cities, suburbs, and urban areas.  However, the racial injustice is most terrible in Midwestern metro areas, where black Americans are almost twice as likely to live within a mile of a major pollution source as white Americans.

The study, led by Prof. Paul Mohai of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment (one of my first college profs), was just published in the American Journal of Public Health (full download available here).  The methodology is detailed in the article, but basically consisted of correlating survey data on race, income, and other demographic factors with residences within one mile of polluting facilities identified with EPA Toxic Release Inventory data.  This is admittedly an imperfect proxy for exposure to pollution, but produces a telling snapshot of how race is correlated with environmental health risks.

The study found 58 percent of black Americans in Midwest metropolitan areas lived within a mile of a polluting industrial facility compared to only 35 percent of white Americans.  Similar disparities were found between the races in the South and West, but not Northeast.  While income levels were also correlated to living near pollution, the racial divide was evident even after adjusting for socioeconomic and other demographic characteristics.  According to the study, the black-white disparity suggests that factors uniquely associated with race may be involved, such as housing segregation and the targeting of African-American communities to place sources of pollution.

This is an injustice in every sense of the term.  Remedying this ongoing problem should be a top priority for the EPA, states, and environmental advocates.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has just created two new senior positions to address environmental justice and civil rights, appointing Lisa H. Garcia as senior adviser for environmental justice and Patrick Sungwook Chang as senior counsel for external civil rights. This is a promising sign that the EPA is finally taking environmental justice and civil rights seriously.  But far more is needed, especially at the state and local levels.  State regulators must reverse the trend of permitting pollution in areas that disproportionately affect black Americans and other racial minorities.  And environmental groups must partner with black churches and other neighborhood organizations on the front lines of environmental justice battles.  Being black should not destine an American to living with pollution.

Environmental groups and EPA step up the fight against tar sands oil refinery pollution in the Great Lakes

Tar sands oil gives coal some competition for the title of dirtiest fuel.  From mining to refining to burning, tar sands oil is an environmental disaster.  The Great Lakes is becoming a center for refining imported tar sands oil, which comes from western Canada.  As a result, refinery pollution is threatening our water and our communities.  BP’s Whiting Refinery on the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana has become a focal point in the legal fight to stop tar sands pollution in the region.  Environmental groups scored a victory earlier this month when the EPA objected to an Indiana permit for air pollution from the refinery.  Meleah Geertsma, an attorney and public health expert with the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago, was involved in the fight against the air pollution from the tar sands refinery, and wrote this guest post on the victory and what it means in the fight against tar sands pollution in the Great Lakes.

On October 16, in a move that could significantly improve air quality for the Great Lakes region, the U.S. EPA sent a clear message to the oil industry that the federal agency is serious about air pollution from refining – especially the processing of dirty Canadian tar sands crude. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on that day issued an order objecting to a permit granted by Indiana to BP’s Whiting Refinery, located on the shores of Lake Michigan. At the heart of Administrator Jackson’s order is a concern that numerous potential sources of air pollution are going uncounted and uncontrolled. And that the industry is ignoring or downplaying the air pollution impacts of processing the much heavier, dirtier Canadian tar sands crude, a crude that contains high levels of sulfur and toxic metals. 

The BP operating permit was issued to enable a significant increase in the processing of heavy tar sands crude at BP’s Whiting, Indiana facility. However, the permit allowed BP to expand without installing so-called “best available control technology,” on the premise that increases in air pollution from the expansion would be balanced by decreases in pollution from the existing refinery. Such a trade-off of increases and decreases is referred to in air permitting as “netting.”

In response, several environmental groups and individual citizens filed a petition with U.S. EPA, asking the agency to object due to BP’s and the agency’s failure to count numerous potential sources of increased air pollution. Among these sources are increased operations of certain equipment needed to process larger amounts of Canadian crude, as well as greater levels of sulfur and toxics in the crude itself.

The extraction of Canadian tar sands oil is a hugely destructive act. All wetlands must be drained, rivers diverted, and trees and vegetation stripped from the land. The heavy crude is then taken from the land in a strip-mining process where hydraulic shovels tear into and remove the surface land. Crude existing at lower levels is extracted by pumping high pressure steam into the earth. Since the crude is too thick to flow through pipelines, it must be processed in another step that uses immense quantities of water and energy. The drastic effects on local landscapes are long-lasting, as very little land directly affected by the process has been restored to a level equivalent to the pre-mining land capabilities, and virtually no reclamation efforts occur for the first 20-30 years of a project. Moreover, tar sands extraction produces significant threats to local public health – from air pollution that results from mining and toxics that get into local water supplies. These impacts have caused grave environmental justice concerns, as they occur on or near tribal lands.

Canadian tar sands extraction and processing also are large contributors to global warming, resulting in more greenhouse gases than processing of traditional crudes. The BP Whiting expansion alone would result in an additional 1.5 to 2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or as much greenhouse gas pollution as a new medium sized coal plant. Concerns about the local and more global impacts prompted the U.S. Conference of Mayors to pass a resolution in 2008 against using tar sands oil, as well as to send a letter to President Obama urging him to move U.S. energy policy away from tar sands oil.

While these land and greenhouse impacts have been widely discussed in the media, air pollution associated with expanding Canadian tar sands crude refining capacity has gone largely unnoticed.  The EPA objection is a catalyst that has opened up the conversation, making the front page of the Chicago Tribune.

In addition to its significance for tar sands refining, the EPA objection signals a strong agency intent to better understand and quantify sources of air pollution at refineries. Refineries are highly complex industrial sources with numerous pieces of equipment. This equipment can produce air pollution either directly from its operation, as with a coker where depressurization of the drums and cutting out of coke produces various emissions, or in the form of fugitive emissions (from leaks, valves, hinges, etc.).  In the past decade, advances have been made in the ability to detect and measure these emissions.  Numerous tests using DIAL (for “Differential Absorption Lidar”) and other technologies have already occurred at refineries overseas, in Canada, and here in the U.S. Such tests, along with other means for estimating emissions, contribute to our better understanding refinery air pollution. The EPA objection takes the stand that we must fully use our capabilities to estimate and control the air pollution from refineries, and industry can no longer hide behind unsupported claims that pollution cannot be estimated or will be minimal or non-existent. While there will be much work ahead to implement the objection in this case and in the future, the environmental community applauds EPA’s move.

Michigan issues new state rules to limit mercury emissions from power plants

Michigan has just announced new statewide rules to significantly limit mercury emissions from power plants.  While the rules aren’t ideal, they are a significant victory on a critically important environmental and public health issue.  Mike Shriberg, Policy Director of the Ecology Center, has worked on this issue for many years, going back to his former work with Environment Michigan.  Mike was kind enough to offer this guest post on the new mercury emission rules.

In 2002, then-gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm pledged to “support the phaseout and elimination of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.”  In 2006, when running for reelection, Governor Granholm directed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality “to reduce mercury emissions from electric utilities by 90 percent by 2015” stating “It is unacceptable that in a state where fishing contributes over $2 billion to the economy annually, we must warn people not to eat the fish that they catch in our beautiful lakes because of mercury contamination.”  Finally, 7 years and countless hours of advocacy later, the MDEQ announced this week that it has finalized rules requiring power plants to reduce mercury pollution 90% by 2015, making Michigan the 19th state to regulate mercury from power plants.  (See press coverage from the AP here.)

The science on mercury could not be clearer.  We’ve known for centuries that mercury is a major threat to public health, especially children’s health.  Even the Governor stated “mercury is a potent neurotoxin that threatens the health of Michigan families, children, and nursing mothers.”  Mercury, simply put, causes brain damage as well as a host of other neurological problems (such as vision and memory impairment).  And Michigan is particularly hard hit, with mercury warnings in all 11,000 inlands lakes and the entire Great Lakes shoreline, and 10,000 – 20,000 babies born each year with significantly elevated mercury levels.

We also know that the greatest source of mercury in the state is coal-fired power plants, releasing approximately 4,000 pounds in the base year of 1999.  So, you would think that a 90% reduction would mean 3,600 less pounds of mercury per year by 2015.  Not so - this is the upside down world of Lansing politics, after all.  Unfortunately, the mercury rule is riddled with loopholes, off-ramps, exemptions and extensions, likely resulting in an actual reduction of only 77%, according to DEQ’s own estimates.  These problems with the rules – which environmental and conservation groups fought vigorously to stop – include allowing utilities to calculate mercury reductions based on the mercury content in the coal (as opposed to mercury coming out of the smokestack, which is what actually impacts people), requiring only 75% reductions if power plants reduce other pollutants significantly, exempt smaller plants, and allow extensions for economic hardship or technological breakdowns.  These comments from the major environmental and conservation groups in the state outline these problems in more detail.

Why isn’t a 90% reduction a 90% reduction?  The answer is the politics of power in Lansing.  The utilities wield an exorbitant amount of influence on our policy makers and regulators, with the halls of Lansing crawling with utility lobbyists and staffers.  For example, the utilities literally share an office with our Public Service Commission, who is supposed to be overseeing them in the name of the public interest.  The public interest advocates do not have the resources – and certainly not the money – to continually win against the utilities’ lobbying might on mercury or any other issue.  To me, it’s a prime example of the corruption of money in politics.  What particularly galls me in this otherwise typical case of special interest politics is that it’s your money – your utility bills for which you have no real choice of companies – that’s paying to work against your interests in clean energy and a healthy environment (not to mention reasonable rates). 

The positive bottom-line is that these rules, while certainly flawed, are a major step forward and help fill the void left by the vacated Bush-era pitifully-weak federal rule.  Even if we only reach the predicted 77% reductions, that’s still nearly 3,000 pounds less of mercury in our air and water every year – no small accomplishment for our health and environment.  And, it’s entirely due to the tireless work of the environmental and conservation community – led by the Michigan Environmental Council, Environment Michigan, PIRGIM, Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the National Wildlife Federation and Ecology Center, with strong support from Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Michigan League of Conservation Voters and many others.  The tactics ranged from pressure to cajoling, and lobbying to deep policy analysis.  Personally, this was the first campaign I engaged in and helped lead after returning to Michigan as an environmental advocate over 5 years ago, so it’s particularly sweet to have a tangible accomplishment that directly impacts Michiganders’ lives – something all too rare in policy advocacy.

Putting the Civil Rights Act to Work for Environmental Justice

This guest post is by Chris Winter, Co-Executive Director & Staff Attorney of the Crag Law Center in Portland, Oregon.  Chris and I went to law school together, and despite his Pittsburgh roots, he moved out west after graduation.  After several years in private practice with Stoel Rives LLP, Chris founded the Crag Law Center to provide affordable legal assistance to groups working on environmental and natural resource issues.  Chris had a huge victory this week in a precedent setting environmental justice case under the Civil Rights Act.  The case received national coverage (see this article from the New York Times) and will put legal and political pressure on the Obama Administration’s EPA to finally enforce the law to protect poor and minority communities from pollution and other environmental harms.

The Crag Law Center, in partnership with our client the Rosemere Neighborhood Association, recently won an important environmental justice case involving the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Disadvantaged communities all across America have struggled with environmental problems for decades.  Pollution is often concentrated in poor communities and communities of color.  As far back as 1987, the Commission for Racial Justice, in Toxic Waste and Race, found that race was the single best predictor of where toxic waste facilities were located nation-wide.  Since that time, the Environmental Justice movement has emerged and matured in an effort to address environmental inequities. 

The Civil Rights Act is one of the few laws that relates directly to discriminatory environmental impacts.  Title VI provides that no person shall, “on the ground of race, color, or national origin . . . be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal assistance.”  Each federal agency that distributes federal funds must pass regulations to implement the anti-discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

EPA’s rules prohibit the use of federal funds in ways “which have the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination because of their race, color, [or] national origin.”  Any citizen subjected to discrimination can file a complaint with EPA’s Office of Civil Rights, which is supposed to investigate the allegations and potentially pull federal funding. 

For years, the Environmental Justice movement hoped that EPA would faithfully enforce the Civil Rights Act.  State agencies, for instance, use EPA funding to issue hazardous waste and air pollution permits for industrial facilities that are often located in minority communities.  EPA, by enforcing the Civil Rights Act, had the opportunity to ensure that our bedrock environmental laws provide equal treatment for all people.

EPA, however, let that laudable vision slip through its fingers, and the story of Rosemere, as told by the Ninth Circuit, documents the unfortunate history of missed opportunities.  Instead of investigating civil rights complaints, OCR simply ignored them.  Dozens and perhaps hundreds of complaints from all over the country languished at OCR without any substantive response.  Citizens that looked to EPA for protection found instead an agency that turned a deaf ear to their concerns and refused to enforce the law.

Rosemere’s story exemplifies the systemic problems at the Office of Civil Rights.  For years the Rosemere Neighborhood Association (RNA) worked to address pollution in the City of Vancouver, Washington.  In 2003, RNA filed a complaint with EPA alleging that Vancouver used funding to improve services such as sewer and stormwater controls in affluent neighborhoods while neglecting minority communities.  Vancouver then took the unprecedented step of investigating RNA’s internal operations, which was at the time an officially recognized neighborhood association.  Vancouver eventually revoked Rosemere’s status, changed the name of the neighborhood, and recognized a new organization as the neighborhood representative. 

In December of 2003, Rosemere filed a second Title VI complaint alleging illegal retaliation by the City.  The EPA’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) first accepts or rejects the complaint for investigation, which is supposed to happen within the first 20 days.  Eighteen months went by without any word from OCR, and meanwhile Rosemere had been shut out of City-sponsored programs.  Rosemere, with Crag’s assistance, filed suit in June of 2005 seeking to force OCR to conduct a proper civil rights investigation.  EPA then began the investigation and moved to dismiss Rosemere’s case as moot.  The District Court granted the motion, and Rosemere focused on ensuring that EPA carried out a fair and complete investigation.

OCR then had six months by law to finish its work.  By February of 2007, eighteen months after accepting the complaint, OCR still had not completed its investigation.  Rosemere again filed suit in an effort to get a fair resolution of its complaint.  OCR again responded only after litigation was filed and issued its investigative report several weeks later.  EPA again moved to dismiss the lawsuit simply because it had finally issued a decision approximately three and half years after the original complaint was filed.  The District Court granted the motion to dismiss, and this time Crag and Rosemere appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit.

In a strongly worded opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court and held that the Rosemere’s lawsuit was not moot.  We provided information to the court demonstrating that OCR had missed its timelines with respect to every single civil rights complaint filed in 2006 and 2007 and that the problems of delay had plagued EPA’s civil rights program since at least the late 1990s.  The Court found Rosemere’s story was part of a “consistent pattern of delay by the EPA.”  Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Tashima wrote that “Rosemere’s experience before the EPA appears, sadly and unfortunately, typical of those who appeal to OCR to remedy civil rights violations.”  (The full opinion is available online here.)

Crag and Rosemere now look forward to prosecuting this case before the District Court and holding EPA accountable for the years of illegal delay.  More importantly, however, we hope Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s Administrator of the EPA, will take real steps towards reforming EPA’s Office of Civil Rights and realizing the promise of the Civil Rights Act.

Update: In response to Crag’s recent environmental justice victory, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has ordered reforms at the Office of Civil Rights to speed the processing of discrimination claims. In addition to ordering her staff “in the strongest terms, to review and reform the Title VI process,” Administrator Jackson also stated that she will create a new senior-level position to oversee and coordinate all diversity issues at the agency.

Inside EPA published a recent story on the latest developments (link here). Crag applauds the move by Administrator Jackson to both recognize the long-standing problems at EPA’s Office of Civil Rights and order immediate reforms. The next step in the process is to ensure that each complaint is given an objective and thorough investigation.