National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, November 10 2021 Meeting Summary

U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA)

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT JUSTICE ADVISORY COUNCIL (NEJAC)

VIRTUAL PUBLIC MEETING

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NEJAC PUBLIC MEETING EPA PRESENTATION MATERIALS ............................... 8

PREFACE ............................................................................................................................ 9

MEETING SUMMARY.................................................................................................... 10

WELCOME, I

NTRODUCTIONS, & OPENING REMARKS ........................................ 10

WELCOME, EPA UPDATES, & DIALOGUE ............................................................... 12

DRAFT FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN ....................................................... 244

THE DRAFT FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN PRESENTATION FOCUS ON

GOAL 2: TAKING DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRONMENTAL

JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND UPDATES ON JUSTICE40 ............................. 255

NEJAC RESPONSE TO FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN PRESENTATION . 37

NEJAC OPEN BUSINESS MEETING REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION MOVING

FORWARD INCLUDING NEJAC WORKGROUP UPDATES..................................... 49

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD ........................................................................................ 62

NEJAC WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS SUBMITTED FOR 11.10.2021 MEETING

........................................................................................................................................... 96

NEJAC WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS SUBMITTED CONT. ............................. 121

CLOSING REMARKS & ADJOURN ........................................................................ 12222

NEJAC MEMBER BIOS NOVEMBER 2021 - APPENDIX A ..................................... 136

ATTENDEES LIST

SPEAKERS AND FACILITATORS

FRED JENKINS, JR., PhD.

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICER (DFO)

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

(EPA)

MATTHEW TEJADA, PhD.

DIRECTOR, U.S. EPA OFFICE OF

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

JANET MCCABE

DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

(EPA)

LINDA DORKA

EXTERNAL CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLIANCE

OFFICE

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

(EPA)

VICKI ARROYO

OFFICE OF POLICY

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

(EPA)

PHILLIP FINE, PhD

OFFICE OF POLICY

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

(EPA)

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

ADVISORY COUNCIL (NEJAC) MEMBER

CHAIRS

SYLVIA ORDUÑO

MICHIGAN WELFARE RIGHTS

ORGANIZATION

NEJAC MEMBER CHAIR - EPA REGION 5

MICHAEL TILCHIN

JACOBS ENGINEERING

NEJAC MEMBER - VICE-CHAIR - EPA

REGION 3

ACADEMIA GROUP

JILL LINDSEY HARRISON, PhD

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 8

JAN MARIE FRITZ, PhD, C.C.S.

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 4 & 5

BENJAMIN J. PAULI, PhD

KETTERING UNIVERSITY

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 5

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY GROUP

VENU GHANTA

DUKE ENERGY

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 3

VIRGINIA M. KING

MARATHON PETROLEUM

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 6

COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS

GROUP

REV. DR. AMBROSE CARROLL, SR.

GREEN THE CHURCH

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 9

LETICIA COLON DE MEJIAS

GREEN ECO WARRIORS

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 1

JEROME SHABAZZ

JASTECH DEVELOPMENT SERVICES INC.

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 3

CEMELLI DE AZTLAN

LA MUJER OBRERA

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 6

PAMELA TALLEY

LEWIS PLACE HISTORICAL

PRESERVATION INC.

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 7

SOFIA OWEN

ALTERNATIVES FOR COMMUNITY &

ENVIRONMENT (ACE)

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 1

NONGOVERNMENTAL/ENVIRONMENTAL

GROUP

ANDY KRICUN

US WATER ALLIANCE

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 2

AYAKO NAGANO, JD

COMMON VISION

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 9

JEREMY F. ORR, JD

SAFE WATER INITIATIVE NATIONAL

RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 5

JACQUELINE SHIRLEY

RURAL COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE

CORPORATION

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 6

BRENDA TORRES BARRETO

SAN JUAN BAY ESTUARY PROGRAM

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 2

TRIBAL/INDIGENOUS GOVERNMENTS

AND ORGANIZATIONS GROUP

JOHN DOYLE

LITTLE BIG HORN COLLEGE

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 8

JONATHAN PERRY

BECENTI CHAPTER

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 6

JOY BRITT

ALASKA NATIVE TRIBAL HEALTH

CONSORTIUM

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 10

SCOTT CLOW

UTE MOUNTAIN UTE TRIBE

NEJAC MEMBER - REGION 8

STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENT GROUP

CHARLES BRYSON

CITY OF ST. LOUIS CIVIL RIGHTS

ENFORCEMENT AGENCY

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 7

FELICIA BELTRAN

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF

TRANSPORTATION

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 9

MILLICENT PIAZZA, PhD

WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF

ECOLOGY

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 10

KAREN SPRAYBERRY

SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

NEJAC MEMBER - EPA REGION 4

NEJAC PUBLIC MEETING EPA PRESENTATION MATERIALS

All the EPA presentation materials in this public meeting are posted in the public docket for this

meeting available at www.regulations.gov via under docket number EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0671.

PREFACE

The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) is a federal advisory committee

that was established by charter on September 30, 1993, to provide independent advice,

consultation, and recommendations to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) on matters related to environmental justice.

As a federal advisory committee, NEJAC is governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act

(FACA) enacted on October 6, 1972. FACA provisions include the following requirements:

• Members must be selected and appointed by EPA.

• Members must attend and participate fully in meetings.

• Meetings must be open to the public, except as specified by the EPA Administrator.

• All meetings must be announced in the Federal Register.

• Public participation must be allowed at all public meetings.

• The public must be provided access to materials distributed during the meeting.

• Meeting minutes must be kept and made available to the public.

• A designated federal official (DFO) must be present at all meetings.

• The advisory committee must provide independent judgment that is not influenced by

special interest groups.

EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) maintains summary reports of all NEJAC

meetings, which are available in the public docket for this meeting at www.regulations.gov under

docket number EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0671 and on the NEJAC web site at

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/national-environmental-justice-advisory- council-

meetings. Copies of materials distributed during NEJAC meetings are also available to the public

upon request. Comments or questions can be directed via e-mail to [email protected].

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVISORY COUNCIL

VIRTUAL PUBLIC MEETING

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

MEETING SUMMARY

The National environmental Justice Advisory Council convened via Zoom meeting on

Wednesday, November 10, 2021. This summary covers NEJAC members’ deliberations during

the meeting and the discussions during the public comment period.

WELCOME, INTRODUCTIONS, & OPENING REMARKS

Dr. Fred Jenkins, Jr., Designated Federal Officer (DFO), U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA), opened the meeting, welcomed everyone and introduced the instructions for an

opportunity to hear from meeting attendees outside of the public comment period, using the

Q&A features and he reminded the audience that preregistered oral public commenters, will be

invited to speak later in the meeting during the public comment period.

Dr. Jenkins stated that there is a public docket for this meeting, EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0671 that is

accessible via regulation.gov. He also noted that all meeting information and materials can be

found in the public docket, and on the NEJAC website. He also informed everyone that the

meeting is recorded, and he lastly introduced Dr. Matthew Tejada, the Director of the Office of

Environmental Justice.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ), Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA), thanked the supporting team and informed everyone that OEJ is

supporting both the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) and the White

House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC).

Dr. Tejada explained that the NEJAC has been the longstanding advisory committee on

Environmental Justice (EJ) for EPA, and that EPA’s Office of Environmental (OEJ) is also

supporting the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) which

provides EJ recommendations directly to the chair of the Council of Environmental Quality. Dr.

Tejada provided an overview of the meeting agenda and handed the meeting over to Ms. Sylvia

Orduño, the NEJAC Chair.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, announced then ten new members to the Council,

established that quorum was met, and the meeting was ready to begin. After which she turned the

meeting over to Dr. Tejada.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, stated that at some point in 2022, they may l be able to

come together for an in-person NEJAC meeting at some location to be determined either

Washington D.C. or some other location in in one of the EPA regions.

Dr Tejada informed the Council that Administrator Michael Regan will be embarking upon the

first leg of his “Journey to Justice Tour” during the following week of November 15, 2022. He

explained that Administrator Regan is traveling around the United States to communities with EJ

concerns, especially to connect with legacy communities that have had some of the toughest EJ

challenges for generations.

Dr Tejada then invited Ms. Vicki Arroyo, JD, and Dr. Phil Fine to introduce themselves.

Ms. Vicki Arroyo, Associate Administrator, Office of Policy, EPA, explained to the NEJAC the

importance and implications of the EPA draft multiyear strategic plan specifically in how it

informs EPA’s budget, staff and manager's performance evaluations, and all the work that the

entire Agency does with communities and the regions as well as the National Program offices.

Mr. Phil Fine, Principal Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Policy, EPA, stated that he

was looking forward to receiving the NEJAC’s feedback and recommendation on the Agency’s

draft multiyear strategic plan and they are looking forward to their feedback.

WELCOME, EPA UPDATES, & DIALOGUE

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, introduced Ms. Janet McCabe, JD.

Ms. Janet McCabe, Deputy Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: It is great

to be with everybody. Thank you all for letting me take a few minutes of your meeting. I know

that today you're going to focus significantly on talking about the proposed strategic plan. We're

really looking forward to your input on that. So, I thought I would take a few minutes to talk

about a few other things to just sort of kick things off, and then to see what questions that you

guys have.

So, the first thing I'd like to do is to say a great big thank you and welcome to the ten new

members of the NEJAC. So grateful for your willingness to serve on the NEJAC. I've served on

a couple of FACAs myself in the days when I didn't at EPA. I know that is a labor of love. You

are fitting it into your already busy lives, and you do it because you care about these issues, and

we're just ever so grateful. We know that your contributions are going to make us more

successful, our work more successful, and remind us and help us pay attention to the right things.

So, thank you all, and thank you again to those of you who are continuing to serve.

Administrator Regan really did want to be here with you today, but as I'm sure you know, he's in

Glasgow this week. He can't really do anything about the schedules. They're not in our control.

It sounds like it's been really exciting over there, and there's a lot of amazing conversations

happening. So, he'll be back soon and back on the road.

In fact, literally, he will be back on the road because next week, he will be on the first leg of

what he's calling a "Journey to Justice" where he is going to travel to the states of Mississippi,

Louisiana, and Texas to continue because he's done some of these visits already, but to really

start a concerted effort to have conversations with the people who live in the neighborhoods in

the communities around this country. In particular, the neighborhoods that are burdened with

significant levels of pollution, whether it's air, water, land contamination, lack of access to open

space, and the kinds of resources that we should expect and that everybody in this country should

be able to count on as part of living in this country to support healthy and productive lives.

I want to highlight a couple of really important points with this trip. As I said, this is not one and

done. I've had conversations with him personally where he's expressed how important it is for

him to get out of Washington and to see the communities where we do our work in terms of

working with entities that are creating the pollution burden and meeting with the people who live

in those communities. So, that is really, really important to all of us.

Second, we've been working with the communities that he's visiting to arrange the details of

these visits. So they're happening in the places and in the ways and with the people that the

communities would like to be part of this. They're not photo ops. They're not just a publicity

tour. It's really lifting up the administrator's deep appreciation for the need for folks like him,

folks like me from inside Washington D.C. to engage directly with communities on their terms.

We have heard from community leaders throughout the year that Administrator Regan has been

in EPA and from you on the NEJAC about the need to improve the way we plan the

administrator's community engagements. We're working very hard to do better at that, to include

people the way we should, to make people aware the way we should. That's not to say we won't

still misstep. We do it all the time. Our intentions are very, very good here, and hopefully, we

are getting better, and we will continue to get better as we do that.

As some of you may know, I split my time between Washington D.C. and Indianapolis, although

it's not an even split. I'm in Washington more than Indianapolis. That's where I live. The

Martindale-Brightwood, and Team Park neighborhoods are no more than a stone's throw from

my home in Indianapolis. These are communities that are neighbors. And I've had the privilege

of working closely with people in those communities when I was working at Improving Kids

Environment a number of years ago now. I was part of a community action for a renewed

environment grant to Martindale-Brightwood, a CARE grant. What a great program that was.

That's a neighborhood where the high concentration of abandoned property, high poverty, poor

infrastructure, few of the necessary community resources, such as grocery stores or pharmacies.

There was an extraordinarily high, still is, concentration of brownfield sites in that neighborhood

that were high levels of lead in the children's blood in those neighborhoods, and the care grant

allowed the neighbors themselves to learn about the environmental conditions in their

community to make their own decisions about which were the highest priority. It built capacity

and a sense of ownership and empowerment among the residents. It was their project.

So, through this project and others I've worked on, I've seen environmental injustices in my very

own home, city, and I've talked with the people in those communities. I've tried to learn what we

can do to really empower communities to have a voice in decisions that are made and to guide

the decisions that happen to improve conditions in those communities. This is really, really,

really hard work, and it takes a long time.

On behalf of Administrator Regan and all of EPA and myself, for sure, I want to reaffirm how

committed we are to doing our best to ensure that overburdened communities are protected from

exposure to dangerous pollution, that illegal omissions and emitters are called to account, that

these communities have equitable access to resources and opportunities and that funds go to the

places of greatest need to solve these legacy issues, which are holding communities back from

being healthy, prosperous and hopeful places to live. I think we have some hopeful signs; I was

going to say on the horizon, but they're really on the doorstep here.

I'll mention the most recent one right now, the Bipartisan Infrastructure deal. This is an

unbelievable opportunity. Unbelievable. Less frequent than once in a lifetime really.

Unprecedented support to critical EPA programs, such as drinking water and super fund and

brown fields and bus replacement. So much of it is going to be focused on communities that

have been overburdened with pollution for too long. Through the president laying out his

expectations through programs like Justice40, through Administrator Regan's focus on centering

the EPA mission on achieving justice, we will be able to use these resources to help communities

and to direct resources to achieve meaningful and lasting improvements to these critical needs in

our nation's most overburdened and vulnerable communities. Of the $60 billion, EPA's current

budget is about $15 billion.

So, just think of that. I mean, it's just remarkable. Justice40 is going to be an extremely program

to help us prioritize these resources, and as it happens, many of the programs that will be

receiving the most significant funding from the infrastructure deal are already a pile of programs

under Justice40. So, that means no delay in trying to figure out how to prioritize the funding.

We're actively working that out right now. So, that's really good. We're really happy about that.

We're also looking forward to hopefully Build Back Better bill passing with additional

substantial resources, and, of course, the coming FY'22 baseline budget. Both of these have yet

more resources that will allow us to really drive our ability to build capacity, provide technical

assistance that we know, we've seen, and we've heard demanded across the country from

communities and their local partners and issues that the NEJAC has raised over the years very

clearly.

So, our relationship with you and the advice and the guidance that you all can provide to us is

going to be absolutely essential to our thinking and implementation of these new resources and

programs and they vary, right? I mean, a lot of the money is going to programs that already exist

where the system we're getting money out into the community are already pretty well

established. What we're going to be doing is making them 2X or 3X the level that they are now

and using programs like Justice40 to make sure that the resources are directed to the most

needful areas.

There will also be a number of new programs that are a very, very exciting opportunity for all of

us to figure out how to design these things in order to have the greatest impact, especially in the

communities where the need is greatest. So, way, way, way more to come on that. We're not

losing a minute in getting organized to be able to get these resources out the door in the way that

Congress and the president intend them.

So, shifting gears a little bit. I know you haven't had very long to review the administrator's

response to the NEJAC's 100-Day Letter, a couple weeks I think you've had it. It's very lengthy.

It provides a lot of information. That's why it took us a minute to get it out to you, but I hope

that you'll see when you had a chance to look at it, what the breadth of the efforts across EPA on

environmental justice issues, which are underway in this administration. I hope what will come

through to you from that lengthy response is the deep and fundamental commitment of those of

us at EPA right now to take on the hard work of centering our mission on environmental

injustice and the administrator reminds us of that every single day.

I think that the scope of our envision is also clearly evident in the draft strategic plan. I'm not

going to spend much time on that because that's where you're going to spend your time today,

but I think including a second goal that focuses so directly on environmental justice is another

signal that this administration is serious about a different approach to making progress on

environmental justice, then prior administrations.

So, very much looking forward to your feedback and input on that, that there's been a lot of

conversations within the Agency about how we will live out, how we will put down on paper

what that Goal 2 means and how we will accomplish it and we need your input and help on how

to make sure that we do that. Let me say just another minute on the Justice40 initiative because,

I mean, it's just so revolutionary and impactful: a government approach to delivering 40 percent

of the overall benefits from certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities.

As I said, we've already got programs that are considered pilots for Justice40 that includes the

Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, lead and drinking

water, brownfields, superfund, and the Diesel Emissions Reduction (DERA) Program, which

provides funds to convert dirty old diesels into less or nonpolluting vehicles. So we know that in

order to actually implement Justice40 in the appropriate way, we have to be mindful of the

realities and demands of the communities themselves. That means we have to be willing to

engage anywhere and everywhere.

But we also recognize that engagement itself can be a burden on communities, and I think we've

all experienced some of that in our eagerness to make sure that we're communicating with

community groups and individuals and groups like NEJAC on an ongoing basis with so much

going on at the Agency that we don't want to burn people out or make it difficult for people to

feel like they can contribute because they have a few other things going on in their lives as well.

So we're working to be as smart and sensible and sensitive about that as we can to reduce the

burden but to create and sustain consistent, meaningful, and manageable methods to stay

engaged with you.

Again, this is another area where your input on how to do that most successfully is most

appreciated. So, we've convened a variety of engagement efforts. We've hosted community

engagements on a biweekly basis with a special focus on Justice40. So, far, I think we've had a

couple thousand people attend these calls. So, we'll continue. We have a call coming up on

November 30th focused on tribes and indigenous people. So, please let us know how we can do

better on that.

As you know, there's just so much going on at EPA, and, when we have a big rule or a big

program to announce, we want to get the word to you. When we are looking for ongoing input

on things, we need to engage with you, but we also realize that there's only so much time in the

day and so much bandwidth that people have to be constantly hopping on calls with EPA.

Just quickly, a couple other things I want to mention. We have some opportunities out right

now. A few days ago, we announced two school bus rebate opportunities. One under DERA,

the 2021 DERA school bus rebate program and the 2021 American Rescue Plan electric school

bus rebates. This is for a total of $17 million and will be used to help schools and bus fleet

owners to replace older, highly polluting diesel school buses. This will, of course, improve air

quality in and around schools and the communities that they drive through, right at ground level.

It will reduce greenhouse gas pollution, better protect children's health overall, and everyone

who comes into contact with those sources.

I've worked with schools that are eager, eager, eager to get this money in. They're so excited,

and this is the kind of the thing where you sort of count it bus by bus, right? School systems may

only be replacing one or two buses a year. They're very expensive. If they get an electric bus,

boy, are they excited. It's just such a signal of the clean energy transportation world to come and

what better place to have that be demonstrated than in our school yards and school bus barns.

So, I encourage you to spread the word about that. We'll soon be announcing the EJ

collaborative problem-solving agreements. These will be largely funded through the American

Rescue Plan funding. They'll provide $200,000 directly to community-based organizations and

tribes across the U.S. to support environmental justice efforts. We've got selections that we'll be

announcing imminently, and we also will be announcing the EJ small grant recipients. So when

you put all these things together, these EJ grants, this will exceed, I'm told, the amount of EJ

funding EPA has given out in the previous decade. The amount of resources available for these

programs is just demonstrably greater than it has been in the past, and what an opportunity that is

for this country.

So, we're just so excited about the prospect for communities to be receiving support early on in

the administration so that we can continue to work with communities and deliver the most for

every one of those dollars and see those efforts through. We're also in the final stages of putting

together a request for proposals for our $20 million air quality monitoring grant. This is

American Rescue Plan funds again. These grants will be available to states, tribes, local,

government, and community organizations to receive funding for priority air monitoring needs. I

know the air office has significantly engaged with many partners including community

organizations to talk about the details of the grant opportunities.

So, we're looking forward to putting that out and starting to get feedback from people about the

kinds of projects that they are hoping to get funding for. Of course, the areas that are most

burdened with air pollution are the areas where we hope that these resources will go. I think we

understand how much of our air pollution burden these days is in sort of micro neighborhood-

scale environments and very hard to have enough monitoring resources to go around. So that

RFA will be coming out in the next few weeks. If you want to make sure you don't miss it, sign

up for EPA's environmental justice's list or follow us on Twitter where we'll also produce the

news of this.

A couple more things or maybe one more thing, I want to make sure that you knew that EPA's

draft strategic plan to reduce lead exposures and disparities was released on October 28th. So,

that's a draft because we are looking for comments from external stakeholders. This strategy

builds on the goals and objectives of the existing Federal Lead Action Plan. That was developed

by what's known as the President's Task Force Lead Reduction Subcommittee.

So, this is also in furtherance of President Biden's executive order on advancing equity for

underserved communities. I'm really proud of this draft lead strategy. It certainly is in all of

EPA's strategy, and it has some cross-agency cooperative efforts as well. There's really a first of

its kind groundbreaking emphasis on eliminating racial and socioeconomic disparities and blood

lead levels and promoting environmental justice with actions from pretty much every part of

EPA that will help disproportionately impacted communities. And so please do give us your

thoughts on this.

This is an issue that's a great personal passion for me having worked on it for many years and

just been dismayed at the fact that we still have children in this country whose lives are affected

in significant ways by being exposed to this pollutant where we know where it is. We know

what it takes to get rid of it, and yet, we can't seem to do it. So, I know you have a full agenda

today and never enough time. So, I'm going to stop and just say thank you. I want to thank Fred,

George, Piyachat, and the entire OEJ team for the support that they provide to the NEJAC. It

takes a team to put together calls like this and also to make sure that we’re doing right by the

NEJAC. I appreciate how members of the NEJAC have always not always been – not held back

from speaking powerfully both to us and publicly and in their communities about environmental

justice in our nation.

We have a responsibility to live up to our words and mission and we're doing our utmost every

day to do that. So, thank you, again. And Matt, if there's time for a few questions, I would love

to take them and either answer them or have others help me answer them.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ: Asked Ms. Orduño to facilitate the question and answer

session between Deputy Administrator McCabe and the NEJAC.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Thanked Ms. McCabe for bringing an abundance of

updates, on behalf of the administrator and for her commitment to environmental justice and to

the work of this Council. Ms. Orduño also expressed excitement about all that Ms. McCabe

outlined and to learn about the Administrator’s Journey to Justice visit in the south, and she also

expressed enthusiasm about what Congress has now approved to help make many of these

promises possible.

Ms. Orduño indicated this is a very monumental time for what is possible. The council is looking

forward to learning more about the Strategic Plan and more engagement, especially around the

Justice40 initiative, including issues related to financial transparency, and whether money is

reaching impacted communities and being used as intended with the meaningful participation of

the impacted residents. Ms. Orduño wanted to acknowledge that the Council has received a

response to the 100 Day Letter and our work groups will be looking more closely at that and

responding earlier next with feedback to your responses. She added that this Council appreciated

that the Administrator agreed its important for this Council to be in conversation with the

WHEJC and have had a couple of meetings already and are looking forward to more

engagement, especially around the Justice40 initiatives. In fact, one of the NEJAC’s work groups

is focused on issues of finance and investment and is something we’re very much interested in

following to make sure it’s getting to our impacted communities and getting used as intended.

Ms. Orduño reminded the NEJAC if the wanted to provide feedback to Deputy Administrator

McCabe they, can do so in writing at a later time. Ms. Orduño, called on a new council member

Dr. Harrison.

Dr. Jill Harrison, NEJAC Member, thanked Deputy Administrator for prioritizing

environmental justice at the Agency. Dr. Harrison said she heard that there are a lot of important

investments being made into disadvantaged communities which is crucially important. She asked

Deputy Administrator McCabe about how EPA can change the ways that regular decision-

making is made in terms of core regulatory work so that the council can figure out how to make

sense of all of these important investments into communities with the environmental justice

concerns with ongoing approvals at the federal, and state level regarding issues like pipelines and

really hazardous facilities.

Ms. Janet McCabe, Deputy Administrator, EPA indicated that the agency has been learning

about the research that Dr. Harrison does into the challenges that government agencies find in

actually putting into practice what they say about what they want to do in terms of environmental

justice. It’s been incredibly eye-opening work so thank you for doing that work. She added that

the agency is mindful of this, but in the moment it is sort of overshadowed by the number 60

billion and the infrastructure bill, stating we won't get where we need to be as a country if we're

not also tending to the way we write rules, the way we make permitting decisions and all of the

day-to-day work of the Agency, both at EPA and at the state environmental agencies where so

many of the decisions are made.

Ms. McCabe noted that one of the obligations under President Biden's equity executive order is

to develop a plan for how we're going to do that work better and more meaningfully at the

Agency, and the agency has done an initial quite extensive effort to evaluate the barriers within

the Agency to think about the things they need to do in order to change the culture, change the

understanding of our legal authorities, change the procedures that we use, change the standard

operating procedures that we have, whatever we need to do, where do we need more science so

that questions of cumulative impact which, for example, has been identified as the number one

need for us to understand better about and how to fit that into our statutory authorities which

aren't necessarily written from a cumulative impact perspective, how to work through all those

things. That work is absolutely under way and the only reason I didn’t mention it in my opening

is because everything is kind of overshadowed with infrastructure right now. You should feel

free to remind us on a regular basis that we need to be doing that work as well.

Mr. Andy Kricun, NEJAC Member: Thank you Administrator McCabe, for all that EPA is

doing to push forward environmental justice. It’s such a welcome relief. Mr. Kricun stated his

carer has been in water infrastructure and he’s so pleased to see the upcoming investment in

infrastructure and recognized this to be a once in a generational opportunity. He asked Deputy

Administrator McCabe how to make sure that the funding gets to underserved environmental

justice communities because often environmental justice communities lack the resources, which

would really be transformational for them. He saw in Camden, New Jersey that they didn’t have

grant wirters but with a little bit of assistance, they get the funding that they need. Mr. Kricun

stated knowing that environmental justice funding is a top priority for EPA he would like to offer

some suggestions later about how to help.

Deputy Administrator Ms. McCabe indicated that she welcomed suggestions and, she noted

that there are some pots of money that are specifically earmarked to help build capacity, she

noted that EPA understands that this is going to be a big part of being successful; to not only put

out grant opportunities but to figure out how to support groups and communities that maybe

haven't been able to seek grants before and to be able to do it. She further noted that so much of

this funding is going to be issued through the state revolving fund programs, but that's one

reason there are pilot programs under EJ Justice40, so that EPA can really think early about

how to try to train those resources in a lawful way within our authorities into those communities

that really need it.

Mr. Kricun further asked about the elimination of lead service lines and he noted that a

generation of school children can be saved in the coming ten years and if lead awareness

initiatives implemented can also get out to encourage people to install filters in or run their

water for two minutes and try to protect them while we replace our lead service lines in parallel.

Deputy Administrator McCabe indicated that not one child should become lead poisoned right

now when we know what you need to do in order to not have that happen. EPA always has

supported those kinds of efforts, done them themselves, worked with states, and public health

agencies but there’s just always more that can be done.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member: stated she was inspired by reading the strategic

plan and wanted to bring attention to the one area that she has seen in travels across the United

States, which is lacking currently in the strategic plan is the initiative to really engage, inspire,

and move communities to understand climate change. Ms. Colon de Mejias stated that there’s a

lot of really great work in the strategic plan around strong demands and making infrastructure

improvements but it's so hard for people to be meaningfully engaged and come to the table and

have conversations when they're just not being informed in any way, shape, or form in public

arenas and public schools in their communities, which makes it very hard for them to understand

the importance of the infrastructure changes. This consequently makes it hard to engage them.

I’m moved by the plans effort to bring people to the table and help them deal with the systemic

issues that need to be addressed and are long-standing.

Deputy Administrator McCabe thinks many people would think that strategic planning is one

of the more boring things that you could do with your time but that’s not the approach that we

took in developing this strategic plan and that it is a true expression of what this administration

thinks needs to be done in this country and how EPA can help do it and adding equity is one of

our four pillars, which is the three pillars of follow the science, follow the law, and be

transparent. That has been EPA's pillars since Bill Ruckelshaus was the first administrator (or

after that), but EPA is now adding equity as a fourth pillar that is on equal footing with those and

adding environmental justice as its own goal. Our hearts and souls are in that strategic plan.

Educating people on climate change – I couldn’t agree more and when I talk to science experts

about climate change and say, ‘what's the most important thing that the people can do?’ The

answer is usually, talk to people, communicate with people and your neighbors, the people that

you meet in the grocery store on the soccer field or a church or whatever. Ms. McCabe also

stated that the EPA needs other voices out there. She’d love to hear other ideas on how to do

that. For example her home in Indianapolis; where the local paper is full of these huge fights at

schools about what's getting taught in the schools, and whether they're going to have vaccines

and all that sort of thing, some of these places are kind of hard to crack.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: says that the same thing had been noted in the 100-Day

Letter and very important in the youth climate justice report and this Council has been concerned

about. Ms. Orduño reminded that the workgroups are going to be looking more closely at some

of these initiatives that EPA is going to be doing with its budget and among those, with the water

infrastructure work group, that we've got our concerns about SRF funds and how they're used in

criteria, priorities, and the concerns that there’s a larger focus on having the strength of the fund

being more important than the use of the fund for EJ communities in particular. We’ll provide

more feedback on that later. Thank you for being here with us.

DRAFT FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN

The Draft FY2022-2026 EPA Strategic Plan is available in the public docket for this public

meeting at www.regulations.gov via under docket number EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0671.

THE DRAFT FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN PRESENTATION FOCUS ON

GOAL 2: TAKING DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND UPDATES ON JUSTICE40

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, invited Dr. Tejada to continue on with this conversation

about the strategic plan, and he would introduce the External Civil Rights Compliance Office

Director, Attorney Dorka.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ: Started by saying that advocates have been asking for a

long time to bring together the environmental justice program and the Civil Rights Compliance

Program at EPA and that didn't happen for a long time. One of the reasons why it didn't happen

for a long time was because there were a lot of issues to work out in the external Civil Rights

Compliance Office. He added that he gives a huge amount of credit to Lilian and her staff. The

CRCO staff have made incredible progress over the last five or six years at untying a lot of

historic issues that they found when they came into that program and starting to put that program

on a footing where we are now going to be coming together as an EJ program and external civil

rights program, while still staying distinct.

Dr. Tejada further said they are very distinct programs, very unique things that we both do

between environmental justice and external civil rights, but this administration and both OEJ

CRCO are committed to bringing our programs together in that mutually supportive and unified

way to back up one another and to drive forward on equity injustice between what we do.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, Civil Rights Compliance Office, EPA said she was thrilled to be here

because they are finally able to have a really open and honest conversation and dialog about what

we all need to do to move forward the integration of environmental justice and civil rights

throughout all EPA programs. Ms. Dorka added it is also thrilling to be able to finally work with

Dr. Tejada, with Mr. Charles Lee, and the rest of the OEJ staff to really push forward this

administration's agenda. Finally, they will be able to come together and really leverage what the

programs do for one another, fully understanding as this body has already acknowledged that

Title VI is probably the most powerful tool in the arsenal for environmental justice, and we do

not take that for granted. We have a lot of work to do and really need your help.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ: Thanked, Lillian. The presentation is for all the folks who

have joined us in the public and also for some of the NEJAC members through attendance at one

of our national engagement calls, which we have been having every other Tuesday for some

months now.

Dr. Tejada said that they have presented most of this information nationally before, but they

wanted to make sure that the NEJAC members had all this information to begin with because

want to have some really detailed feedback from the NEJAC members on the EPA Multi-Year

Strategic Plan. The formal public comment period for this plan ends on Friday.

Dr. Tejada indicated that they are going to talk a little bit at the end of this conversation about

trying to come back and have some more detailed opportunity for the NEJAC to weigh in when

it will still be not as ripe as it would be now, but still during a period where we will be making

decisions and finalizing this plan before it is handed up and hand out of the Agency later this

winter. Dr. Tejada wanted to acknowledge that they are just focusing this presentation on Goal 2

of the strategic plan, and as many of our NEJAC leadership has pointed out, there is a lot of EJ

and other parts of the strategic plan. Dr. Tejada further stated that we do not want to limit the

conversation today to anything that the body wants to talk about in terms of EJ, but he and Ms.

Dorka are only responsible directly for Goal 2. They will focus the presentation on Goal 2 but

are open to talk about any other parts of the strategic plan.

Dr. Tejada said that we now have a whole chapter that we have been able to craft for the Agency

that brings together environmental justice and the external civil rights shop, those things are

together are fundamental for the Agency and is a big step forward for the government. It doesn't

have the meaning yet of turning that into progress on the ground for communities, but this is a

step that had to be taken to get to that progress that communities are looking for. So, we are

going to go through just some of the basics here just to make sure folks understand, but they're

important words right now. Obviously, this is coming right from the administrator. His top

priority is environmental justice. We hope you very clearly see that reflected in what he is

signing the Agency up to focus on for the next four years. This is what goes into people's annual

performance agreements. This is what people get reviewed on and what they get their bonuses

on. This is what we asked Congress money for. The strategic plan dictates what the Agency will

do for the next four years. It is important and really significant that the administrator is centering

the mission of the Agency on Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, and he's showing that in

the strategic plan. So, there are several key elements of it. You'll see most of these going through

in our mission statement, our principles. There are cross-agency strategies. They're things that

every part of the Agency needs to be focused on. Then there are strategic goals, and we'll explain

in a minute the seven strategic goals we have for EPA in this strategic plan. Those strategic goals

are broken down kind of into strategic objectives. So, you kind of chunk those out into more

manageable pieces. The thing for me that is most important are the long-term performance goals

(LTPG) are the actual commitments. Those are the measurable things we are committing the

Agency to measure year over year and fully achieve by the end of the strategic plan, which is

September 30th, 2026. We work on the fiscal year cycle. The fiscal year ends on September

30th.

Dr Tejada explained that all of these big performance goals, part of the process, happens after we

finalize the strategic plan and then we break those long-term goals down into annual pieces so

that we make progress every year towards the ultimate achievement, the 100 percent

achievement of those goals by September 30th, 2026. Then within those long-term goals, there

are other annual goals that help us to achieve those long-term goals. So, two new things, and

again, Janet mentioned this. For a long time, EPA had three principles, follow the law, follow the

science, and be transparent. Administrator Regan added advanced justice and equity as a

principle of the Agency. Then also, traditionally, if you look down at those bottom boxes,

traditionally, EPA strategic plans would just have goals three through seven. And those line up

with our big national programs.

Goal 3 is OECA, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Goal 4 is the Office of

Air and Radiation. Goal 5 is the Office of Water. Goal 6 is the Office of Land and Emergency

Management. Goal 7 is the Office of Research Development. The big change in this is Goal 1.

Goal 1, climate in previous strategic plans was kind of tucked inside of the air strategic goal. It

now gets its own, recognizing that all the Agency needs to focus on climate change and Goal 2

where we have environmental justice and civil rights as a core goal for all of the Agency. So they

cut across, but we now have a goal just for them.

Dr. Tejada also wants to make sure folks understand that all the civil rights functions in the

Agency were all in one shop under Ms. Dorka and they took the external civil rights compliance

function, Title VI, and compliance with other civil rights requirements for recipients of EPA

funding. The other civil rights things that EPA still must do internally like compliance with the

Equal Employment Opportunity Act, our internal hiring and other things, are in another office.

That office is still called the Office of Civil Rights. We're not talking about that office here.

We're talking about the external Civil Rights Compliance Office.

We've talked about at NEJAC, Janet just mentioned all of you have been aware, there is a lot of

things happening Justice40, Executive Order 13985 on racial equity, the Inspector General's

Office, U.S. Commission on civil rights have issued dozens of reports and recommendations,

NEJAC has issued many more dozens of reports and recommendations. We are always engaged

with and receive feedback from communities. We're trying to tie a lot of that together in Goal 2.

So, even though these things are showing up in Goal 2 of the strategic plan, we have attempted to

tie together a lot of threads from this administration and from things that we've heard or have

been told to us over the years into the strategic plan. Some of the things to think about as we go

through this presentation today as you really think about the strategic plan, do you think the

goals we have are the best way to track our progress? Do you think the goals we make are going

to be transparent and offer accountability to all of EPA? Is it going to help hold us accountable

for doing the hard work of really advancing justice and rights across our practices? Do you see a

connection between the things your organizations or your communities are concerned about?

And how we could make progress on those in the commitments we're making? Do you think

there are other things, other actions we need to take to address your concerns within the goals or

with other goals, the most important thing is by the end of the strategic plan, we want the Agency

to have very clear commitments to the change the Agency is focused on making things happen

on the ground and to provide the public ways to hold us accountable even beyond the strategic

plan.

Dr. Tejada said that some examples of clear commitments that you think would be compelling

for your communities for those that you work with and represent, real commitments to change on

the ground that we could hold the Agency accountable to moving the needle year over year. So,

here's the overview for Goal 2, take decisive action to advance EJ and civil rights. There are

three objectives in it, objective 2.1 is looking outside of EPA. It's looking at states. It's looking at

tribes. It's looking at our support for communities. It's what are we going to do on EJ outside of

the four walls of EPA. Objective 2.2 then looks inside the four walls of EPA. What do we do

with our permits, with our rules, with our decisions, with how we engage communities? What do

we do inside of EPA? And importantly, both those two, 2.1 and 2.2, we're making commitments

for both EJ and external civil rights compliance in both of those. Because we want to make sure

that we are advancing both together mutually beneficial, mutually supporting both of these things

because they are so interrelated. Objective 2.3 is specific to the external Civil Rights Compliance

Office because they've got a lot of things. They have a lot of ground that they want to make up a

lot of things that they want to achieve specific to evolving and maturing the external Civil Rights

Compliance program throughout all of EPA. So, they have their own objective just to make sure

that programs specifically drive forward through the strategic plan. 2.1, has a few real priorities

here, building the capacity of communities for things like climate resilience for the benefits

received by overburdened underserved communities. Again, kind of in line with the executive

orders that the president signed. Things like Justice40. So, really, what do we do to support

communities directly. Then, what do we do to support our other partners, other federal agencies,

states, and local governments to help their efforts to achieve environmental justice and civil

rights advances through their program implementation?

Then integrating EJ principles into how we actually protect human health and the environment in

tribal areas and indigenous areas. So, speaking specifically about that relationship, our

relationship with the tribes, but also our responsibility to still ensure that everyone in the United

States has their health and environments fully protected.

So, these are the actual long-term performance goals. So, these are the commitments. These are

the things that we are going to measure. Again, it says by September 30th, 2026. That's

boilerplate. That's pro forma. They're all going to say that. It doesn’t mean we do nothing until

August of 2026 and figure it out. These will all get broken down so that we make annual

progress towards achieving 100 percent of what we sign ourselves up for. You will also

sometimes see Xs in here. We haven't put clear numbers in some of these areas because we really

wanted to hear from communities, from our partners at the state, tribal, local level from other

stakeholders. What do you think a significant and ambitious but reasonable goal should be for a

number or for a percentage to achieve? So when you see those Xs, it doesn't mean we don't

know.

The first one is the fact that we want everyone in the Agency, if an EPA program has some sort

of responsibility or function where they seek feedback from communities to make a decision or

to implement their programs, that program should offer capacity-building resources to

communities to understand what in the world we're doing, to understand our programs, to

understand the statutes, to understand the opportunity. It's saying everyone in the Agency that

engages, you can't just open the door and expect people to walk through. You got to draw the

map. You've got to make sure they got a car. You got to make sure they can find you and show

up and tell you what we need. The second one is about our written agreements with states and

with tribes. When we delegate our authorities, there's a range of different ways that we actually

write down and agree to, here's our delegated authority. You're going to run the Clean Air Act.

You're going to run the Resource Conservation Recovery Act.

We want to make sure that when we write these agreements and transfer our authority to other

levels of government that they are being responsive to environmental justice but also that more

importantly that they're addressing disproportionate impacts and you'll see disproportionate

impacts in here a couple of times. To us at EPA, the disproportionate impact is the bigger term.

It was one of the critical terms in Executive Order 12898. Some communities are

disproportionately impacted. It includes cumulative impacts. The cumulative impacts are maybe

the biggest part of disproportionality, but there are other communities that are still

disproportionately impacted maybe by just a single source, and there are still communities with

an EJ concern. So, disproportionality to us is the more inclusive term to make sure that the actual

thing we care about is that communities are overburdened and are vulnerable, but that's what is

showing up in our agreements with states. The third goal here is looking at, in some tribal areas,

we have delegated our authority to the tribe and the tribe is responsible for protecting the health

and environment of anybody living in their tribal lands.

For the majority of tribes and tribal lands across the United States, EPA is still holding the

responsibility for ensuring that the health and environments of those folks are protected. So, this

is important that not only are we saying that we're going to set a goal for ourselves of making

sure we're protecting the health and environment of folks living on tribal land but that we're

going to consider doing so part of our environmental justice mission. Because those folks who

live on tribal lands, they're typically vulnerable. They are typically overburdened. So, protecting

their environments, protecting their health is part of environmental justice.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, EPA: says that number 4 reflects commitments that we've also made in

response to the Inspector General report that came out in 2020 about the lack of full

implementation of Title VI. And so, there are some very basic non-discrimination program

requirements that EPA's non-discrimination regulation requires of every recipient of federal

assistance from EPA. We normally call these the non-discrimination program.

Those are those requirements that apply to recipients for ensuring that they have notice of non-

discrimination, ensuring that they have a non-discrimination coordinator, ensuring that they have

grievance procedures for the purpose of receiving and resolving, investigating civil rights

grievances themselves. They also cover things like ensuring meaningful access for persons with

limited English proficiency to the recipients of all of their programs and activities as well for

persons with disabilities, that their public participation programs are also consistent with the

federal civil rights laws.

So, all of those things that we call the federal non-discrimination program requirements is what

we're talking about when we refer to the foundational civil rights programs in place. We want to

make sure that the intent of Title VI is really being carried out at its most basic requirements.

That is that the federal money does not go to recipients who are discriminating, especially as we

carry out our pre-award reviews because there is a pre-award review process that does include

some civil rights requirements. We want to make sure we are looking at that program.

We're revamping and revising that program to ensure that all recipients, all applicants for federal

money from EPA have in place these very basic and fundamental programs. We have annual

goals that will get us to the 2026 goal, which is that all state recipients will have these programs

in place. Some states have more than one program. We have jurisdictions sometimes over not

only state departments of environment, but also over state Departments of Agriculture and other

types of state agencies.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ: that they have some actions to make sure that folks know

we're not just waiting for things to take off. They have some actions that they have lined up to

get started on this year to start making progress on this. So, things like providing more capacity-

building grants and technical assistance directly to communities. That's been something a lot of

folks, obviously, are talking about in this time with all these resources.

They are committed to getting more grants and technical assistance out to communities. Even if

it weren't in this time of trillion-dollar numbers being thrown around, this is something that they

want and understand must happen. Developing a lot of other resources, immediately to make

sure that communities have the capacity, have the information, have the opportunity to

meaningfully engage with the Agency including launching a nationwide approach of building

capacity, building centers across the United States. Again, this is an idea that is out there.

A lot of EJ leaders and communities are talking about this. They have been in contact with a lot

of those folks talking about this and wanting these things. Budgets permitting, they are

committed to building these sorts of capacity building centers, kind of a hub-spoke approach to

capacity provision across the United States. They also want to bring folks into the Agency. It's

been a long time since they have had broad, paid opportunities for young folks to come into the

Agency. It's important to develop our next class of leadership and staff inside of the Agency.

It's also important for those young folks who maybe never come to work for us permanently to

go back to their communities with insight and understanding of how government works

including how EPA works. So getting those paid internships or fellowships, or whatever they

are stood up in an aggressive way is another thing we're committed to doing. Also, really

institutionalizing this approach of communities with EJ concerns have multiple challenges that

are interrelated. Nobody from EPA should be showing up to a community with EJ concerns only

focused on the one little thing that they want to do there.

They have got to approach, all of us, communities with EJ concerns, understanding that whatever

the community brings to us, it's our responsibility even if it's not our job. It's still our

responsibility to go back to EPA, to go back to other federal agencies, to go back to states or

local governments saying, I was out here to fix the water, but they've got some paint issues.

What can we do about it? Not just to go back home thinking, well, I did their water thing. They

should be happy.

They are committed to making progress immediately. We have several things here now looking

inside of EPA about our policies, our decision-making, our ability, our capacity inside of the

Agency to support this work. On to the next slide are the actual commitments we have in

objective 2.2 inside of the Agency. Dr. Tejada said they started to make this commitment in the

EJ 2020 action agenda from several years ago that was never formally implemented, that the

Agency has got to start making commitments to how they are moving the needle on the ground.

What are the very clear and meaningful improvements that our efforts are achieving for

communities with EJ concerns? This is just saying that by 2026, they will have identified 10 of

these very clear measures. In some instances, the policies don't support it but maybe contradict

our ability to do it. They have a lot of work to do, but by the end of the strategic plan, we want

the Agency to clearly make compelling commitments of change on the ground that they are

accountable to. The second one, looking at the significant actions with the EJ complications

across the Agency, permits, rules, records of decisions for cleanup, resource allocation, the big

decisions that they make have got to clearly demonstrate how decisions are responsive to

concerns, the concerns that adhere to meaningful engagement and actually show the work, why

the decision changed and how they have heard from this community.

They have got to start showing that our decisions address disproportionality. It's about unlocking

cumulative impact and what is happening on the ground, with our permits, our rules, our big

decisions have got to start being responsive to that. Really holding ourselves accountable to that.

The next one, again, going back to that community-driven approach, that any part of the Agency

that engages with the community that shows up and does what we call community work, but

they're doing that in a community-driven way. It has to be collaborative with other partners and

ensure anything that they do in a community is supporting the vision of that community for what

they want to see happen. They are going to continue to show up with answers and not worrying

if they conflict with the community's answers. Our answers must be the community's answers.

They must get those answers from the community, and they have got to support them in what

they want to see happen in their community. This is where we want some feedback. Do you all

think it's 50 percent? Do you all think it's 100 percent? Do you all think it's something in

between? We need to hear from folks about where to set these percentage goals for us. Then

again, Lillian, on number four.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, EPA: says this is where they articulate as an agency that civil rights

vigilance is an EPA-wide responsibility. It's an EPA-wide responsibility. They are asking all

regional and program offices to identify and implement areas of opportunity to achieve civil

rights compliance, but in their planning, in their guidance that they issue and policy directives,

monitoring and review activities, such as permitting.

One of the very prominent commitments that they have made in our response to the Inspector

General's Office is, that they in 2022 are going to issue guidance to our recipients about what

does it mean to have a disparate adverse impact on the basis of race, color, national origin and

including cumulative impacts. They will be strengthening the guidance that they already have out

there on the civil rights analysis to include clearer and stronger guidance for recipients on what it

means to do that before making these critical decisions like permitting. Questions like, what do

you need to consider from a civil rights perspective with respect to adverse disparate impacts that

your decisions may have on certain communities on the basis of race, color, and national origin?

What they are doing through goal 4 is that they are asking EPA-wide to focus on efforts to

identify all of those opportunities to raise the importance of the civil rights analysis and

specifically where these critical decision points could possibly have an adverse disparate impact

on the basis of race, color, national origin, and disability.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, said that some of the actions that they have come up with is looking at the

strategies and the data, and the practices for cumulative impacts. This is one of the top priorities

of the Agency. It's one of the top priorities in the United States. A lot of states, a lot of other

levels of government are all looking at cumulative impact.

This is something they are focused on at the very beginning of all this, while they are still

figuring out the long-term strategic plan, they are doing serious work inside of the Agency trying

to figure out, how can we really wrap our arms around cumulative impacts in a way that we can

start to apply to things like rules, to things like permits? Looking at the EJSCREEN tool and

coming up with cumulative scores for it. EJSCREEN has never done that. They have never had

the request and the support to do that. They have pulled together through a contract, a group of

academic experts on EJ from across the United States to help us think through it. What is the

index? How can we do a different cumulative index in the EJSCREEN? Looking at those

decisions that EPA is making that already account for cumulative impacts. There are a few

already out there so they want to start lifting those up so other parts of EPA and other parts of the

environmental regulatory endeavor in the United States can see those examples.

Having a training program across all of EPA to make sure everyone in the Agency understands

equity, EJ, and civil rights and what it means for them and doing in a way that is public. This

allows the public to see how EPA trains at EPA. This training will be made available to state and

local government. We want to do it in a public way. Looking at the actual process, and the action

and development process. This is the actual step by step of how they should make big regulatory

decisions like rules. EPA did some work on this in Plan EJ 2014. They have got to go way

beyond EPA Plan EJ 2014, updating that development process, the actual nuts and bolts, of

making our decisions, to include the civil rights compliance, our language assistance, our

disability assistance programs, making sure right they are putting in place the support, the

contracts, the vehicles, whatever is needed to make sure everything EPA does is completely

accessible on a basis of language needs or on a basis of other disabilities.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, extended an invite to all to look at the response to the Office of Inspector

General (OIG), which they issued on September 20th of this year, because it has much more

specific actions that we're taking in response to OIG's audit that they conducted. Basically, 2.3

focuses on the strengthening the civil rights program. This is a commitment that Administrator

Regan made to Congress, realizing that in the past, they have not fully implemented the authority

of Title VI. That they have not been fully implementing disparate impact analysis and

considering cumulative impacts in our analysis. This has been made clear based on public

commitments for a need to strengthen the civil rights program, so some long-term performance

goals have been created on a number of them, including, for example, pivoting from a mainly

reactive program that they investigate and resolve complaints, to a more proactive program,

including initiation of affirmative compliance reviews and specifically with respect to and in

communities that are environmentally overburdened. They are developing and implementing

clear and strong civil rights policy guidance and the corresponding technical assistance deliveries

to increase recipients' understanding and compliance with the federal civil rights laws. This

includes adverse disparate impacts, cumulative impacts, all within the permitting context. You

won't see a long-term performance goal on there, but that's why I wanted to highlight it for you

because we have made a separate commitment to the Office of Inspector General to issue that

guidance. The first set of guidance they are going to issue, by the end of this fiscal quarter, by the

end of December is guidance carrying those fundamental non-discrimination program

requirements that all recipients need to have in place. They are going to then move to strengthen

the pre-award review process, working on other guidance to strengthen and really clarify the

responsibilities that recipients have to look at disparate adverse impacts and how to remedy

those.

Ms. Dorka says they are focusing on the timely ineffective investigation and resolution of

complaints, of complaint investigation, and ensuring that they are utilizing the full extent of the

regulatory authorities that they have at their disposal to ensure that they are not just addressing

disparate treatment, but that they are addressing when appropriate resolution investigation and

resolution of adverse disparate impacts effects, adverse effects on individuals on the basis of

race, color, and national origin and that includes, of course, cumulative impacts. They are trying

and making efforts to enhance communication and engagement with environmentally

overburdened and disadvantaged communities.

We have committed to a certain number of stakeholder engagements by year, leading up to the

2026 long-term performance goal. EPA started and had a listening session on the 27th of October

where they just wanted to make themselves available and listen to those who wanted to comment

both orally and in writing about what external stakeholders thinks the EPA needs to be doing

within the office, within the external civil rights office to strengthen and to set priorities. EPA is

trying to increase the transparency in the program because that is one of the fundamental

commitments that EPA has for all of its programs. What EPA is trying to do is to affirmatively

provide information to the public on our complaints, on our resolutions. They are trying to post

additional documents online that traditionally were not accessible, other than through the

Freedom of Information Act requests.

Finally, they are working closely with other federal partners and other federal agencies, with

DOJ to strengthen the inner agency collaboration and coordination across the federal government

to enforce the federal civil rights laws knowing they can really assist each other, the agencies can

in leveraging the impact, particularly on overburdened communities, and some real measures

through the strategic plan to ensure that they think of civil rights as an organization-wide, an

agency-wide endeavor. It's everyone's responsibility to see it forward and to make sure that they

are walking the talk, in fact, providing meaningful access to persons with limited English

proficiency, to persons with disabilities, to all of our EPA programs, as they are requiring

through the federal civil rights laws, our recipients to do as well, trying to ensure the

accountability of our programs can truly affect the conditions and the environmental injustice

that exists in many of our communities.

NEJAC RESPONSE TO FY 2022-2026 EPA STRATEGIC PLAN PRESENTATION

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Thanked Dr. Tejada and Ms. Dorka, saying that the NEJAC

Steering Committee has had a chance to provide feedback a couple of times, but Ms. Orduño

now wants to spend at least the next 25 minutes for the rest of the NEJAC to offer some

feedback, noting from the beginning that we recognize this is not enough time. There's going to

be a request for a continuation of the review of the strategic plan when NEJAC gets to the

business meeting portion of this public meeting. Ms. Orduño asked if anyone was interested to

offer any comments or questions, to please raise your hand there, in the box.

Ms. Orduño thanked Ms. Dorka for this visionary work and stated that she was one of these

people who really doesn't work so well from goals and is interested more in objectives and

outcomes. How do you do this? There have been a lot of criticisms over the past to your office

that incremental changes don't get enough of really developing a civil rights program. So, can

you help us understand what is different this time around? She stated that when she looked at the

long-term performance goals and objective 2.3, that by 2026, EPA will initiate 15 civil rights

post-awards compliance reviews; the next bullet, 100 audits annually; the next bullet, 25

information-sharing sessions over five years. The first one is only 3 per year; the second, 20 a

year; the third, 5 a year averaged out. She is trying to get a sense of what is fundamentally

different. What is this opportunity now with this administration and the funding that will make it

different? She indicated that she is not understanding, what they are proposing in the long-term

performance goals.

Ms. Dorka explained what is changing dramatically, also as responded to in the 100 Day Letter,

is the elimination of the backlog of cases, which is fundamentally unfair, justice delayed is

justice denied. They are on track to efficiently and effectively in a timely manner address

complaint. Starting from that, they have a responsibility to initiate their own activities in a

compliance review. Ms. Dorka stated that this is one real difference between a compliance

review and a complaint investigation, that the Agency is initiating. It may not seem like a lot, but

quite frankly, they have never done them before, and they have never done them effectively and

substantively. So, it's huge progress in that area, and they are talking about procedural matters,

but about initiating compliance reviews on some of these very substantive issues about adverse

disparate impacts that affect overburdened communities. So, when you're talking about the

number of affirmative compliance reviews, for example, it's above and beyond all the complaint

investigations and resolutions that EPA is doing on the non-discretionary responsibility that they

have to respond to complaints, and they are getting an increasing number of complaints. They

have been habitually underfunded and understaffed. EPA has a critical need, if this

administration's budget goes forward then this will be addressed, and they will be receiving an

influx of staff. It is about moving the program forward through affirmative compliance reviews,

and the guidance that we need to issue proactively, and it won't say that in the strategic plan

long-term commitments because that's not something that's as easily measurable. But the

guidance that we have committed to issue in 2022 is groundbreaking.

For the first time, this Agency is going to be talking about and clarifying for recipients what it

means when the civil rights regulations, our EPA regulations say that you may not know,

through methods of administration subject persons to revocation on the basis of race, color,

national origin that have the effect. You may not take actions or methods of administrations that

have the effect of subjecting persons to discrimination. Or significantly impair their opportunities

to benefit from the program or activity that's being funded and the program or activity that's

being funded, we're talking about the protection of human health and the environment.

Without intent, our recipients, the federal financial assistance, taking actions that subject person

to discrimination, that have discriminatory effects or that have the effect of substantially

impairing the benefit of the protection of human health and the environment for all persons.

EPA has never issued guidance that has been that strong. They have come close. We have some

guidance that was issued under the Obama administration in 2017 that clarified what the civil

rights analysis is with respect to different treatment and disparate impact, what they are and how

do you apply them, they need to make it very clear, as a very fundamental point. EPA needs to

make it very clear that compliance with the environmental laws does not necessarily mean

compliance with the civil rights laws, and that is a critical point. EPA is talking to states. They

have been talking to ECOS (Environmental Council of the States). They are going to be talking

to them increasingly and with all of our external stakeholders but having these very critical

conversations with the states about what that means when the substantive environmental laws do

not require you to go beyond, and it doesn't mean that they prohibit you from doing so either.

Where there is that discretion, you may need to go beyond what the environmental laws requires

to fulfill the civil rights responsibilities or to remedy some civil rights violations that have been

created either through the effect of your actions or the intent of your actions.

Ms. Dorka asked if there's something that's not in there that EPA needs to do to capture through

these long-term performance goals, they absolutely need to hear back because on top of

everything else, they have this really unprecedented opportunity to work so closely with our EJ

partners in the regions and in headquarters to integrate when they're out doing environmental

justice engagement, they will be able to identify whether there are civil rights issues that need to

be addressed, and vice versa, bringing them into our engagement when they are trying to address

civil rights issues as well.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Thanked Ms. Dorka and acknowledged that that helped in

the answering of her questions. She recognized they have got 20 minutes at best for this next set

of questions and responses and seven folks have their hands up. She asked the members to do

two people at a time just to get questions out and then see how to go about with the responses.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member, said that she had two questions: one for Mr. Tejada and

one for Ms. Dorka. The question for Mr. Tejada is what it does for the next four years and will

that be the basis for the staff annual reviews. She thought this a critical point, the staff should be

held accountable for achieving goals, and that these goals are tied to their salaries and bonuses.

Can he speak a little bit more about what that mechanism is? Because this is the first-time

getting confirmation that that's true.

She asked Ms. Lillian Dorka if she can speak a little bit in the granular about the National

Environmental Protection Act, and, from a NEPA lens, how can she envision that Title VI can be

brought in and rolled out.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member, stated that she had a few points to make. She said she analyzed

the national action plans for the Central Inclusion of Women and Girls, some of this is coming

from that. Point number one. Matt talked about the annual reviews. She said she searched for

annual review and yearly review in the document, and she didn't see anything about that. She

stated that that's important to see that that's in there. Two, she said she didn't see a timeline. So,

if they're going to do annual reviews, when does that start? Second major point, monitoring. The

monitoring is mentioned 43 times in the document, and it didn't the clear involvement of civil

society and being able to do that monitoring. She found on one page there was something about

how the public can assist in the monitoring. She thinks that's very important as part of that plan

that goes on and how that's going to be and whether NEJAC has a part in that. Her third point

was that the regional offices were mentioned six times. "Region" is mentioned 37 times. This is

coming from these analyzing the national action plans. She really urged them to have a section

that talks about EPA offices coordinating with regions, coordinating with programs, along with

mentioning improvements and things that work well. Her fourth point was that NEJAC is only

mentioned three times. She thought NEJAC should be part of that monitoring and some other

things and she would like to see that strengthened. Her fifth point was that she found when

people write these plans – she works on national action plans based on a security council

resolution and ten supporting resolutions – nobody can ever find what they’re supposed to do

because things are written in different places. So, what she'd like to see in the document is that

somebody is going to go through and say this is what programs should do, and this is what

regional offices should do, or any part of the EPA is supposed to do. One of the things she'd like

to see in there is that they write down that the regional and the program will always have a

representative to attend part of the NEJAC meetings. The part she's thinking about are the public

testimony or the business discussion of NEJAC.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, responded to the questions and points made. Stating that

every year, everybody in EPA, political staff, senior executives, manager staff, we must write

down a very detailed list of, here's what we're going to do this year. Here's what we're going to

hold ourselves accountable for. That is somewhat structured by the Agency, but it absolutely

flows from the strategic plan. Everything they say they're going to do has to hook into a very

clear way into what they did in the strategic plan. They can even go beyond that and can dictate,

and they must have something on this part of the strategic plan. He stated that they don't have

that commitment in the strategic plan. They might've written that commitment and somebody

took it out, but he would like to have everybody in the Agency have at least one thing that hooks

into EJ and the strategic plan. He explained that there is a whole process and timeline around

those annual reviews. NEJAC's only seeing the top of the bureaucratic iceberg. What is already

starting to happen is they're taking this strategic plan, and they break it down into annual national

program guidance that says, you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do that. He

stated that there is another bureaucratic process that follows this one, but this sets the frame. This

sets the goals. Then just under citizen science, that was the number one thing as they were

crafting this. They thought about putting it in there in a very clear way, and folks were like, we

have so much in here. Knowing that they've spotted it as well, maybe they need to go back and

do something clear on citizen science here.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, EPA, addressed the question about NEPA and civil rights, and she thought

that is a critical question. As with everything else, they're looking at the NEPA program itself

and where EPA has a significant responsibility. With respect to NEPA, they want to make sure

that those decisions as well are taking into consideration civil rights requirements and civil rights

considerations of disparate impact. She stated that they have been working very closely with

DOJ, and specifically the civil rights section of DOJ, these are critical convenings with federal

agencies. What about NEPA and Title VI and how do we clarify that part of the review? It's not

just an environmental impact analysis that includes considerations of Title VI. They're trying to

make recommendations to DOJ about what would be helpful from a federal government-wide

perspective, what would be helpful to the agencies for DOJ to issue to clarify some of those big

points. She mentioned that with respect to ensuring environmental justice, compliance with the

environmental laws is not compliance; it does not equate compliance with Title VI. They're

looking to make that clear from an EPA perspective to our recipients, but they are very strongly

recommending that DOJ make that very clear federal government-wide and all recipients of all

federal aid perspectives.

Ms. Karen Sprayberry, NEJAC Member, stated that thinking about the DOJ, one of the things

that your office needs to look at with DOJ is restitution towards communities. They look at

restitution towards everybody else, but sometimes they forget about communities, and then the

communities offer advice about what they think would be fair restitution but seems they don’t

get want they want out of it. She said she'd like to see that strengthened. She added that with

your long-term performance goals, those goals all look like they were all external goals for

outside the Agency, but they need to add one that's internal to the Agency and it needs to be

something like how many people are trained on environmental justice or collaborative problem-

solving or the skills that they need internally that these goals are getting met. She stated to

change the culture within, they're going to have to bring their champions together and kind of

support them and give them what they need to go against upper management, but just be the

advocate or the champion for others within their program areas. Those will be people not in the

office of OEJ, but within other program areas that would champion a discussion. She suggested

that she probably needs more funding and more staff to meet all these goals that are going to try

to be achieved. She continued with bringing to what states' needs are. As they look more towards

states, they're going to also need additional training, but also funding to support them as they

look towards states for additional help.

Ms. Felicia Beltran, NEJAC Member, said that she really appreciates that there is a line here in

the strategic goals to have EPA collaborate with other federal modes or federal agencies. From a

state perspective, she knows when they review for environmental justice or even for Title VI

between the federal agencies, they're not talking the same language. There are different

definitions. She added that there's a different analysis that they do to measure for disparate

impacts or even cumulative impact, and she felt like they're not talking the same language;

therefore, they're never going to really get the heart of trying to ensure environmental justice and

even compliance with Title VI. She appreciated that being considered and written down as a

strategic goal. If everyone could just all talk the same language, they can make some moves with

regards to Title VI and environmental justice.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, said that, on the restitution piece, they already have some

commitments out there from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance on the way

that the supplemental environmental project policy is and from the federal government. He added

that they'll see if the administration overall, including DOJ, goes back to the SEP policy, but

their criminal office, especially over in the enforcement office, is very focused on victims'

benefits. They've been helping them for a number of years now to set up a more robust victims'

benefits program through the enforcement office. They had a couple different things in here

about training, about just getting every member of EPA staff, regardless of what you do, out into

a community over a certain amount of time. There's nothing like engaging directly with the

impacted community to really make it real and change behavior. That's not in here right now.

That's something that they can go back and push to see if they can get something about really

getting at that culture change, that behavior change in the strategic plan.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, EPA, said they have made commitments to the Office of Inspector General.

They will see that they've committed to internal training to ensure that the civil rights, not just

knowledge of the civil rights obligations, but knowledge of the way that they're supposed to all

be contributing to civil rights enforcement. She added that they've made commitments for

training. They've already started embarking on some of those trainings. They are making a much

bigger effort to also include the environmental justice perspective into those trainings.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, stated that, when they write those commitments about

defining things, sometimes they kind of pucker up because they're like, we're going to admit we

don't have these things defined in 2021? So, they're owning up to that and saying, well, these are

some fundamental things that we still need to do for everyone across EPA, and hopefully, there

are some other efforts across the entire government to do the same.

Ms. Lillian Dorka, EPA, agreed that the federal government needs to get it together in terms of

sending a unified message to states. They need action and so much from the states and the last

thing they want to do is add to the pressures and the resource strain and have ten million different

requests going in different directions and that is the commitment that DOJ has made specifically

the federal coordination compliance section of DOJ has very regular meetings with all of the

agencies that are implementing and taking environmental justice measures as a committee, the

Environmental Justice Committee. She added that they've been very effective in bringing them

together, and they have been, engaging as never before. Their office has three new cases where

they are coordinating with different federal agencies where complaints have been filed with

multiple agencies, and they are coordinating the resolution of those complaints.

Mr. Charles Bryson, NEJAC Member, responded to the point that Ms. Dorka had made. In the

document, it talks about the foundational civil rights as it relates to states. He wasn't sure what

that meant. His concern was that there were going to be states where it's going to be very

difficult for them to address civil rights issues due to the political climate, and how will that

affect the cities and rural communities as a recipient of federal funds? His second part was

regarding the document and the EJ40 project. Forty percent of overall benefits from certain

federal investments to underserved communities, but the grant process says that they must have

at least a 25 percent match. The problem with that is, if you are a local entity and you don't have

the 25 percent match, but you're doing the work or you're capable of doing the work, what's

going to be the relationship between EPA and those local community organizations that don't

have the 25 percent match, but can show they can do the work?

[BREAK]

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, stated that she hopes that the meeting can stay on schedule.

She notified everyone that they may go over time because there are many public speakers. She

flagged that the quorum needs to be maintained. She also reminded everyone that conversations

happening in the chat will not be a part of the public record. Nothing can be discussed in the chat

box unless it’s simply for logistical purposes. She called on Ms. Dorka to respond to what Mr.

Bryson raised before the break.

Ms. Lilian Dorka, EPA, clarified Mr. Bryson's question about, what does EPA mean by

foundational civil rights requirements and what the EPA does concerning states, where the

climate does not necessarily support civil rights enforcement? Foundational civil rights

requirements are that, within the regulations, it’s required that all applications for and recipients

of financial assistance from EPA have in place certain fundamental civil rights programs and

they are noticing a very prominent way that they will not discriminate based on race, color,

national origin, disability, sex, and age. That they will, within that notice, make sure that that

notice is accessible to persons with limited English proficiency, persons with disabilities. The

regulation very specifically also requires that programs or recipients and applicants for EPA

money who have 15 or more employees are required to have what’s called a non-discrimination

coordinator in place and that is the person that would coordinate the receipt of any civil rights

complaints on Title VI and others should come to their attention, and that they have in place

what’s called civil rights grievance procedures that members of the public can use to file with

those agencies’ civil rights complaints and civil rights concerns. They need to have in place a

program, a process, a procedure to ensure that they are providing meaningful access to persons

with limited English proficiency concerning public participation. She continued, access to vital

documents that the Agency has in place, including vital processes like the environmental

complaint processes, and types of vital programs are also accessible to persons with disabilities.

And finally, it also requires that the public participation program that they run be consistent with

the federal civil rights laws. They have to keep in mind the fact that they can’t offer different

types of public participation depending on the race, color, or national origin, or English

proficiency, or disability, or nature of the communities that they’re addressing and that they

proactively address those needs before public engagement and public participation. That is what

is normally called the non-discrimination program. It is in the regulations, and they have been

interpreting it consistently with this day and age. The regulations say, to be prominently posted,

they must include it in all their publications. Well, that’s the ‘80s. By today’s standards, they

include their homepage. The homepage of their website is a prominent publication. The Agency

has determined that what they need to do is tighten the process that they have in place to review

applicants for assistance from EPA.

They have a process in place that uses this thing that they call a form 4700-4, and it is a

requirement that it goes out to all applicants for EPA money, and they must fill it out

completely. This form asks questions about the non-discrimination program that they have in

place whether they have notice of non-discrimination, whether they have grievance procedures,

a coordinator, a plan for LEP and disability access. And that form needs to be completed fully

and signed. The enforcement of that and the Agency's review of the form hasn’t always been

consistent and clear. So, if Mr. Bryson wants more information and specific clarity on this, she

invited him to review their September 20th response to the OIG because they do detail it. By the

end of this fiscal year, they're going to issue what they are calling a "dear colleague letter and

guidance" to their colleagues who receive federal financial assistance, and they are going to

apply regarding our pre-award review process. The Agency is going to be very clear about what

the regulations require concerning the non-discrimination program. Once they issue that at the

end of this calendar year, then that will kick off this six-month period in which they are going to

conduct extensive training for their staff, meaning all of our EPA staff, because many of these

applications for federal money are processed through the Grants and Debarment Offices in the

regional offices. They don’t come directly to headquarters, and so they have folks in ten regional

offices who assist them with that process of reviewing those forms to determine whether they are

fully completed and the applicant for EPA money has responded to all of those questions. So,

after that six-month period, they're retraining everyone. Everyone's been put on notice about the

dear colleague letter and guidance.

If instead of giving information about the grievance procedures that they have in place for

external civil rights compliance, the group gives us a reference to EEO process. The Agency

would then get back to the other entities that are filing these forms, and the Agency would

provide input to them. They would be told, by writing or email, that they haven’t completed the

form correctly, and they would have then a six-month period to come into compliance. If they

don’t, then the Agency will, of course, not award the federal financial assistance. The Agency is

working out all the details of that guidance. They’re working pretty closely with the Office of

Grants and Debarment to put in place the full process and how they will handle that coordination

and that give and take with states and other entities out there of what they need in place.

Dr. Millicent Piazza, NEJAC member, stated that she is glad to have heard from both Director

Dorka and Director Tejada about the strategic plan because what she heard today were key

pieces that she did not see reflected in the strategic plan that she had a lot of concern about. The

pieces that were brought up today were the more robust guidance around states. She wanted to

affirm what other NEJAC members have said about the clarity around internal EJ training and

Title VI accountability internally at the EPA. That’s not only important to see that EPA’s doing

that, but it’s a strong signal and a unified federal message to recipients like the states when that

is reflected in the Agency.

While the Agency, of course, understands the strained capacity and resources there is such

inconsistency in oversight by several federal authorities. The different things that are supposed

to be reporting on is unclear. The strategic plan needs more elevation or direct content on the

role of recipients for state agency. She added that there are gaps in understanding, and she has

convened a regional team for 15 years and she gets the need for centering community and

vigorous enforcement in those compliance reviews, but there are gaps in understanding and a

lack of clarity about what compliance even looks like. Some people are so invested in this work

and want to do good and just really don’t know how to do it such as in the strategic plan basic

civil rights elements. The procedure checklist, how is that going to lead to the promised results

of more equitable siting and permitting decisions and better health outcomes from impacted

communities? She didn’t see that connection with posting of signs and edicts, and other things

that are super fundamental, she didn’t see the connection with the very real disparate outcomes.

Dr. Piazza wrapped up with a hope for a clearer commitment on a plan that partners with

recipient agencies on training and support, on filling out the 4700 form, on the procedural

checklist, and more importantly, civil rights analyses.

Mr. Andy Kricun, NEJAC Member, stated EPA could help the states with some fundamental

institutional problems that the states may have in enforcing some regulations concerning

environmental justice. He talked about Camden, NJ and the lack of odor control violations from

a wastewater treatment plant because the state didn't have enough time to verify the odor with

limited staff time. Could the EPA assist in trying to come up solutions to better protect EJ

communities by working with the states where there could be some solutions of best practices

for other states to use that might solve their issues. Could other states that may have already

filled that gap with their own products share that knowledge, best practices – basically a gap

analysis for the states where there’s missing EJ regulations? Could EPA be a convener/fulfiller

that helps to close those EJ regulatory gaps? Regarding the 25% local match and what Mr.

Bryson said earlier, that’s a big problem. Let’s say an EJ community gets a 75 percent grant,

could they take an SRF loan out for the other 25 percent? It’s a favorable set of circumstances

than having cash on hand or a typical bank loan. It’s 20 or 30 years spread out, and it could be

the thing that plugs that resource gap for EJ communities.

Dr. Jill Harrison, NEJAC Member, stated that one of the key findings from her research in the

past ten years, on environmental justice reform efforts is resistance internally by staff to do

environmental justice reforms. They don’t see it; some staff members don’t see it as consistent

with their responsibilities as good public servants and good environmental stewards. She

wanted to emphasize the value of bringing in some of that language that apparently got cut out

of the strategic plan around accountability for staff in terms of their annual performance reviews

but also accountability for offices. All elevation is crucial, but that needs to be followed up both

with the training of staff, accountability of staff, and working some of these changes into

specific decision-making processes, especially around permitting and rulemaking and allocating

of funds. She said on pages 26 and 27 of the strategic plan, there’s a lot of concrete detail about

which types of work processes are required for bringing in these environmental justice reforms,

and she has some suggestions within Goal 2 of the strategic plan of where some of that

specificity can be strengthened elsewhere.

Ms. Leticia Colón de Mejías, NEJAC Member, added that she had a few thoughts as it relates

to being equitable and the civil rights requirements for avoiding exclusionary practices. Will

there be a way that these items that are required are pre-packaged and accessible for small

organizations to guide them ensuring they can meet the requirements that are changing and

being imposed as they relate to civil rights in Title VI regulations? Small organizations often

don’t have a HR coordinator or someone to receive those complaints; and then sometimes the

amount of paperwork that would allow them to apply for funding resources that would allow

them to build capacity or reach further into communities of color, they’re excluded

unintentionally because they don’t have the capacity to offer those resources.

Secondly, will there be metrics imposed on states or people who are receiving EPA funding to

ensure that the supports are being provided to communities of color and vulnerable at-risk

communities who have been historically underserved to this day? It’s impossible for that to

happen unless a metric is in place that requires a certain percentage of resources to go to

communities of color. The minority of small organizations are oftentimes asked to partner with

larger organizations and are told that they should use those organizations as fiscal sponsors.

Those larger, white-led organizations absorb 90 percent of the funding that is provided. Only 10

percent of the funding goes to the smaller community-led minority organization, which is why

historically those community-led minority groups don’t get to do the work they need to do.

She wanted to bring that forward that nothing changes unless there’s a metric that’s specific to

ensuring communities of color that have been historically underrepresented and thus historically

underserved and disconnected to both the problem and the potential resources to save

themselves, that cannot change unless we put a specific metric around that. If they were the lead

organization on that then they should have some set of requirements. My suggestion is 51

percent or more of their allotted funding should go to another organization underneath them, or

they should have to represent that the money is going directly to support the community of color.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, had a few thoughts. On the training stuff, for matching,

can EPA remove restrictions? If a restriction is statutory, can they use other things to satisfy it?

Absolutely, Ms. Colón de Mejías. Looking at the details of that state relationship, how far can

they push the things that the Agency's going to require of themselves with those states. That’s

why there's a commitment to open up that space to try to push as far as they can in working with

states, those are absolutely on point. To Dr. Harrison’s questions, even if this isn’t reflected in

the details this is the tip of the bureaucratic iceberg. The Agency gets even further and further

into the details when we do national program guidance when there are implementation plans. So,

if there is more that the Council wants to say with the details and it’s so important, the Agency

needs to know all that stuff.

Ms. Lilian Dorka, EPA, added that to Ms. Colón de Mejías comment, the Agency is very

sensitive about the issue of small organizations for grantees and how the civil rights laws are

going to have to carry out any burdens anticipated. The Agency hopes to touch on that with the

guidance that's going to be issued.

NEJAC OPEN BUSINESS MEETING REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION MOVING

FORWARD INCLUDING NEJAC WORKGROUP UPDATES

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, transitioned to the business meeting. She acknowledged that

the Council would do its best to make sure that all the public comments are heard. She stated

that the Council has heard a lot about the strategic plan, Goal 2 in particular. Currently, there are

six work groups, and the Council will hear some updates from them. In order for the Council to

have a plan after this meeting to address the strategic plan, and what it has to say about

environmental justice, we need to have a new short-term strategic plan workgroup approved.

The workgroup would take what was heard specifically around Goal 2 -- a lot of what was

shared already to put in a more coherent report – and will offer feedback and recommendations

to the strategic plan, and then take that to a future meeting to deliberate. Any of the work that is

done for the workgroup has to take place in an official meeting, a public meeting. The Council

has to determine if it is going to be an official public meeting or a public business meeting. It’s

going to need to be done by January, which means that between now and the end of the year this

work has to be done by a group of volunteer members, but the council would need to support the

formation of the workgroup. Before checking for support, Ms. Orduño acknowledged Ms.

Owens’ desire to speak.

Ms. Sofia Owen, NEJAC Member, said she understood the need for the short-term response to

the plan but asked if the focus of the working group could be more broadly around Title VI and

civil rights just overall concerning EPA.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, said that while the council has talked about wanting to do

that, there isn’t time to do it right now with the EPA’s priority needs of this council. We can

look at that after the new year but the focus needs to be specific to the strategic plan before that

window of opportunity is lost.

Dr. Matthew Tejada, Director, OEJ, agreed with the focus for now so that the council can open

up a little space to get work done but in their response to the Administrator they stated they

wanted to engage the NEJAC in a civil rights workgroup.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, asked that Ms. Owen keep the Council on point with that

and not let them forget.

She asked that the Council turn on their video so they can do a simple vote to indicate if Yes, the

member supports the formation of this short-term working group. There was a strong consensus

in support. The Committee will start an email chain the day following this meeting to assemble

the working group. She stated that the workgroup reports will follow but reminded members that

Chairs are needed to help with the division of labor. She stated that each group will spend maybe

three to five minutes giving updates on new information and direction or redirection that will be

pointed out since the August meeting. She shared some questions ahead of time with the chairs

of the group. There is a need to have new participants, especially from any stakeholder groups or

communities that could help with moving the work along and they will be able to look at what

was presented for Goal 2 in consideration to what this new work group is going to be doing.

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Member, stated that he is in the Business and Industry

stakeholder group within NEJAC and located in Region 3. For the status of the work group, they

had an excellent meeting with more than ten of the leaders within the Office of Air and

Radiation back on August 23rd. That conversation focused on programs that are going to be

funded by the American Rescue Plan, including a strong focus on community air monitoring

activities going on under the Clean Air Act Advisory Council. The group met again on

November 4th. That meeting focused on priorities and added some new members. There was an

excellent response from the new NEJAC members interested in the work group. They're meeting

again on the 18th, and we’ll spend more time refining their priorities and digging into both Goal

2 and Goal 4, which is the ensure clean and healthy air goals under the strategic plan.

One focus area is in response to the strategic plan focusing on Goals 2 and 4, and here are some

elements of the cross-agency strategies that deal with citizen science, having a strong link to

community air monitoring. Another focus area is the accessibility and availability of air quality

data. The group is looking at the issue of cumulative impacts including issues related to land

application of biosolids and odor. The group is looking at data quality issues, and how to merge

citizen acquired data with regulatory quality data to expand and enhance the network of air

quality information making that accessible to communities. Related to that is the integration of

community monitoring, citizen science, and workforce development.

The next priority is to establish a liaison between this NEJAC workgroup and the Clean Air Act

Advisory Committee. They want to focus on the issue of climate change that’s strongly linked

not just to air quality, but the notion of improving environmental education and environmental

literacy around climate change in communities. The group needs a co-chair. They need some

expertise related to air monitoring sensors and how those are deployed, the complexity of having

those essentially being citizen community-driven operations, and issues related to the quality of

the data.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, thanked Mr. Tilchin for stepping up to fill the role that is

needed in leadership for this workgroup after losing folks that transitioned off the last council.

For the next workgroup report from Farmworkers and Pesticides, the chair also shared her

appreciation to Ms. De Aztlan who stepped up to provide leadership as its chair.

Ms. Cemelli De Aztlan, NEJAC Member, represented the Farm Worker and Pesticide Working

Group. They are still looking forward to having their first official meeting. The group has just

two NEJAC members and seven farmworkers and needed to request translation. They finally

solidified a date, the first of December, to have their inaugural meeting. She reported that they

have had three conversations with the farmworkers unofficially. Pesticides and Roundup came

up a number of times, how the children and women are getting affected, specifically regarding

reproductive health and how to collaborate with the schools. The group is planning on collecting

testimonials from the farmworkers’ groups, and a question did come up regarding the Justice40

initiative, will it help to address farmworker communities. She also thanked OEJ Staff for

translating the previous letters to the administration regarding farmworkers and pesticides.

Those were hefty letters that underwent translation. Thank you for getting that done so that the

farmworker women could have access to that information.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, also thanked the OEJ staff for managing the interpretation

services that will be needed to be able to have those workgroup meetings.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member, represented the Finance and Investment workgroup,

also known as the Justice40 group. The group started with two overarching goals and outputs.

One was to establish a visualization tool to track how resources are being spent and where

they’re going, and to ensure there is some matrix for identifying revenue flow is going to the

communities that need it most.

The second overarching goal was to follow the issues and the problems to resolution. The group

is looking at tracking systems for measuring if an issue is being addressed, if there are

appropriate means to see whether or not solutions are being identified, and to see those solutions

in real-time. He added that the group started with four framing issues. The first framing issue

was to understand and track the finances that are involved in addressing environmental justice

issues nationally. The second framing question was to understand and leverage the EJSCREEN

tool, which was part of the methodology for our tracking strategies. The third was understanding

the Justice40 mandate in general, and the fourth was to push for resolutions of the justice

concerns that they’ve been talking about those resolutions throughout the entire discussion

today.

The group had a chance to meet with OEJ’s budget office team led by Ms. Sheila Lewis, and

they met with the EJ grants coordinator Mr. Jacob Burney. Ms. Lewis was instrumental in

talking about the ideas of at least experimenting with the thoughts or conceptualizing the

thoughts around community capacity building centers to help fulfill some of our initiatives, and

the idea of looking more closely at equity resource partnerships and what they may represent in

long term strategies. He shared that on the EJSCREEN side, the group met with Mr. Tai Lung

and he was able to help them to understand how EJSCREEN is being used currently and that

there are some possibilities of being able to create more layers to EJSCREEN to help them

identify and track some of their concerns around how Justice40 dollars would be utilized. The

group also had an opportunity to go deeper into the funding initiatives around how the money

would be utilized to get to their communities. The group met with Mr. Ed Chu from the EFAB

(Environmental Finance Advisory Board). He was very instrumental in encouraging the group

to create charge questions that would enable them to integrate the same level of thinking they

have in NEJAC on the EFAB.

The group is looking at the idea of what those charge questions would represent, how to

structure them, and to make sure that they’re consistent with the outcomes that they’re seeking

from not only NEJAC but from EFAB as well as the Justice40 initiatives. He continued with on

the Justice40 mandate to see how they can better coordinate their work with WHEJAC so they

can identify interagency relationships in making certain that there are agency representatives

throughout the federal government that are taking into consideration environmental justice, not

as an afterthought, but as a very deliberate part of their decision-making process. He concluded

that the group is looking forward to having a second meeting with Mr. Chu to follow up on how

they’re going to connect with EFAB, to create these questions around charge questions that his

group can address. Finally, the group is also working on a letter that will be brought back to the

full NEJAC Council so that they can address some of the issues and findings of their work.

Dr. Millicent Piazza, NEJAC Member, represented the NEPA workgroup. The workgroup

continues to meet every two weeks, and they are six members strong at this point. Per the

questions about additional capacity or membership skill set or knowledge, the group would

welcome any additional members who are interested in this NEPA work, but particularly

someone who has familiarity with Section 309 of the Clean Air Act as that was something very

helpfully articulated in the 100-Day response letter. The actual objectives of the workgroup is to

focus on empowering the public comment and engagement process to affect better decision-

making through the NEPA process. It's important having that consistency and integrity in what

is included in EJ analysis and having that influence the decision making in a NEPA

environmental impact statement processes and analyses, and then training and guidance on what

EJ analysis should look like particularly when it comes to disproportionality and impact reviews,

the Title VI nexus with the NEPA process and how we can leverage Title VI to support

environmental justice and pro equity outcomes through the NEPA process is also important.

She added that the group is meeting every other week and taking a thoughtful approach which is

a positive thing because of the commitments that were clearly articulated in the earlier half of

today as well as the 100-Day Letter response and the strategic plan. There is so much richness

that the group had been focusing on which was the role of the interagency working groups,

CEQ, as well as the WHEJAC, and then learning today about the Department of Justice

coordination; and then coordinating across the federal family. She concluded with there is so

much content there that they’re trying to bring in expertise to help them explore more strategic

ways that they can add value as a workgroup to EPA’s thinking to potentially elevate concerns

that they see as practitioners for the NEPA process. It’s an evolving development of what their

outcomes and developments will be with a really dedicated group.

Dr. Benjamin Pauli, NEJAC member, represented the PFAS workgroup and standing in for Dr.

Sandra Whitehead. Our first need is that they are looking forward to meeting with the Office of

Chemical Safety. They hope to receive a briefing on the EPA’s new PFAS plan and the

integration of environmental justice considerations into that plan. The group is hoping to receive

information on the whole of government approach to PFAS, including the actions and policies of

the CDC, OSHA, and any other federal agencies who have a finger in the PFAS pie. They would

really benefit from new members who can speak to these kinds of priorities or who have been

working on PFAS locally, especially in BIPOC communities, anybody working on water issues,

and has an interest in PFAS.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member, represented the Water Infrastructure Workgroup. She

stated that she was standing in for Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, chair of the Water Infrastructure

Group. The primary recommendation comes from the NEJAC’s letters and such that called for

the EPA to build a coalition of federal, state, local, and community stakeholders to work

collectively. The top priority should be to secure more funding from Congress for clean and safe

water infrastructure investments and programs than allocate them first to environmental justice

communities. Emergent water infrastructure issues include addressing challenges to water

infrastructure caused by changes in climate patterns such as frequent flooding and droughts. The

Water Infrastructure Workgroup has begun gathering other concerns about issues in particular

communities include getting more engaged with ensuring resolution to the water issues in

Benton Harbor, Michigan as well as following up with Flint and learning more about the

drinking and wastewater problems and violations affecting people imprisoned at the Parchman

State Prison in Mississippi. In terms of the needs of the workgroup, they do need additional

workgroup members from any sector. They are looking for a co-chair to serve alongside Dr.

Na’Taki Osborne Jelks. She concluded that their workgroup reviewed the strategic plan, and the

workgroup will greatly benefit from the objectives in Goal 2.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, invited councilmembers to give feedback. She also

reminded members that there is an expectation that all members participate in at least one

workgroup.

Ms. Jacqueline Shirley, NEJAC Member, stated that her comment is concerning the 100-Day

Letter that was drafted up and sent to the administrator. The Council had mentioned their

concerns in these workgroups, and the administrator sent a response that's a 14-page letter. She

still needs to have time to read the administrator's response in its entirety and even process what

it means to the Water Infrastructure Group. She added that the infrastructure bill that was just

passed this weekend, what does that mean? Have some of the group's issues and things been

resolved? Sometimes it’s not resolved 100 percent to our liking for the group to use. What is the

next priority? She suggested in the steering committee those new members could call into any of

the workgroups and listen, to just be on a learning and listening mode, to see if this is the

dynamic group they would like to join and be able to free time to float through all the

workgroups to help make their decision.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, agreed that they haven’t really had time to review it

collectively or process it, but it is something that they’re going to need to see about how to pick

up at least in pieces through the workgroups. She will be following up with the folks that were

part of drafting the 100-Day Letter to see how they might be able to respond in some way in

consultation with the workgroups.

Mr. Andy Kricun, NEJAC Member, stated that he would like to possibly join the water

infrastructure and the Justice40 workgroup. He suggested there ought to be a brownfields group

for contaminated sites potentially.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, thanked Mr. Kricun for his inclination to join a couple of

the workgroups. She commented on his idea that, in the past, there has been work specifically

around brownfields. She reminded the Council that they can start a workgroup at any time if it

believes that there is a sense of urgency, that there is a need to provide specific feedback or

recommendations to the EPA, especially if it feels like a space where those conversations are not

happening, and that it's done with recognition about work capacities and time issues. But as

we’re going through the Strategic Plan we can see if some issues can be addressed in part

through that or, as some councilmembers have noted, that there will be a need for future work

groups and we can look at existing ones and what the process may be to continue or conclude

them and decide where we go from there. We would need to look at what the work this council

has done already on issues like Brownfields or Climate Justice and what new information we

want to contribute to.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member, thought that it’s critical to acknowledge that the

strategic plan for the EPA acknowledges our desire to deal with climate change and climate

action, the working groups don’t reflect that, and they should have a climate group. There isn't

an energy group, and everything can’t be talked about unless they talk about energy. Oftentimes

people so rarely think about energy, just like they don’t think about air until there’s an air

problem or we’re not having access to air. She added people don’t think about energy until

there’s an energy problem, and we’re having problems with that. Since most folks in the United

States don’t think about energy as it relates to climate, it would be important, since there are so

many environmental justices directly related to our energy demands and our demand, the

Council consider that as a new working group.

Ms. Jacqueline Shirley, NEJAC Member, reminded the Council that workgroups could

conclude because they haven’t received a charge from the EPA for a while. Sometimes the EPA

does charge the NEJAC to do something like develop a report, so it needs to be kept on our

docket and made clearer the work the EPA wants us to do. She also agreed the climate and

energy change should be woven into our fabric of EJ. Let’s keep the docket open and hopes that

the EPA would come to the NEJAC with some charges.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, reminded the Council that the workgroups that they have

right now are what the Council has determined are issues that they have been working on, have

been concerned about, and have heard significant public comments regarding. These were

spaces that were needed to continue the conversations, investigations, and consultations with

EPA and with other members as part of those Tier 3 workspaces. There can be new workgroups,

but at this point, they need to try to get a sense of, as new members are joining the workgroups,

what it is that is the prerogative. She added that they’ve heard some of the updates tonight about

what has been going on so far. If there is an interest in doing any kind of priority shifting or

additions to the workgroup or changing them, any changes will have to come through the

Council. She suggested that they at least work with the parameters that were set so far, get going

on that strategic plan and, hopefully, that will help sharpen some of the focus about where they

need to go next.

Ms. Jaqueline Shirley, NEJAC Member, reminded the Council that the workgroups are guided

by public comments and what they bring to the Council.

Ms. Karen Sprayberry, NEJAC Member, reminded the Council that they did have a superfund

workgroup that addressed brownfields, and they might want to look at that report because it

addressed brownfields into that superfund report. That can give you a better understanding of

what was done around that so far.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member, stated that Ms. Sprayberry just touched on his concern

if we can develop a method or a strategy of tracking even these more recent requests for working

groups. The superfund has a lot of information that may cover some of the concerns the people

have about brownfields, it would be wonderful if they can find a way to make sure that they

don’t allow the issues to just get past them. For now, there are seven working groups, but it

looks as if there are a couple more that people are interested in. He asked how can NEJAC make

sure that every meeting always goes back to our seven working groups to get reports out on it?

But how can they make sure that those other areas where members are concerned about, whether

it’s brownfields, whether it’s climate justice, that they’re still making sure that those issues are

part of their conversation? He wanted to make sure that they’re not losing contribution because

they’re tracking it.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, agreed that they've been trying to figure that out. She asked

if that can be something that they can take back to their workgroups and offer suggestion for

tracking and then they can take it up with steering.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member, stated that it's more of a structural tool for tracking

performance within the workgroup. He said that they can go back and look at it, but he wanted

to highlight it because he's seen over the years some issues get lost. He stated that they keep

reviewing similar concepts because people may not have been around when those issues were

being discussed. They do have a better methodology for identifying those concerns.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, stated that it’s definitely at the Council here where they

would be making those decisions and how they want it to work with the formation of those

groups even if it can be in the form of some kind of letter or something that can be done in a

different kind of process or charges that come to them from the EPA itself. So, what is set up

are workgroups based on information that has been acquired that is necessary to provide input to

the EPA. It might be that there’s something within that that could be the beginning of a charge

to the Council, or they could figure out how it can evolve. She added that right now the

workgroups are working at different paces and in different intensities. So, this opportunity,

having new councilmembers, gives them the chance to maybe do a little bit of reflection about

where they’re at with those workgroups and if there need to be any kinds of changes. If they’re

modest and can be incorporated in what the work is so far, then they can proceed, but, if they’re

substantive, then we’ll have to bring it back to the Council to change what that workgroup is or

form a new one.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member asked if she's thinking more about some of the new

recommended areas can be incorporated in existing working groups first.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, answered that some things are more obvious that can be

incorporated into the workgroups. They can figure out what are other mechanisms for them to be

able to figure out how they want to be responsive. But these are the priorities of this Council.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member, asked Ms. Orduño if things are coming from

the public and that influences workgroup creation, what if folks have been uninformed and

disengaged on climate and energy, what then? They would not know to bring that to anyone or

to raise the concern. Is there a way to ensure that, when something comes up, that it's put into a

system that can be discussed as a group about the importance of that or a vote to inform

ourselves and make decisions about where NEJAC needs to focus their energy? She stated that

she's concerned that they meet so infrequently, and workgroups are working separately, and, if

they don’t have a larger discussion broadly to determine their trajectory as it relates to this

strategic plan they’re commenting on, she's worried that won’t happen and that will get lost in

the conversation. The Council will focus on very specific areas versus systemic areas that might

be broader.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, answered that workgroups are not formed solely based on

public comments. They’re a combination of what priorities have come before the Council

through public comments and through other engagements that councilmembers are having in

their respective regions or through organizations. So, much of the priorities are shaped by the

members who are here themselves. This was just a report out from the workgroups on what

they're working on now. She continued with the groups that haven’t had the opportunity to

engage with new councilmembers in terms of what are some of those other issues. There isn't

time set aside at this agenda for it, but it’s something that they could put in the future meeting.

Part of it gets shaped in steering meetings, so they can figure out how to also have the time and

opportunity for more engagement as we figure out what the next public meeting agenda will be.

However, again, the workgroups are important spaces for them between the public meetings

because it’s where they continue to do the work, and just honestly our workgroups are uneven.

She stated that they know that this is an important space in which many of us participate with

much intentionality, but they know that there are lots of other things that are competing for the

members' time and energy. They are trying to be realistic about what additional workloads they

put on themselves, especially through the workgroups. Part of the way to add more work is

being successful about the work they’ve got on their plate right now. She mentioned that

figuring out how they can engage new issues in the context of the workgroups and then having

those conversations in those spaces to figure out if that can be incorporated or if they’ve got to

figure out how to create something new, they’ve got to make sure that it’s part of their scope of

manageability.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member, asked is it possible that, since the strategic plan

working group doesn’t have a solid mandate, they can look at other issues beyond the report of

strategic benefit to NEJAC? If people have questions about areas of interest, that new working

group might be able to field those questions. In other words, it allows fielding a question in a

working group that’s broad enough. It’s strategic planning. It’s broad enough to cover it.

Maybe it’ll feel a little better that they put something in place to at least address the concerns of

folks who are issuing those concerns.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, answered that there could be an opportunity through that

strategic plan workgroup. They can make it what they want it to be, but the Council has to

recognize also that there are less than 60 days to do that. The immediate need is to provide the

EPA our feedback on what the strategic plan could look like or specific recommendations. The

Council could also say, as part of this process, they also are finding the need for additional

workgroups or additional ways to address specific issues that go beyond just that plan and are

beyond the priorities of this Council. NEJAC will use that process as part of the determination,

and, when they come back in the new year, they’ve got a better sense of what their next public

meetings are going to be. Then we can figure out how they get shaped to recognize some of

these emerging issues. She deeply apologized to the public commenters who have been waiting

and thanked them for allowing the Council to have this conversation.

ORAL PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

Dr. Fred Jenkins, Jr., DFO, stated that public comment period is going to start. NEJAC

members may provide feedback after their remarks.

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Vice-Chair, spoke about wanting to have a robust dialog between

our public commenters and members of the Council, but councilmembers are restricted to two

comments per public commenter. The members are listening to the public comment that they get

today, think about that in the context of their workgroup and how that new input can be pulled

into the issues addressed within your workgroup.

Mr. Roddy Hughes, Public Commenter: Good afternoon, my name is Roddy Hughes, I’m a

campaign representative of the Sierra Clubs Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. The fracked gas

industry has proposed more than 20 LMG export terminals primarily along the gulf coast in

Texas and Louisiana. The oil industry is trying to advance four deep-water oil export terminals

and other onshore export facilities that would drive increased extraction and send oil around the

world. If built, these facilities would justify a dramatic increase in fracking in Texas and New

Mexico and compromise the health and well-being of the communities along the frack cycle.

I have the honor of working with black, brown, and indigenous communities along the gulf coast

that are suffering the impacts of the oil and gas industry, the petrol chemical industry, and

suffering the impacts of our changing climates. The gulf coast needs its own working group in

the Region 6 office. They need to know what’s in their air and water and need their concerns to

be heard and acted upon by the EPA. We need for the EPA to engage in the permitting and

enforcement processes for facilities that will impact environmental justice communities. The

EPA must deny permits to any oil refinery, crude, or LNG export terminal, petrochemical plant,

pipeline, and any other facility that could have a disproportionate impact on human health or the

economy or adversely impact communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. The

permitting processes must consider whether communities like Port Arthur, Texas or Lake

Charles, Louisiana are already overburdened with infrastructure including facilities without

considering what other facilities are already impacting air and water quality and public health.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member asked for follow up with written comments and

any supporting documents that the NEJAC can utilize in their work.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member said, we hope that EPA staffers are listening and that

there will be phone calls. EPA staffers do talk about these issues and internally within NEJAC,

and we will continue to advocate on your behalf.

Mr. Darryl Malek-Wiley, Public Commenter: I’m the environmental justice organizer with the

Sierra Club based in Louisiana. I’ve been working in Cancer Alley for over 30 years, and I’m

tired of all the reports we receive like the one that just came out by ProPublica detailing maps of

cancer hot spots in the United States. We have reports that come out from EPA all the time

talking about what’s wrong in Louisiana, but we have no action by EPA to correct the problem

in Louisiana. Our Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality should receive no funds

from the Environmental Protection Agency. Forensic Architecture also has put together an

extremely good presentation on the impact of air pollution in Louisiana, and I wonder why we

have non-profits doing these types of presentations and we don’t see it from EPA. EPA puts out

hard maps, not interactive, and it makes it harder to understand what’s going on. We want EPA

to step in and review the proposed permit fine against Nucor Steel, which the company polluted

the air for six years and impacted the community, cut their air monitoring equipment off for over

a year, and the Department of Environmental Quality is talking about a fine of $82,000. In

addition, we have companies like the proposed Formosa Plastic Plant that will triple the

pollution in Saint James Parish. It’s time for EPA to set up an environmental justice task force

in Louisiana to take active motions.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member: I just wondered if you made that suggestion to the regional

people about having an EJ task force?

Mr. Darryl Malek-Wiley, Public Commenter: We have worked with Region 6 on a number of

occasions. They have good EJ staff, but it doesn’t have weight within the whole process.

They’re good at responding to things but they have not been able to change EPA policy to more

reflect what’s happening with the environmental injustices happening in Louisiana, Texas, New

Mexico, and Oklahoma.

Ms. Jan Boudart, Public Commenter: What is an environmental justice community? The term

describes situations where multiple factors including both environmental and socioeconomic

stressors may act cumulatively to affect health and the environment and contribute to persistent

environmental health disparities. It’s important to understand that environmental justice

communities live near all aspects of the U.S. fishing venture from the Manhattan Project due to

today’s upgrade of our nuclear arsenal. This includes communities near mining, milling,

processing for the gas UF6, fuel fabrication, and experimental activities for fuel fabrication.

Communities and U.S. military personnel victimized by depleted uranium, that steadily releases

ionizing radiation in the form of alpha, beta, and gamma rays and forms hot particles in ground

dust and in the air. Military personnel are further exposed to uranium 238 in tank bodies and

ordinance exploded near them in ground battles. Local jurisdictions have no say during COVID

as to whether these people hosteled in their mostly small communities and ate in the restaurants

and bars. EJ communities victimized by the U.S. fission venture also involved waste

instillations. Including waste from the military explosions dating back to World War II in both

the U.S. and the former USSR, experimental reactors, and merchant electric power plants that

exploit fission to produce heat. This radioactive waste includes military low-level nuclear waste,

greater than class C waste. The gloves, booties, and hazmat suits, debris, and irradiated metals

from the discarded reactor vessels when merchant plants close and high-level radioactive waste

like spent radioactive fuel. We have 11 active merchant reactors in Illinois and four of them are

the Fukushima design, and almost 100 nationwide, some of which are like the Fukushima

design. But their emergency zones have been reduced to the area occupied by the reactor itself

if they are ever built on the theory that an accident is a non-credible event. So, there are lots of

environmental justice communities, and they are becoming more numerous as we continue the

folly of pursuing radioactive methods to produce energy.

Ms. Karen Sprayberry, NEJAC Member: EPA has these technical assistance grants, and they

provide the problem-solving grant, helping these communities get that funding so they can begin

to address some of the issues and I really like the idea of having a task force. In South Carolina,

we have some sewage discharges going on in our river, and it’s good to bring all the

stakeholders together. I hope you will advocate for a task force.

Mr. Scott Clow, NEJAC Member: Last month Matthew from the EPA’s EJ office gave a

presentation to the nuclear regulatory commission who is grappling with their environmental

justice policies. They have a long way to go at NRC to understand environmental justice, and

one of the things I think as we embark on what Leticia was talking about with climate and

energy as a potential workgroup or a focus of other workgroups then we need to keep the idea of

nuclear energy in there and the fact that people are looking to it as a solution to our climate

change issue. There’s also a Department of Energy strategic uranium reserve proposal on the

table, and so there’s a lot of issues around the uranium industry that are all sort of converging

right now. I hope that the NEJAC will pursue your needs and the needs of everyone in those

communities.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member: I think more people should take that action and

come forward with their thoughts and ideas to help us formulate a plan for the United States of

America as it relates to environmental justice. I hope that you’ll submit your comments in

writing along with any supporting documentation so that we can discuss them further in our

working groups.

Ms. Millicent Piazza, NEJAC Member: You know, this also had testimony at our last meeting

related to the legacy of nuclear contamination from uranium mining and I just wanted to draw

that other connection because as we’re dealing with emerging technologies, particularly what

I’m reading about lithium production we don’t want these emerging technologies and the

environmental and health impacts to be the nuclear legacy we hope that the NEJAC delves into

things that are coming on the horizon as opposed to trying to play catch-up with all the

contaminations.

Ms. Jan Boudart, Public Commenter: We have submitted extensive comments to the DOE on

uranium reserve, and I would be glad to send you my comments, Terry Lodges comments,

Wally Taylor’s comments, and Sara Fields’ comments in this matter.

Ms. Jacqueline Echols, Public Commenter: My name is Jacqueline Echols, and I am board

president of the South River Watershed Alliance in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2010 DeKalb County

and the Environmental Protection Agency reached an agreement on the DeKalb County consent

decree. Residents of South DeKalb County believe this action would bring about an end to

sewage pollution that has plagued neighborhoods and fowled neighborhood streams and the

South River since 1961. Today, residents of South DeKalb County are still being denied a safe

and clean environment free from sewage spills and polluted waterways. The source of the

problem is language in the consent decree that describes South DeKalb County as non-priority.

From July 2014 through March 2020, almost 800 spills totaling more than 32 million gallons of

sewage spilled into non-priority areas, most of which are in South DeKalb County. The absence

of a deadline to eliminate spills in this area violates the Clean Water Act. It also assigns an

unmistakable lack of importance to an environmental justice community of over 400,000 black

residents, one of the largest in the country. The use of non-priority language demonstrates a

level of callousness unbecoming the federal agency that is charged with ensuring environmental

equity. If there is one certainty at this point in our nation’s history, it is that words matter. How

a community is viewed by those responsible for fixing the problem and those responsible for

ensuring the problem is fixed matter. The county estimates repairing the sewer system will cost

$1 billion. This cost will be borne by all residents’ priority areas and non-priority areas alike

through higher water and sewer rates. This means South DeKalb residents will pay for fixing a

sewer system in other neighborhoods while their neighborhoods continue to be dumped on with

no end in sight. The outcome of the South River Watershed Alliances case challenging the

absence of a deadline for eliminating sewer spills in non-priority areas is pending before the 11th

Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision by the court will set a precedent. The matter for

consideration by this Committee and EPA itself is a review of the Agency's actions that

challenge the clean water act on the basic right afforded by the large self.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: I wanted to ask if maybe what you heard earlier by way of

the strategic plan and how it is that this administration is really trying to figure out how to be

different, how to walk the walk, how to really be intentional. Is there anything that you

might’ve heard that you think would be helpful in terms of the implementation, the actualization

in terms of the changes that are needed that you might have thought of at the time or that you

could maybe share with us? I think, to shape the conversations around what is some of the

structure of racism around some of these problems, and if there’s a way that maybe you can help

us think that through a little bit more.

Ms. Jacqueline Echols, Public Commenter: I didn’t listen to the strategic plan discussion, I

mentioned in my comments, my concern is the complicity of EPA in perpetuating the

environmental justice that’s going on in the DeKalb County. The river itself over the past ten

years and particularly in the last couple of years has received a lot of attention. And there was

an opportunity to correct this issue to a modified consent decree about three months ago, and

EPA scuttled that opportunity.

Ms. Jaqueline Shirley, NEJAC Member: My question is more towards our EPA folks, I was

wondering has EPA considered pulling in some EJ communities, some EJ cases as the

demonstration project, to implement the strategic plan and the goals for climate change and

environmental justice and civil rights? Pulling in EJ communities to work within these amassed

case studies and practice fieldwork on how to implement the strategic plan.

Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Public Commenter: As a reminder to the NEJAC, at that last public

comment meeting just to chime in on the gulf coast conversation, the bulk of the comments from

the last meeting was folks on the gulf coast. So as part of our discussion, we talked about

potentially having three workgroups: a climate change workgroup, an energy workgroup, and a

gulf coast workgroup. We did have a plan for moving forward just for the new NEJAC

members, that climate change and energy and the gulf coast were on the docket, I will follow

through on that. Now to get into the strategic plan and comments on that, I believe for the

strategic plan to work, we’ve got to bring NEJAC to the people so every region should have the

EJAC. Every region should have an EJAC plan. Every region should make sure they have EJ

metrics, DER metrics on who is getting the dollars. The regional administration should do

listening sessions, and if regions are not acting right then the EPA, as part of the strategic plan,

should take away authority. What you heard from the gulf coast is folks dealing with

environmental slavery. You have folks dealing with toxic trauma. What’s happening in

Louisiana is a huge problem, so you cannot have a real strategic plan unless you plan to really

address those problems. So, take away their dollars, take away their authority.

On the comment of Justice40, I am the co-chair of the Justice40 working group. There are five

major challenges to deal with. How are we going to identify those communities? How are we

going to make sure that the money are doled out in the right way? How are we going to make

sure that the right businesses are getting the work? You can’t have businesses getting the jobs to

do the work if they’re racists if they had bad DI records.

How do we know the workforce is from the community? You can’t have people putting in the

infrastructure if they don’t live in the community. Then how are we going to make sure that the

communities have the capacity to get the monies? We secure it with red tape. If they’ve been

identified based on how they apply grant dollars, it’s their money so we’ve got to fix that. The

EPA needs to take a major role in providing leadership in the implementation of Justice40 and

working within these various regions. And then when we think about the strategic plan again,

Title VI and cumulative impacts have to be integrated throughout the strategic plan.

And then a couple more points before I run out of time, but I’m going to take a little bit more

time, Mike. The air quality piece as listed in the plan, we even make sure community collected

data is used in permitting regulations and enforcements and also pinpoint the communities that

need the dollars. The regulatory monitoring network is actually not that great. It’s bad science,

so that cannot be put on a pedestal and say, well, we’ve got to make sure that complies, because

that system is really not a great system.

And the last point, when it comes to investing the dollars and showing the money, we have to

make sure that the EJSCREEN tool brings in cumulative impacts and scoring, but all state tools

need to have the same approach to scoring cumulative impacts. You can’t have different

approaches, so there needs to be consistency with the EJSCREEN and consistency with tools at

the state level. I’ll stop talking, thank you.

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Vice-Chair: Thank you, Dr. Wilson. Great comments, and it is

great to hear your voice and thank you for participating.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member: Let me ask a question to which I think I know the answer. Are

you suggesting that the strategic plan should indicate that every region should have an EJ plan?

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Vice-Chair: Yeah, well, and I want to credit Jan for asking a

very well-framed question.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: I’m thrilled that you’re still active on the Finance and

Investment workgroup, and so thank you again for your leadership there.

Mr. Jerome Shabazz, NEJAC Member: I’m just trying to find a way to give Dr. Wilson a little

bit more elaboration time. No, but I wanted you to speak a little more about this regional

accountability that ties into the strategic plan. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Public Commenter: Yes, sir. Thank you. So, one of my soapboxes, when

I was on NEJAC, I was trying to figure out how can we decentralize NEJAC? So, I think the

opportunity is let’s bring the NEJAC -- EJAC in every region. I think one of the points was

made earlier about how do you engage the community? So, we know we’ve been getting public

comments from community members. Look at those whole comments, those public comments.

Let’s really recruit those community members to be part of this regional EJAC, so I think that’s

an important play.

Then, as it relates to how the EPA is doling out monies. If you look at Justice40, for example,

that’s the opportunity to incentivize positive EJ action. So I think what we want to be able to do

is to have this strategic plan actually get down to the people. So, it just can’t stay in

headquarters. We have to hit the regions. So you look at Benton Harbor or Flint. You look at

El Paso in Region 6, what we’re talking about in Louisiana. I think that type of framework will

allow for deeper community engagement, and Principles 5 and 7 are suddenly across the

environmental justice communities and people speak with their own voice.

How can communities speak too well with their own voice if they only go into our NEJAC

meetings and give public comments twice a year? So, at that regional level, we can provide

more, have more accountability, and then make sure the regional administrators are helping to

provide guidance and leadership to implement those plans, and then again, the states have to

actually connect to that larger plan. So, there’s more coordination between the states in that

region with the regional office. So, I think that’s what’s been missing, and I think that’s been

my frustration as a NEJAC member of sharing folks -- like the folks of the gulf coast, the folks

from Mossville, the folks from Michigan, folks from other parts of the country -- telling these

stories but then getting limited action. So, I think the strategic plan, we have a regional

approach and states more engaged as part of the approach and more accountability. We can

move problems to solutions better and this is what the communities deserve. I’ll stop talking.

Thank you for that, Jerome.

Ms. Naomi Yoder, Public Commenter: My name is Naomi Yoder, and I’m with Healthy Gulf

based in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I am just really happy to hear all of the people that spoke

today listing off gulf coast issues. I’m here to do the same thing, and I hope that it makes an

impression upon the NEJAC that we keep coming back and we keep having the same

discussions and we need to have some change. So, I really want to support what Roddy and

what Darryl and what Dr. Sacoby said. So, my comments are going to be very similar to theirs,

but I’ll go ahead.

So please create that gulf coast EJ working group whether it be within the NEJAC or within the

EPA itself. This is needed to identify and give justice to those EJ areas across the region. As

Darryl mentioned we have new -- but not new to us -- data that shows the industrial corridors are

so polluted and have high cancer rates. These industrial corridors in the river parishes in

southeast Louisiana, the industrial quarter in southwestern Louisiana, the golden triangle area of

Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Port Neches, and the greater Houston ship channel area are all part

of this.

These areas have a chronic large pollution burden and higher risk for cancer and other illnesses

as well as higher death rates from COVID-19. Louisiana and Texas are oil and gas states and

despite the proliferation of the oil and gas industry across these two states fenceline communities

have very little information about what is in their air and water. These issues must be addressed

and remedied. In addition to the existing pollution burden, and associated loss of wetlands and

storm defenses from all the facilities the fossil gas industry has put a bullseye on coastal

Louisiana and Texas.

LNG, methanol, and plastics plants are all proposed in huge numbers for the already over-

stuffed chemical corridors in Louisiana. Whether or not these new facilities are located directly

in EJ communities -- which most of them are -- they are EJ issues. These facilities destroy

wetlands, they harm communities because those wetlands protect us from the worst impacts of

storms, and they absorb carbon. These facilities also burn fossil fuels, the exact cause of climate

change. Communities of color are disparately impacted by hurricanes. Furthermore, each of

these plants and terminals has pipelines associated with it.

Pipelines are always in the backyard of people that the corporations don’t care about. That is

low-income and people of color. It’s appalling. This stacking the deck against people of color

in the gulf south is white supremacy and it must be changed. As I’ve said in previous meetings,

this is nothing short of a climate justice crisis. Please stop the sacrifice zones and stop the oil

and gas racist build-out. Thank you.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member: I just wanted to comment that I’m appreciating all the

comments coming from the gulf coast and that it’s just underscoring the importance that we

address these issues. Thank you.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Thank you very much. I am appreciating the comments

from Naomi. I’m trying to think here of a couple of things. And so, we know that the

administrators planning this first leg of this national conversation and beginning in the south in

some gulf coast communities. And I think I can express that, as councilmembers, we’re also

really frustrated about trying to figure out how we can be more impactful. And so, I think, in

part, what might be helpful for -- especially for what you’ve shared and what other gulf coast

members have shared -- if there’s a way that, as you’re listening to or participating in, if you are

at all with any of the visits that the administrator is making, if there is something by way of what

he will be conveying, what you all will be sharing, that will help us be more impactful for how

we can engage within the EPA at this Council.

And so, clearly, we’ve got one small button of all the different ways in which the EPA is

reached. But I’m trying to figure out is how we can try to be intentional in this Council. For

those of you who are from the gulf coast and especially since we have you here at this moment,

you can maybe help us think a little bit more strategically about that. That could be helpful too.

Ms. Naomi Yoder, Public Commenter: Yeah, thank you so much for both of those comments,

and I think that we’re just going to keep coming back until something changes. We haven’t

been commented on by the administrator or scheduling staff. We’re aware of the trip, but that’s

a big glaring hole. In my opinion, we should have known about that. We should be able to have

a discussion on this trip, and so that’s the first thing.

Another thing is we need some systems in place to very clearly monitor pollution after storms.

The EPA has said that it needs to do that, needs to have a system in place, and it doesn’t. It’s at

least inadequate if it does. So, a couple of things -- and Darryl mention a couple of things as

well -- don’t give any money to our LDEQ, same with Texas the EQ. Those two agencies need

to be held accountable for what they’re not doing, and the EPA has a role in that. So, I really

appreciate that the NEJAC has the role that you have, and I think that we’ll all just keep trying to

chip away. Thanks.

Dr. Darius Sivin, Public Commenter: Okay, my name is Dr. Darius Sivin. I’m with the United

Auto Workers. I’m going to be talking about accidental release prevention under the Risk

Management Plan Program. It will be a summary of comments submitted to the NEJAC docket

two days ago and authorized by our president Ray Curry in July and submitted to the risk

management plan listening session docket at that time.

First, why is this an environmental justice issue? Well, it turns out both the location and the

harms of risk management plan covered facilities increase in zip codes in a highly statistically

significant manner both due to income and to race. So, the number of risk management plan

covered facilities in a zip code increases with the percentage of people in that zip code below

200 percent of the poverty line.

And the P-value on that is 1.9 times 10 to the negative 25. Also, the number of injuries and

illnesses due to reportable accidents under the risk management program increases with poverty,

and that P-value is 0.02. There are similar results for race, and, since my time is going fast, I’ll

just add that race also correlates with property damage and the number of impact accidents. It

has been asserted both by the previous administration and by the chemical industry that

accidents are going down. But due to data presented in my written submission, you can see that

those assertions are based on highly flawed data, and in fact, from the years 2010 to 2015, there

was a non-statistically significant increase in accidents rates.

And just to summarize, we would hope to see from EPA a new risk management plan role that

would require worker and union participation in incident prevention, investigation, and response

and worker training in order to facilitate safety in meaningful participation as well as

requirements for inherently safer technology and reducing the disproportionate impact on poor

communities and communities of color. Thank you very much.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member: This is a question, maybe for George, I’m looking for

Dr. Sivin’s written comment, and I cannot find it in what was sent to us. Could it be that it

hasn’t been processed yet?

Dr. Fred Jenkins, Jr., DFO: It’s possible he may have submitted it probably in the public

docket but, whatever public comments we’ll get, we’ll make sure you all get them as soon as

possible. Also, I was going to say a reminder in the meeting. Public documents that are

submitted in the docket get processed and they become publicly available immediately, so keep

your eye on monitoring the docket, too.

Ms. Stephanie Mgbadigha, Public Commenter: Hi, so good afternoon and thank you for the

opportunity to speak. My name is Stephanie Mgbadigha, and I’m the advocacy and legal

director speaking on behalf of Air Alliance Houston. I’m in the great state of Texas.

I want to start by thanking NEJAC for its commitment to environmental justice as well as the

EPA. Just for reference, I want to give a context of the City of Houston and Harris County as

well. Houston is currently ranked by the American Lung Association as the 11th most polluted

city in the nation for ozone and the 20th most polluted city for annual average particulate

concentrations.

Houstonians drive more than 140 million miles each day and tailpipe emissions from cars,

trucks, busses, add to everyday pollution. Air pollution levels are also affected by emissions

from other local sources like concrete batch plants, dry cleaners, gas stations, restaurants, pretty

much any industry that you can think of. In addition to that, Harris County is also home to the

largest petrochemical complex in the country, two of the four largest petroleum refineries in the

United States, and more than 400 chemical manufacturing facilities. Now I believe 150 of those

chemical manufacturing facilities are in low-income, low English proficiency communities of

color.

And so that brings me to my first initial comment. I think it’s important for the EPA and other

agencies to meaningfully discern between environmental equity and environmental justice.

Environmental equity means that no one group or community is facing a disproportionate impact

of pollution or anything like that, and environmental justice is the protection of that equity. So

environmental justice necessitates environmental equity, and we don’t have that. The EPA has

these great definitions of meaningful involvement and fair treatment but, in practice, that’s not

what’s happening. Not with its rules and not in a trickle-down effect to states and local

government.

I would encourage EPA -- especially with its new strategic plan -- to be more vocal about what

is happening around the country, specifically in Texas, and I would prefer if EPA would call it

by its name which is environmental racism. And to that effect, I am asking that EPA please,

please enforce its Title VI powers and appropriately hold these agencies accountable for the

discrimination. An example of this is in Houston here, concrete batch plants, the sitting

requirements of these plants are inadequate, to say the least. And TCEQ which is the

environmental agency for Texas has openly in oral statements and written comments say that

they will not consider cumulative impacts.

So here in the fifth ward, there are I believe ten zip codes that have cancer clusters, and, in all of

those ten zip codes, they are the only active concrete batch plants. This is just an example of

what I would consider an adverse and disproportionate impact, and I would also like for EPA to

provide more guidance on what it’s considering discrimination. I would like to know in more

detail what adverse impacts would be considered discrimination and what wouldn’t. And so that

means enforcement of Title VI of the civil rights act is necessary to correct this long-standing

trend of concentrating these heavily polluting facilities in the environmental justice communities

that are already overburdened in pollution.

And I’ll be quick because I know that my time is up. I would also like EPA to start considering

remedial measures. I heard it earlier in the meeting, but I think it’s time that we start fixing the

issues that EPA as well as these state agencies have caused by ignoring these harms and ignoring

the racism that is protruding with these state agencies. It’s time to write grants to do things like

revamping the air systems, the HVAC systems in schools, communities, churches, and nursing

homes that are being surrounded by these industries. Again, I thank NEJAC for its commitment

to environmental justice. Thank you.

Ms. Leticia Colon de Mejias, NEJAC Member: Stephany, thank you for your incredibly

awesome comments. In my opinion, I just want you to know that, if you have a chance to read

the strategic plan, there is a whole section addressing what you’re discussing here. Specifically,

I think that that would be a great section for you to comment on as I think that oftentimes what

people don’t understand is that, even when resources go to communities, more often than not,

the funding doesn't go there. Earlier on, somebody made a poignant comment that often we’re

measuring the disparity or the environmental injustice. I hear you, but I don’t hear the plan to

resolve the problem which is frustrating because measuring a problem without taking any action

to solve it just lets you know there’s more of a problem.

I don’t think that we’re unaware of the problems is what I’m hearing. All along with the

comments from all the commenters who called in today and got online, you’re all aware of the

issues in your communities. So really what we need to do is do a better job of engaging

communities and finding a way to bring you forward and help us propose solutions to those

issues to the EPA so that we can take some actionable steps forward. So, thank you for taking

the time to call in.

I also wanted to thank another councilmember earlier for suggesting the idea of doing case

studies whereby we interview folks who take the time to provide these incredible stories and

then make a specific focus in some way to resolve those and report out which I think would also

be inspirational for other communities who have issues and may feel lost or as if no one wants to

help them.

So, thank you so much because I do believe that systemic racism is very much part of

environmental justice, and unfortunately very much part of the issues that we’re seeing all across

our nation.

Ms. Karen Sprayberry, NEJAC Member: Leticia, just what you were saying just a minute ago

reminds me so much of the CARE funding and the available CARE grants. And so, if you go

back and google CARE grants and what they funded, I mean, it’s projects like that, and it tells

the stories and it did a great job of telling how they utilized the money. So, that’s something we

need to be advocating for is the CARE funding again.

Ms. Felicia Beltran, NEJAC Member: Thank you very much, Stephany, for your comments. I

just want to make a response with regards to you mentioned Title VI. Title VI sets a foundation

that has a lot of enforcement behind it, and I feel like the strategic plan -- specifically Objective

2.32 -- strengthens civil rights enforcement in communities with environmental justice concerns.

That’s really where this powerful arm of Title VI can be implemented to ensure that prior to

receiving any type of financial aid that they have an existing nondiscrimination program in place

as a good method for prevention. But again, thank you very much for your comment.

Mr. Charles Bryson, NEJAC Member: Thank you. As I listen to some of these comments, I

realize that one of the things we’re at is the intersection between education and employment, and

some of the issues that people are bringing to the EPA belong to EPA. But they also belong to

states that are using federal resources to create some of the things that they’re talking about,

whether it’s a gas plant or the energy plant, whether it is giving money to the airline so that they

can have more air traffic. So, I think some of these we have to figure out, and I think Leticia

talked about this earlier. The education process has to suggest that you don’t have to give up on

employment and suffer from a bad environment.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: We’re near the end of what we scheduled for this Council

meeting, and so we did acknowledge earlier that we are going to have time to go over for the

public comments. I also noted that we wanted to see about trying to get the meeting completed

by 7:00 really making it sort of an objective. So, I want to ask councilmembers to again go back

to some of the framings that we had shared at the beginning, and I’ll just read those again just so

you can think about how you want to respond here.

So, as we have public commenters, I’m asking that we have no more than two councilmembers

comment per public commenter and that we limit the number of times you respond overall. So,

if you’ve already spoken three times consider letting someone else go who hasn’t yet offered

comments from the Council.

Mr. John Muller, Public Commenter: I am John Muller, retired civil engineer in Tulsa,

Oklahoma with more than 25 years in public works engineering. Mainly water resources

engineering, and I’m an active supporter of the American Environmental Health Studies Project

by way of its Fluoride Action Network. And I first want to remind you or inform you for the

first time as the case may be for new members that I have attended and commented at the

previous NEJAC public meetings held on June 17th and also August 18th and 19th, as well as

the inaugural WHEJAC meeting on March 30th. I also attended and commented at the July 6th

Board of Scientific Councilors, the (BOSC) public.

I commented to experienced expert scientists to the BOSC in response to its current request for

nominations. Now, regarding today's meeting and the strategic plan draft, I have submitted one

very brief comment so far and I plan to submit more comments with more specifics because

there are very real opportunities for this ground-breaking strategic plan to facilitate resolving the

EPA’s and the CDC’s conundrum of how to end water fluoridation in light of the new evidence

showing the unacceptable risk of disproportionate harm to blacks and other vulnerable

subgroups, especially brain damage in the unborn fetus in a mother with excess fluoride

exposure and bottle-fed infants and young children, harm to the developing brains not dissimilar

at all to the harm from lead.

My comment points out that there’s a need for language in the plan to include application of the

precautionary principle anywhere in the plan where values for safe human exposure are being

addressed, evaluated, and/or determined for regulatory rulemaking. And here is what Wikipedia

has to say in part about the cautionary principle. And I quote, “The principle has become an

underlying rationale for a large and increasing number of international treaties and decorations

of sustainable development, environmental protection, health, trade, and food safety. And in

some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application of the precautionary

principle has been made a statutory requirement in some areas of law.”

What I request of NEJAC from this meeting is to create a special fluoridation workgroup or

assign it a priority in the Water Infrastructure workgroup and place fluoridation on the NEJAC

agenda as maybe a possibility for discussion to determine and articulate a recommendation to

the OEJ and ultimately to Administrator Regan after the NEJAC members have had time to

review and consider the submitted additional materials. I will be submitting additional materials

by email. That’s all I have for today and thank you very much for this unique opportunity to

participate in your most important work. Thank you.

Mr. Scott Clow, NEJAC Member: Yeah, really briefly thank you for your comments, Mr.

Muller. In Indian countries across the United States, the Indian Health Service when they built

water systems would often install fluoridation systems on them, and so, if we do embark on

digging deeper on this, I’d like to maybe pull tribes across the nation on this and potential

epidemiology related impact. So, thank you for your comments.

Ms. Stephanie Herron, Public Commenter: I spoke with Ms. Dora Williams on the phone a

little while ago, and after the second time you called her, she told me that you were asking her to

unmute, she clicked unmute but for some reason, you couldn’t hear her. But she is in. I just

spoke with her.

Ms. Dora Williams, Public Commenter: This is Dora Williams on the phone.

Mr. Kurt Ali, Curator: I just heard something really faint underneath all that.

Ms. Stephanie Herron, Public Commenter: I wonder if perhaps you could put the call-in

information in the chat or something. It’s impossible to chat to the host because chat has been

disabled but maybe she could call in or other folks who are having issues. I was not able to raise

my hand on my computer so clearly, there’s some sort of tech thing going on. I’m on my phone

now. Maybe if you just put the call-in number in the chat, Ms. Dora and any others who aren’t

able to work it could just call in via the call-in number.

Kurt Ali, Curator: George, do you have the call-in number? Okay, in the meantime, I’m going

to move on --

Mr. George Ward, Program Manager: Kurt, the call-in number is actually on her invite. If she

goes to her invite, the call-in number is there.

Mr. Kurt Ali, Curator: Thanks, George. I’ll reach out to Ms. Herron in a second. Because of

the time I’m just going to move on to Hilton Kelly.

Mr. Hilton Kelly, Public Commenter: Yes, thank you NEJAC for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Hilton Kelly, founder, and director of the community in Power and Development

Association located in Port Arthur, Texas on the gulf coast. Home to the largest oil refinery in

the northern hemisphere, which is called Motiva, which puts out 633,000 barrels of oil per day.

It’s also home to the Petco -- petroleum coal facility called Oxbow Calcining -- which dumped

tons and tons of disproportionate amounts of sulfur dioxide and heavy metals. In our request of

NEJAC, we must address the ethylene oxide issue in Texas and in other communities where it is

produced. In Port Arthur, Texas, Indorama has released large amounts of unchecked ethylene

oxide during our cold snap and yet our state has yet to address that issue.

And when it comes to cumulative impact, many people have been exposed to dangerous

chemicals like benzene, 1,3-butadiene, carbon monoxide, and other toxic chemicals in our

environment. But what we found is that we know what these types of chemicals do to the

human body and how it impacts our respiratory system. But what we don’t know is what these

chemicals do cumulatively in our air. We feel that the Environmental Protection Agency needs

to put together a plan and implement that plan on cumulative impacts and create a cumulative

impact study to help us understand how our bodies are being impacted by multiple chemicals in

the air at the same time from petrochemical facilities and other big polluting facilities.

Chemical disaster rule. We would like to request that the NEJAC ask the Environmental

Protection Agency to issue stronger new chemical disaster prevention rules that include the

central components that Cedar Inc. and its ally groups have discussed back on July 29th, 2021.

The stronger rules would include companies installing safer technologies, climate preparations,

and mitigation while facilities in hurricane-prone areas also require backup electrical power, air

monitoring, access to information for the public, and Title V air permit requirements, et cetera.

NEJAC has tracked this issue concerning the chemical disaster rule for many years. Now is the

time to get the rules strengthened so that life can be saved now and in the future.

I also would like to thank the Earth Justice Organization for pitching in and doing all that they

can to help grassroots organizations and to help us get to this point where that we can have this

kind of dialog. And I do believe that the EJAC, the Environmental Justice Advisory Council in

communities like Port Arthur, Texas, like Beaumont, Texas, like Houston, is a necessity. Local

governments do not do enough to help local citizens to fight for environmental justice and we

feel that it’s time to put the power in the hands of the people. Thank you for your time.

Ms. Jacqueline Shirley, NEJAC Member: Just quickly, I’m just hoping our last in-person

meeting was scheduled to be in Houston, Texas, and I’m hoping that when our in-person

meetings gear up again that we’ll continue with that schedule and have our next in-person

meeting in a critical place like Houston, Texas and I’m looking forward to seeing the gulf folks

in person. Thank you.

Mr. Hilton Kelly, Public Commenter: Well, I do understand that the Administrator is going to

be in Houston, Texas on the 19th, and I do plan to attend that meeting.

Ms. Karen Sprayberry, NEJAC Member: I know with some of the projects that we’ve worked

with, especially with climate perforations. We’ve worked a lot with the academia and the

community to get some information. We actually have funding for the EPA right now where

we’re trying to get the community to do vulnerability assessments, to do hazard assessments,

and do capacity assessments. And so that really enables them to look at what’s in their

community and how to prepare before a disaster hits. And so anyway, and the academia in

South Carolina is really helping us with this project. I didn’t know if you reached out to them to

get some assistance.

Mr. Hilton Kelly, Public Commenter: No, we have not talked to the academia sector at this

particular time but, yet, that idea did come up at a few meetings and we have plans to reach out

for all the resources that may be available to us to get the chemical disaster rule put in place and

also to help those chemical companies to do a better job at protecting human health, reducing the

potential for chemical releases and explosions like the TPC plant in the Groves area so that we

can save lives only now and also in the future because it’s really out of control. And under the

Trump administration, it was as if we had no Environmental Protection Agency, or we had no

state regulatory agency, so we need help and we must work together now to make things change

for the better.

Dr. Brian Moench, Public Commenter: Thank you. I’m Dr. Brian Moench, on behalf of Utah

Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the 450 physicians and 3,000 members of the lay

public within the organization. I was congratulated by the administration for giving the issue of

environmental justice long-overdue attention. But the administration should not just focus on

existing injustice, it should also try to intervene and prevent projects that are destined to become

monuments of future environmental injustice. One such project being designed and given

hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money by our legislature is a Salt Lake City inland

port. This stands to be a massive Transmodal shipping hub and warehouse farm now planned

for the westside of Salt Lake City in the immediate vicinity of 250,000 people who already

suffer the most pollution and environmental toxin exposure of the two million people who live in

the Salt Lake Valley.

They suffer the traffic pollution of our busiest freeways, are immediately downwind of several

oil refiners near an enormous open-pit copper mine and smelter, are downwind of summer-long

aerial spray and pesticides and numerous industrial smokestacks, and are downwind of a major

international airport and the secondary airport whose planes still use leaded gasoline. None of

this would be tolerated on the east side of Salt Lake City, but because of lack of political clout,

the Utah legislature is shoving this down the throats of those who are already the most

victimized by our numerous pollution sources. This Transmodal shipping hub would be the

epicenter of multiple new sources of pollution, an estimated 70,000 more diesel truck trips per

day, diesel power switcher engines, 150,000 more cars, increased air traffic, more pesticide

spraying, and dozens of more train locomotives. Incidentally, one Tier 0 locomotive can emit as

much pollution as what you’d expect from 10,000 cars.

This project clearly exploits the economic and racial disadvantages of this community, and Utah

politicians remain unflinching in their determination to push it forward. Other inland ports and

inhouse farms smaller than what is planned in Salt Lake are now nicknamed quote, “diesel death

zones,” because of the pollution they generate. There is absolutely no reason to think that the

developing one in Utah will produce a different outcome.

This port is also intended to facilitate more fossil fuel extraction, something squarely

contradictory to the Biden Administrations' climate goals. The rationale being offered is that the

port is needed to produce jobs is a smokescreen. Utah historically has a very tight labor market.

The current unemployment rate is 2.4 percent, and most of the anticipated port employment will

be low-wage warehouse jobs. The real beneficiaries are well-connected developers and

powerful international corporations eager to exploit this community for profit. Using the Clean

Air and Clean Water Acts, several federal agencies could intervene and prevent this injustice

from happening. Dealing with the obvious consequences after the fact will only further

victimize this community. Thank you.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member: I didn’t know anything about this project. Thank you for

telling us all of this. Can you tell me something? About how far along in the planning process

this is?

Dr. Brian Moench, Public Commenter: Well, the Utah legislature has been passing bills since

2018 to clear the way for this, and they just passed the bill that allowed a public obligation to

support this project with $150 million to start building the infrastructure for the trans-loading

facility, in other words, cement pads and huge cranes that are designed to lift shipping containers

from trains to trucks and so forth. So, it’s been in the works for three years. They have

established a Utah Inland Port Authority, which is a quasi-government agency, virtually with no

oversight and acting completely autonomous. So the difficulty in fighting back on any front is

that the decision-makers are not accountable to the public in any way, shape, or form. And that

was an intentional part of the strategy.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member: Have you discussed this with regional EPA?

Dr. Brian Moench, Public Commenter: Yes, in fact, we have quarterly meetings with Region 8

EPA on this topic. We are trying to convince them that, in fact, the Clean Air Act and the Clean

Water Act can be invoked here to perhaps forestall, if not prevent, this project. We are not sure

we have convinced them yet, but our next meeting is scheduled for January. But first and

foremost, this is an issue of environmental injustice, and so to whatever extend federal agencies

can become involved in this and aware of it, we are certainly trying to pursue that.

Dr. Jan Fritz, NEJAC Member: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Thank you.

Ms. Ayako Nagano, NEJAC Member: It’s more of a comment. It’s put in the chat, the EPA

strategic plan website where anybody could give feedback to the EPA strategic plan. It’s only a

draft right now, and there are many wonderful aspirations in there. But there’s going to be

pushback from industry, and there’s going to be pushback from states. So it’s really important

that the EPA hear from communities giving feedback, and it’s got a lot of goals to maybe focus

on Goal 2 which the OEJ was responsible for and then maybe pick another area that’s really

directly relevant to you and just focus on those two and then it would be wonderful if more

people could provide public comment. Thank you.

Dr. Brian Moench, Public Commenter: Thank you.

Ms. Stephanie Herron, Public Commenter: I really do appreciate all the work that the NEJAC

in the time right now. I do have a comment, but I just have to say in advance of my substantive

comment that on the logistics of this meeting, the public comment is not going into anything

related to the order that you shared in advance with speakers, and it is extremely confusing.

Normally the public comment list is also shown on the screen in NEJAC and WHEJAC

meetings, and it’s extremely confusing to figure out who’s coming up or who’s speaking. A

number of people are texting and calling me very confused, and I also just want to note that the

actual time of the public comment wasn’t made public until about two days before this meeting,

so for folks who couldn’t reserve from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m., that’s not very accessible.

And then I couldn’t say any of this in the chat instead of wasting this time right now because the

chat is disabled, which came up I believe on the last NEJAC meeting. You don’t have to make

it, so you chat with everyone. I know that’s distracting, but you can set it so that only members

of the public can only chat the host and that would’ve really helped here. So, thank you.

But onto my substantive comment. My name is Stephanie Herron, I’m the national organizer for

the Environmental Justice Help Alliance for chemical policy reform. I know I’ve spoken at the

last several NEJAC meetings and others in the past but since there are some new members who

I’m very excited to hear from and about, EJHA is a national network of environmental justice

organizations, primarily grassroots groups who have been working to prevent and deal with

chemical disasters in their communities for many years, some of them since even before I was

born.

Earlier today, Director Tejada said that environmental justice is the quote, “Top priority for

Administrator Regan,” and I really was glad to hear that. I am here again today as I was at the

last two NEJAC meetings to remind you and emphasize and echo what Mr. Kelly and others

have said that, if EPA wants to prioritize environmental justice, they must prioritize protecting

workers and fenceline communities by prioritizing and issuing a truly protective risk

management plan or aka chemical disaster rule on the fastest timeline possible. I’m here joining

other commenters asking NEJAC to write a letter and a recommendation to Administrator Regan

and EPA calling on them to issue a strong and truly protective RNP rule that prioritizes

prevention and protection of workers and communities on the fastest timeline possible.

In the interest of time, I’m going to mostly leave it there, but I do want to direct everyone on the

Council to the comments that I made at the last two NEJAC meetings, which I have sent via

email, and also three reports that I’ve referenced and two that I’ve referenced in my previous

comments. One is the life at the fenceline reports that shows the demographics of people who

are disproportionately impacted by chemical disasters and RNP facilities. The other is the

preventing double disasters policy brief that was issued this summer about the connection

between climate disasters and chemical disasters. And a specific example about several of the

chemical releases and disasters that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Ida hitting the gulf coast

this year called unprepared for disasters. So would direct councilmembers to please look at those

things that I emailed, thank you.

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Vice-Chair: Ms. Herron, thank you very much. And actually, I

do want to thank you for those. My heart was breaking when I was hearing about the frustration

that you and other members of the public are experiencing, and your comments were very

constructive. I know I’m speaking for the OEJ team that that frustration is not what we’re

aiming for. We want to avoid that and be as accessible as possible, so all of the things that you

just stated will be taken under consideration for sure. And then, of course, thank you for your

very substantive comments today and previously and for the reports you’ve submitted.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Stephanie, thank you so much for raising those issues. I

know that our OEJ staff and the contractors really work hard to try to have a respectful

organized process here, and this is regularly falling apart with having to be online. So, please

know that there’s no malintent at all here, and we will work better to figure this out. We will

address it as something that the steering committee will look at, so please rest assured there.

And also, just wanted to say thank you for also being a coordinator with other participants who

are having trouble getting through and taking that role.

And then just lastly, I really do appreciate the information that you’ve been bringing to us for

many years. You’ve actually helped me better understand, too, the issues about fenceline

communities, and the materials that you’ve shared have been significant for us. So I just wanted

to share that. Thank you.

Ms. Maya Nye, Public Commenter: Yeah, so good evening. My name is Maya Nye. I am the

federal policy director for Coming Clean which is a network of over 150 diverse organizations

working to reform the industrial chemical and fossil fuel industries so that they’re no longer a

source of harm. I’m here sharing the call with Stephanie and with Mr. Kelly and others to call

for the NEJAC to send a letter to Administrator Regan and this EPA to prioritize a preventative

new risk management program rule on the fastest timeline possible. And just for some

background, I grew up in a white working-class fenceline community just across the river from

multiple high-risk chemical facilities located in Institute, West Virginia.

And that facility was built in a thriving black community with a historically black land grant

university by the U.S. government in the 1940s to support the war effort. And today this facility

is still one of the top 25 producers of cancer risk from air toxics in the country as a result

specifically of ethylene oxide alone. Over the years, we’ve experienced a myriad of explosions

and releases of highly hazardous chemicals used in plastics, pesticides, and other agricultural

and commercial products. The cumulative effects from these events are only compounded for

black folks that are living on the fence line in Institute who also experience this as systematic

environmental racism.

So, I grew up being taught how to duct tape around the windows when the alarms at the plants

went off so that we could shelter in place like Toby the Turtle who took refuge in his shell when

things went wrong during these explosions and leaks. So that is something that no kid should

ever have to learn, but for kids who grew up on the fence line, which are disproportionately

located in low-income communities and communities of color, it’s become an essential tool for

survival since we failed to prevent these disasters before they occur. I want to thank NEJAC for

lifting up the need for a fully implemented and enforced risk management program and a

chemical disaster rule in your first 100 Days Letter.

Unfortunately, the letter and the information that you cited in that letter were outdated and

fenceline communities need this rule to be stronger. They need to address what communities

across the country have been asking for decades, and I know that my community alone has been

asking for decades. These suggestions are outlined in the letter that I submitted after the last

NEJAC meeting, and I will resubmit again after this one. So we just hope that we can count on

you to send a new letter calling on Administrator Regan and this EPA to prioritize a preventative

and protective RNP rule on the fastest timeline possible. Thank you very much.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Thank you so much for those comments, and I can tell you

that I will be sure to make sure we get that update made in the response that we give to the

administration about the 100 Day Letter that they shared with us so I can make that assurance. If

we need to, we will follow up with you to make sure that we’re accurate and better informed so

thank you for that.

Ms. Maya Nye, Public Commenter: Thank you very much.

Mr. Juan Paris, Public Commenter: First of all, thank you. There’s a lot of comments that

have already been made regarding the Houston area from other speakers and their comments. A

couple of things I want to say is right now, to date, our ozone standards have not even been met.

The ozone standards came in 1970, and we’re still under non-compliance. The other issue that

we have is when we’ve had two hurricanes: Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Ida. During

Hurricane Harvey, the EPA administrator from Region 6 came down here, and he personally

came to our offices and visited there.

And he told us that the biggest concern was Roundup. That was their biggest concern was

Roundup. And yet all these communities were underwater, especially in the west side of town,

the wealthy part of Houston. And our communities, the east end, we were inundated with just

all kinds of air toxins that were released, and the monitors were turned off. So a lot of us from

Houston, when we went to meet with TCQ in Austin questioning their strategies, believe it or

not, they told us that the air monitors were turned off all over Houston from here to Galveston

because they’re too costly to replace.

And I hope you were hearing when I say too costly to replace, and that to me is insignificant

because we need those air monitors at those critical times to actually tell communities what they

were exposed to and maybe to address those releases, find out where they were coming from.

But that’s what they told us. They’re too costly to replace. All of this time that we have been

addressing a lot of people have already addressed a lot of our concerns to communities being

impacted by hurricanes and also by air toxins and by just being the frontline communities.

Additionally, to cumulative impacts, and there’s a lot of studies that show we’re exposed to

seven cancer chemicals every day. There’s been a lot of research that has been made along the

Houston ship channel to reflect the problem, and all those reports cost literally millions of

dollars to produce. They recommend a lot to address the issues we have in Houston, and today

none of those recommendations from millions of dollars of research have been implemented.

The other major issue that we have here in the Houston area is because as Hilton and others have

mentioned, we have a lot of chemical plants and refineries along the Houston ship channel. And

the RNP’s are very important. If you look at the risk of the community of who would be

impacted in what I call the inner circle of the worst-case scenario, imagine a target with a

bullseye and it’s got numerous circles around the target. Well, the inner circle is the first circle

by the target and the industry classifies that as death, injury, or bodily harm. And there are a lot

of frontline communities in that inner circle in that industry along the Houston ship channel

basically causing death, injury, or bodily harm under the worst-case scenario event.

Now what the industry says is that ain’t going to happen. Well, it may happen, and if it doesn’t

happen more power to them. But they know the risk, and that risk is not being actually

addressed. They’re simply saying, well, it ain’t going to happen. Again, I reemphasize the

RNPs and also the fact that those standards have not been met and that it’s embarrassing and

insulting when the EPA administrator from Region 6 came to our office and said, “You know

the biggest problem we have, Juan, is Roundup.” Can you imagine that?

And then when we went to the state and they turned off all the air monitors, we want to know

why they turned off monitors when they’re more critical and in need of situations that we’re

facing in the south. It is too costly. So, what do you tell communities that are being impacted,

that you know it’s just too costly to look out after your harm and your injuries because we’re

trying to save money, basically. So, we sent a letter to the EPA, and we’re asking that you send

the letter to our Region 6 and try to get them to get on the ball enforcing environmental

regulations on the RNPs because we’re asking that that be a serious consideration along the

Houston ship channel.

Mr. Scott Clow, NEJAC Member: Thank you, Mr. Paris, for your comments. We have a

modest air quality monitoring program here that we run, and I can tell you that the equipment’s

expensive for a small tribe. But it doesn’t compare to the cost of lives and the disabilities and

mutations that you’re talking about around the inner circle or I’m sure the outer circle. So, yeah,

I guess what we’ve heard today is a lot of egregious action out of the Texas Council on

Environmental Quality and Region 6 rule with them. So, thank you and we’re taking that to

heart.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: We can go down to quorum with councilmembers that are

here, and, again, I appreciate you all staying very much. The councilmembers apologize for

having to leave, but I don’t want to short-change the last four or so commenters that we have, so

just in case something happens, I would ask that we have all of the public commenters make

their comments first and then we offer the opportunity. I know we really like to give each

person their individual time for their comments, but I just want to make sure that we can do that.

If we lose them, then they can’t have their opportunity to have it on the record, and then we can’t

have this meeting properly.

Ms. Pamela Nixon, Public Commenter: I’m Pam Nixon. I’m representing People Concerned

About Chemical Safety located in West Virginia and the center of Appalachia. And thank you

for allowing me the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the fenceline communities here in

West Virginia.

West Virginia’s no stranger to disasters. We have had fatal industrial disasters causing fenceline

communities to shelter in place and sometimes evacuate, and we have had extreme weather-

related flooding resulting in loss of life. This year’s the 37th year after the Bhopal disaster and

31 years since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required EPA to develop the risk

management program.

Farther risk management regulations were being developed in the 1990s. Frontline communities

here in Kanawha County suffered through a series of chemical incidents and then there was a

fatal catastrophic tank failure that occurred in 1992 before the regulations were finalized. In

1994, the Kanawha Putman emergency planning committee publicly released the first RNPs for

our local chemical facilities. This was five years before EPA required the plans to be submitted.

In 2019, final RNP rules rescinded all major provisions of the accident prevention program

along with the public information availability provisions and it modified several other provisions

that had been in the 2017 amendments rule.

We now have the opportunity to strengthen the RNP regulations. Our recommendation to EPA

and hopefully the NEJAC will include it in your recommendation letters is to monitor toxic

chemical emissions, install alert systems, collect the data, and develop environmental regulations

that will prevent or greatly minimize health risks in fenceline communities. We ask you to

require RNP facilities to address recommendations of third-party chemical safety audits and

incident and investigations. We ask that EPA assess climate-related hazards and adopt chemical

release prevention systems that can withstand climate-related hazards.

We want an improvement in the transparency of chemical hazards information for emergency

first responders, for employees and their representatives, and for community members like it was

in the 1990s when we were able to get that information. And we ask that you strengthen

compliance and enforcement regulations to require documentation of preventive maintenance

and leak detection and repair that follow industry standards to prevent chemical incidents. And

we thank you for your past and present support of environmental justice communities on these

matters. Thank you.

Ms. Jane Williams, Public Commenter: Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you so

much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I’m really grateful to see the amazing

dedication of the existing NEJAC members. The last time I testified in front of NEJAC was

almost eight years ago when we requested a letter on the national refinery role. We wanted to

get the Obama Administration to adopt a fenceline monitoring rule for refineries. That rule was

adopted, and NEJAC did send a letter requesting fenceline monitoring in all the refineries in the

country. Refineries are the only part of our industrial infrastructure nationwide that are required

to do this kind of monitoring and everyone who watches the refineries, everyone who lives next

to refineries, and everyone who was part of that original rulemaking as well as EPA agrees that

it has led to a massive reduction in emissions, routine emissions from the refinery infrastructure.

I’m telling you this because we are here in front of you again, many of the co-plaintiffs in that

original legal action testified to you today and are requesting the exact same thing. They’re

requesting that you send a letter supporting enhanced protections from chemical disasters. This

administration has the opportunity to do a number of different things, which have been clearly

delineated to you. The most amazing and simple one would be a requirement for backup power.

When hurricanes and earthquakes and grid interruptions hit, refineries lose power to their air

pollution control devices, and this is one of the things that contributes to massive emission

releases from our petrochemical infrastructure.

It is hard to emphasize what it is like to not only live at the fence line and be exposed to routine

highly toxic emissions from the petrochemical infrastructure but then to be taught to shelter in

place, to use duct tape and plastic sheeting as your main defense against an industry that makes

billions of dollars a month. These are not small mom-and-pop petrochemical refineries and

plastics manufactures and chemical manufacturing facilities. These are large mega-corporations

that make billions by putting our most vulnerable communities in harm's way. So, we are asking

you to do something extremely specific.

That is please send a letter to the administrator requesting a strengthened rule to prevent

chemical manufacturing accidents. It is remarkable that in 2021 we are still experiencing these

disasters monthly in our country -- sometimes weekly. So, thank you so much for the

opportunity to speak with you today. I, again, praise you and let you know how amazing it is to

see the dedication and the grace by which you conducted the meeting. Thank you.

Mr. John Andrade, Public Commenter: Thank you very much for having me on. I’ve been on

since 1:00, and I’ve learned a lot about our country listening to everybody. I just want to bring

everybody to the northeast for a minute, the Bedford Massachusetts, Region 1. We’re right in

the middle between Boston, Providence, and Cape Cod. We have the largest super pump site in

New England. We have about 30 brownfield sites, one of which I am very concerned about that

we’ve been dealing with for about 30 years. When we talk about systemic racism, it exists here

so badly, and the worst part about it is that I constantly talk about it at many venues, and we

don’t get people to listen to us.

We don’t get people to come and see, get the boots on the ground kind of thing and I’m asking.

As I asked the joint meeting of the White House Advisory Committee on environmental justice -

- the NEJAC I believe was back in February -- we need you to come here. Come follow the

dollars. Come see where the money has come and they have come here by the millions, but

they’re not in our community and many people have used our statistics, used the terminology in

environmental justice and got money in our names and didn’t do anything with it. The EPA

workforce program that we just got money for is really something we want to be investigated

because of the way it’s been operated and has operated.

We really need small cities like New Bedford of 100,000 don’t get the kind of attention that is

needed from the powers that be, including all of you folk out there. You know, what happens

normally is all the big box, all the large non-profit organizations or for-profit groups get all the

attention. We’re lucky if we see $50,000 a year in our organization, that’s how small we are.

But we’re a huge community with a lot of folks, and we’re all poor. And we’re all trying to get

a cleaner, better healthy community, but nobody wants to listen and that includes our federal

legislation and our state legislator.

We have the executive officer of environmental justice by the state, and I just found out that they

got three deputy departments of environmental justice that we never knew even existed. So,

what are they doing? Why would they do anything? Nobody’s watching them; there’s no

accountability. You’ve got to use the word earlier about martyrdom. I wasn’t sure exactly the

monitor was being done, but we need to monitor where this money is going. We need to

monitor who got the money and how. They write up the grants, we’re not part of it.

And so, my big question comes to all of you -- EJ Executive Order 1995, the People’s March on

EJ 1995 - 1996 all that, the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- what is J40 going to do that these other

things haven’t done? I feel that’s what we should be concentrating more on civil rights. Civil

rights, enforcing the civil rights, and including making sure that neighborhoods like ours are

getting environmental justice education stuff and also to be cognizant of the millions of dollars

that are coming in here. They’re hiring people as engineers, they’re training people and all that

and, we don’t get those jobs.

We don’t get those high-paying jobs that are either union or large companies because, well, one,

we don’t have the education and training, and, two, just what I was talking about earlier,

systemic racism. Thank you.

Mr. Kurt Ali, Curator: I believe our last public commenter dropped off, so that should

conclude our commenters for today.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair: Kurt, I put a note in the chat, but you may have missed it.

Dr. Ben Pauli has a comment from a planned commenter who couldn’t stay on but passed him

the message.

Dr. Benjamin Poli, NEJAC Member: The name of the commenter is Anthony Paciorek, that’s

P-A-C-I-O-R-E-K. And so, I’m just going to read you what he sent to me. He says, “I thank

you for your time and attention today in allowing me to speak to you directly. My name is

Anthony Paciorek. I’m an environmental justice organizer with Michigan United in Flint,

Michigan. I’m also a member of a community anti-ajax asphalt coalition trying to stop the

permitting of a hot mix asphalt plant in Flint, Michigan. We have been fighting and resisting the

permitting process since we found it posted on our state agency EGLE website in a dark corner

on July 1st.

“The neighborhood that it’s proposed to go in as a predominantly minority community and low-

income housing. The ward that the plant is in holds the largest amount of parks and green

spaces in the city, thirteen, including not too far away Corsley Reservoir which is a backup

source for our drinking water. My state agency tasked with informing the public failed to this

date. Residents in that community are still unaware of the plant’s intention in their community.

Through the efforts of our coalition, we have been able to organize and mobilize citizens in the

city of Flint and the surrounding neighborhood of the asphalt plant. We have successfully

pushed back the permitting process five times. That’s unprecedented in our state and should

show the public support in the matter.

“I wish in my job that I could propose something so unfinished and under-researched that I

would have to put it under review and to be set back five times. I would be embarrassed as a

professional. Those in these agencies as well as my governor should be ashamed. It’s my

opinion that this sort of work is unacceptable in regards to environmental justice. The citizens of

Flint are going through two crises right now that highlight environmental racism: the ongoing

Flint water crisis and COVID-19. My city doesn’t need another man-made crisis. I would like

to take the time to address a few points of concern.

“One, the decision to site the asphalt plant on energy drive poses environmental risks to the

surrounding community, and those risks have not been properly evaluated by EGLE. Medical

reports state asphalt fumes exposure can lead to cancer, lung cancer, and asthma. This

community is already predisposed to high rates of asthma and other issues from previously

having an incinerator plant and other industrial pollutants in the environment of their

neighborhood. The decision to site the plant likely violates the civil rights of the surrounding

low-income predominantly black community.

“The plant is very close to St. Francis Prayer Center. It’s 1,550 feet from River Park Apartments

and less than half a mile from Ridge Crest townhomes and is close to other meeting centers,

parks, and waterways. This community is already exposed to extremely high levels of pollution

according to EPA’s EJ screening tool. No agency has considered the cumulative risks or

impacts associated with adding another facility to this front-line community. The failure to

consider cumulative risks or impacts in permitting leads to discrimination against low-income

communities of color because those communities face the biggest threat from a permitting

decision.

“Without the cumulative impact study, there is no way for the most impacted communities to

demonstrate the injustice would stem from the issue of the perm. The six violations are

preestablished in that neighborhood in environmental justice issues. Title VI violations are pre-

established here. The neighborhood had Title VI violations in 1994 regarding a tire incinerator

plant in the same neighborhood. The governor and the agency she created to deal with these

situations has a duty and responsibility under executive order 2019-6 in which she creates EGLE

and tasks it with recommending mechanisms for members of the public community’s tribal

governments and groups including disproportionately burdened communities to assert adverse or

disproportionate social economic or environmental impact upon a community and request

responsive state action.”

I’m sorry there’s more here but I know we’re short on time, so I just want to get to the request.

Dr. Fred Jenkins, Jr., DFO, thanked Dr. Pauli for reading the comment. He asked that Dr.

Pauli email that public comment directly to him, so he can get it as part of the record. He stated

that he will post that comment in the public docket for full public view.

Mr. Michael Tilchin, NEJAC Vice-Chair, stated that they will make sure that it gets properly

posted. He confirm that all of the public commenters have had their opportunity to speak to the

Council.

Ms. Sylvia Orduño, NEJAC Chair, wanted to confirm because she still saw Ms. William's hand

up in the chat. They tried again to reach Ms. Williams. She instructed Ms. Williams to make a

point of trying to get her comments emailed to OEJ and, again, the recent email account

[email protected]ov.

Dr. Fred Jenkins, Jr., DFO, stated he will give instructions on that.

NEJAC WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS SUBMITTED FOR 11.10.2021 MEETING

Region 1: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont

Full Name (First and Last): Amy Laura Cahn

Name of Organization or Community: Vermont Law School Environmental Justice Clinic

City and State: South Royalton, Vermont

Brief description about the concern: With this letter, we are submitting written comments to

the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) on behalf of the Vermont Law

School Environmental Justice Clinic. As written comments, we offer the attached report entitled

Federal Dereliction of Duty: Environmental Racism Under COVID-19, authored by the EJ Clinic

with José Bravo and Jeannie Economos and published in partnership with Just Transition

Alliance, the Farmworker Association of Florida, WE ACT for Environmental Justice,

Indigenous Environmental Network, and Los Jardines Institute. Our report calls attention to

failure of EPA to comply with Executive Order 12898 and federal environmental justice policy

in issuing its March 26, 2020, memo entitled "COVID-19 Implications for EPA’s Enforcement

and Compliance Assurance Program", which initiated EPA’s deregulation of federal

environmental monitoring, reporting, and enforcement requirements, last year.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Our report outlines a set of detailed

policy recommendations to address concerns raised by EPA's enforcement discretion policy in

place from March to August of 2020. We specifically note a critical role for the NEJAC in

ensuring that environmental justice is considered in pending audits by EPA’s Office of Inspector

General regarding the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and EPA’s enforcement discretion

policies on compliance monitoring, reporting, and enforcement.

Full Name (First and Last): Martha Klein

Name of Organization or Community: Sierra Club Connecticut

City and State: Norfolk, CT

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: Environmental justice needs to address climate and

energy education in the most impacted communities.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Increase access to community solar and

increase support for energy efficiency for working families. Weatherize justly and electrify.

Stopping fossil fuel burning means less air pollution in environmental justice communities and

will mitigate climate disruption which is harming vulnerable people now.

Full Name (First and Last): Melinda Tuhus

Name of Organization or Community: CT Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M)

City and State: Hamden, CT

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only Brief description about the concern:

lack of climate education in K-12 schools

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? :

There is a critical lack of climate education almost universally in public K-12 schools, and, even

worse, the fossil fuel industry is often allowed to present its own biased materials to schools

lacking the funding to create their own science-based curricula. We are trying (so far

unsuccessfully) to mandate climate education in CT schools -- and I know these things are

decided mostly at the state level -- but if the EPA would create materials and make them

available to schools around the country, there are many teachers -- often with prompting from

students and their parents -- who would bring this critical component into their lesson plans.

Dear Administrator Regan,

Thank you for your commitment to leading the United States Environmental Protection Agency

through this period of complex transitions and to strengthening enforcement of environmental

and civil rights laws in communities overburdened by the cumulative effects of concentrated

pollution and the climate crisis. Please see the attached letter on behalf of over thirty

organizations and individuals. We draw upon our collective experience as advocates and

practitioners to make recommendations for institutional change within EPA, and for ways that

EPA should strengthen its oversight and enforcement role to advance civil rights and

environmental justice.

This letter also serves as a response to the request for comments on the Draft FY 2022-2026 EPA

Strategic Plan from National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), as well as our

submission to the External Civil Rights Compliance Office’s open comment period. We would

additionally request the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these matters.

Respectfully, Amy Laura Cahn | she/they

Region 2: New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands

Submitted values are:

Full Name (First and Last): Hildegaard Link

Name of Organization or Community: Resilient Red Hook

City and State: Brooklyn , New York

Brief description about the concern: Brooklyn’s EJ neighborhood of Red Hook can’t breathe

and soon it will suffocate under the weight of e-commerce’s environmental burden. Business

giants Amazon and UPS are considered “as of right” in their rapid acquisition of real estate and

construction of last-mile mega distribution centers, but current zoning and permitting regulations

are grossly outdated and do not consider the novel externalities that these goods storage facilities

impart upon surrounding communities. The community of Red Hook is already overburdened

with truck-related environmental threats such as intensive air pollution coupled with high asthma

rates (1 in 4 residents are affected), runoff, noise pollution, damage to infrastructure and personal

property, and pedestrian safety hazards posed by traffic congestion. When these distribution

centers are operational, they will demand upwards of 1000 more trucks on the streets per

building per day. As a local school principal asked in our last community-wide meeting, “Please

ask yourselves, ‘how much can one community take?’”

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : ● an update to the EPA NEJAC Goods

Movement Report to include the unique demands and impacts of e-commerce, last-mile

distribution centers, and public infrastructure use ● a long overdue comprehensive traffic study

for the neighborhood of Red Hook ● National and regional commitment to supporting the re-

creation of the New York Harbor regional waterborne freight network that will include business

and job opportunities and incentives for residents of at-risk waterfront neighborhoods in NYC

and beyond ● a moratorium on future projects and/or special permits required prior to

construction of any sort of warehouses/distribution center such as these, especially in waterfront

neighborhoods, that have residential or mixed use zoned properties. We propose a moratorium

pending a full scale review of the socio-environmental impacts of e-commerce and last-mile

distribution trucking. Resilient Red Hook calls for the creation of a revised set of land-use

requirements, transportation guidance, and environmental control requirements to be

promulgated before beginning construction on any new or currently un-initiated e-commerce

facilities. We also insist that effective oversight (NYCDOT & NYPD) of e-commerce and last-

mile facility trucking be in place before warehouse construction is allowed to resume.

Mr. Gorman and Mr. Baquero Tirado, Please see a Request for Reconsideration of FEMA’s June

2021 Finding of No Significant Impact on the Programmatic Environmental Assessment for Utility

Repair, Replacement, and Realignment, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, DR-4339-PR, signed by

numerous organizations making up Puerto Rico’s Alianza Energía Renovable Ahora and the Unión

de Trabajadores de la Industria Eléctrica y Riego, among others. We respectfully ask for your

prompt attention to this very important request concerning the future of Puerto Rico’s electric

system. Thank you, Jenny Cassel, Earthjustice

Earthjustice

311 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 1400

Chicago, IL 60606

My Name is Ambassador Oluwaleye John please I we like if they can send me my code number

or Identification Number for Region (2) and other necessary for me, my comment

1 What are the provision plans and strategies for the region to get public office for complainer

2 The suburdnates for the region for mobilization will need to be funded ?

3 There should be a bus for movement for activities for mobilization and sanitization

Region 3: Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia,

Delaware,

Submitted values are:

Full Name (First and Last): Stephanie Herron

Name of Organization or Community: Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical

Policy Reform (EJHA)

City and State: National network

Brief description about the concern: As I shared at the June NEJAC meeting, a couple months

ago I joined hundreds of others in virtually attending two EPA Listening Sessions regarding their

Risk Management Program to tell EPA that if they want to prioritize Environmental Justice, then

they MUST prioritize protecting workers and fenceline communities by issuing a truly protective

Chemical Disaster Prevention Rule on the fastest timeline possible. I’m writing again now to ask

the NEJAC to join in that call by writing a letter to Administrator Regan and the EPA Office of

Land and Emergency Planning calling on them to issue a strong RMP rule to protect fenceline

communities on the fastest timeline possible. It’s 2021 and we know that People of Color aren’t

clustered together in certain areas by accident—and neither are polluting facilities. The legacy of

segregation and systemic racism run deep in this country. The “Life at the Fenceline” report,

published in 2018, showed that residents in the areas closest to RMP facilities are

disproportionately Black and Latino. As the “Preventing Double Disasters” report showed again,

these communities also tend to be located in areas that are at increased climate risk, as we saw in

Hurricane Harvey, Laura and others. We need a rule that addresses this by requiring facilities to

assess, and take ACTION to address, the increased risk of disasters caused by extreme weather,

which is only getting worse due to climate change.

Some other examples of what a strong rule would include are:

• Addressing the cumulative hazard to communities located near multiple facilities.

• Taking a hazard reduction approach.

• Requiring facilities to assess safer alternatives and go with the less dangerous

chemical or process wherever possible.

• Requiring commonsense emergency response measures like back-up power and

reliable community notification when incidents do happen.

• Involving workers in the development of Risk Management Plans and protecting

whistle blowers;

• Expansion of the Program to include more dangerous facilities and chemicals—

like the one that exploded in Rockton, IL a few days ago and the BioLab facility

in Lake Charles, LA which burned for three days and exposed to the community

to dangerous chemicals & smoke in the wake of Hurricane Laura;

• Requiring fenceline monitoring, which could help warn facilities in advance of a

major disaster AND help communities know what they’re being exposed to when

one does happen. Knowing what is in the air IN REAL TIME is the only way

community members can take action to protect their families.

Basically, we need EPA to issue a RMP Rule that acknowledges the ACTUAL risk EJ

communities face, which has never happened before in 30 years of this program. Our

communities do not have luxury to not live next to these facilities or to be exposed to them one

at a time; we do not have the luxury to not live in a changing climate. We live in the real world

and that world is putting our people in danger every day. EJHA and our partners are prepared to

use our full advocacy capacity to support EPA in any way necessary to make this happen. We are

counting on EPA to do what the reality and the moment demand. Anything less will be

unacceptable. Again, we are asking the NEJAC to partner with us in this effort by issuing a

recommendation letter to EPA. Like our affiliates, NEJAC has a long history of working towards

a strong Chemical Disaster Rule that protects workers and communities. We are also asking

NEJAC to consider focusing one of your work groups on prevention of chemical disasters,

starting by transforming the RMP Program. With my June comment I also submitted copies of

the NEJAC letters on Chemical Disaster Prevention in the RMP from 2016 and 2019, as well as

a copy of the Life at Fenceline report.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : I am asking the NEJAC to write a letter

to Administrator Regan and the EPA Office of Land and Emergency Planning calling on them to

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issue a strong RMP rule to protect fenceline communities on the fastest timeline possible. I also

ask the NEJAC to consider focusing one of your work groups on preventing chemical disasters.

Dear Members of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, I hope this email finds

you well. My name is Uloma Uche, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with Environmental Working

Group, a non-profit health research and advocacy organization with headquarters in Washington,

D.C . At EWG, we developed a framework that combined data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s

American Community Survey, available mapped service areas for over 7,000 community tap

water systems, and results of water quality tests conducted by those systems. Using California

and Texas as case studies, this framework identified disparities in drinking water quality which

was assessed in terms of cumulative cancer risk due to the presence of multiple carcinogenic

contaminants. These case studies emphasize the importance of including a drinking water metric

in screening tools, like EJSCREEN, that currently lack them. This framework can feasibly be

applied using publicly available data to help improve drinking water quality for all communities

and advance environmental health justice priorities. This work has been published in the

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Here is the link to the

manuscript: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10401/htm. Attached to this email is the

pdf of the manuscript. Comments about this work was also provided during the NEJAC August

18, 2021, public meeting. Thank you,

Uloma Uche, Ph.D., Environmental Working Group, 1436 U Street NW, Suite 203

Washington, DC 20009

Hello,

Please find attached my written comments to NEJAC in the past two meetings (June and

September 2021), which I will reference in my comment today. As you know, EPA is has

publicly stated their intention to update their woefully inadequate Risk Management Program

Rule. Today I am reiterating my request for NEJAC to send a recommendation to EPA and

Administrator Regan to prioritize protecting workers and fenceline communities by issuing a

truly protective Chemical Disaster Prevention Rule on the fastest timeline possible. Stephanie

Herron, National Organizer, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform

(EJHA)

Good evening.

My colleague Deena Tumeh from Earthjustice was not able to join today due to illness,

unfortunately. I am here on the NEJAC comment line to speak in her place if possible. I just

wanted to let you know because I did not hear you call on her when her time came in the order.

I’m on the phone, and also watching on video, if you’re able to call on me at some point later in

the queue. Thank you very much.

Emma Cheuse, Senior Attorney, Earthjustice

Dear NEJAC Members,

Thank you for your tireless efforts and ongoing dedication to environmental justice

communities. I am writing to follow up on my comments delivered at the November 10, 2021

NEJAC meeting reiterating our August 18, 2021 request that NEJAC send a new letter to

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Administrator Regan and this EPA to prioritize a preventative and protective new Risk

Management Program Rule on the fastest timeline possible using the most updated

information, which is better protective of environmental justice communities. Details of the

request are below, and attached are our comments from the August 18, 2021

meeting. Additionally, thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment. This is an

important forum for public commenters to inform NEJAC’s work. As was mentioned on the call,

there were some technical issues and barriers to participation that would be helpful to avoid in

the future. For instance, we received feedback from people in our network that there were a

number of people who signed up to comment on the November 10th meeting as well as the

August 18th meeting that were not called upon. One person commented to us:

“This is the second time they did that [didn’t call on participants listed to provide

comment]. Last NEJAC public comment meeting we had registered 5 of us ... myself

and 4 or our organizers... Only two of us were called on and were able to make public

comments. I did not even join this time, when I saw how far down on the list I was and

have wayyy too much to do. I was hoping to write public comments, but more

importantly we are working on [other] public comments ... so, won't have time for this.”

We recognize that there are limitations and capacity issues for facilitators and those staffing

these meetings. In the spirit of making this process the most meaningful experience to all those,

and to address some of these challenges, we fully support the list of solutions to you provided by

the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA) and highlight

those below:

1. Hold public comment periods at the beginning of the meeting;

2. List the time of public comment on registration;

3. Send out an estimated time based on the order of public comment at close of

registration;

4. Send out a numbered list of public commenters at close of registration and follow

that order in the comment session;

5. Display the order of speakers via a numbered list displayed on screen (rather

obviously this order should be the same as the one that was emailed out);

6. Enable the chat features with the host or co-host only;

7. Have an option to write in a phone number in the registration form if the

commenter is calling in;

8. Provide more clarity in emailed instructions for those registered to speak.

Thank you for your attention to these matters and hope that they are helpful in ongoing virtual

public comment meetings. Sincerely, Maya Nye, Submitted on behalf of Coming Clean

--------

11/10/21 Public comments:

Good evening. My name is Maya Nye. I am the Federal Policy Director of Coming Clean, a

network of over 150 diverse organizations working to reform the industrial chemical and fossil

fuel industries so they are no longer a source of harm. We are sharing in the call for NEJAC to

send a new letter to Administrator Regan and this EPA to prioritize a preventative and

protective new Risk Management Program Rule on the fastest timeline possible.

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I grew up in the white working class fenceline community, just across the river from multiple

high-risk chemical facilities located in Institute, West Virginia. This facility was built in a

thriving Black community with a historically Black land-grant university by the U.S. government

in the 1940s to support the war effort. Today, this facility is still one of the top 25 producers of

cancer risk from air toxics in the country as a result of ethylene oxide alone.

Over the years, we experienced a myriad of explosions and releases of highly hazardous

chemicals used in plastics, pesticides and other agricultural and commercial products. The

cumulative effects from these events are only compounded for Black folks living on the

fenceline in Institute who also experience this as systematic environmental racism.

I grew up being taught how to duct tape around the windows when the alarms at the plant went

off so that, like Toby the Turtle who took refuge in his shell when things went wrong, I could

"shelter-in-place" during these chemical explosions and leaks. That is something that no kid

should ever have to learn, but for kids who grow up on the fenceline, which are

disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color, it has become

an essential tool for survival since we fail to prevent these disasters before they occur.

I want to thank the NEJAC for lifting up the need for a fully implemented and enforced Risk

Management Program (or the Chemical Disaster Rule) in your "First 100 Days"

letter. Unfortunately, the information that you cited in this letter was outdated. Fenceline

communities need this rule to be stronger and need to address what communities across the

country have been asking for for decades. These suggestions are outlined in the letter I submitted

after the last NEJAC meeting and will resubmit after this one. We hope that we can count on you

to send a new letter calling on Administrator Regan and this EPA to prioritize a

preventative and protective new RMP rule on the fastest timeline possible.

Full Name (First and Last): Kimberly Stoner

Name of Organization or Community: New Haven City and State: New Haven, CT

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only Brief description about the concern:

Old, inefficient housing in environmental justice communities in Connecticut and other

Northeastern states. Difficulty of removing all the barriers to weatherization, planning the

process, accessing opportunities for funding, and not enough workforce to do the work. Also,

access to solar for renters and landlords. And, waste management crisis, which is always dumped

on environmental justice communities.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? :

Set up concierge or guide services, run by organizations that are part of environmental justice

communities, that can guide people who need help through the whole process of removing

barriers, weatherizing, and finding funding to support this. They also need good information

about how this will benefit them - better health, lower energy bills, and more climate resilience.

Set up national program to deal with waste management - otherwise waste gets dumped in EJ

communities - either as landfills or toxics in air and water.

Dear National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to

comment. My comments are pasted below and attached. Sincerely, Kimberly Stoner, New

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Haven, Connecticut, To the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council,

I live in Connecticut, where we have major environmental justice issues.

1. Environmental justice communities in the cities of Connecticut, including New Haven,

where I live, are full of older housing, often poorly maintained, with low energy

efficiency and barriers to weatherization like asbestos, lead paint, infestations of insects

and rats, and mold. There are so many obstacles to getting people onto a path toward

removing all those obstacles, making their homes healthier, insulating them properly so

that they are more energy efficient, spending less money, becoming more resilient to

extremes in weather, and also reducing their carbon footprint. Simply providing funding

for energy efficiency will not be enough. In Connecticut, we have talked about providing

“concierge” services to guide low income people, including renters and landlords as well

as homeowners through all the decisions, sequences of actions to take, programs

available to them that can help with funding, and providing education and encouragement

that going down this path will improve their lives in so many ways, as well as helping the

environment. “Concierge” might not be the right word, but it is the right concept — a

helpful guide. Organizations that already exist in environmental justice communities need

to be funded and trained to do this work — they need to exist in every community.

2. People from underserved communities need to be trained in all aspects of this work —

the concierge services, making renovations to remove barriers to weatherization, doing

the energy efficiency analysis, and doing the weatherization itself. Organizations doing

all this work need to know that they will have stable funding, so that they can build

capacity and build credibility in their communities for this work over the long run,

because there is a lot of work to do, and many good jobs that could be funded to do it.

3. People in environmental justice communities, whether they are renters, landlords, or

homeowners, need to have access to clean renewable energy alternatives. They need to

have access to community solar and to the advantages of rooftop solar on multifamily

buildings in a way that benefits both landlords and renters. They need to have outdoor

access to electric charging systems for electric cars or other electric vehicles like bicycles

or scooters.

4. In my state, we are very close to a waste management catastrophe. The municipal solid

waste from much of the state was being burned in a “waste-to-energy” plant in Hartford

that was producing toxic air pollution in the city. Now it is financially unsustainable and

will be discontinued within months. As a result, the waste from those towns will be

trucked, at huge expense and with lots of pollution, to a landfill in another environmental

justice community. We keep looking for local and state answers, but ultimately, waste

management is a national issue, and it has to be seen as a national environmental justice

issue. Underserved communities bear the harm — whether it is in landfills or

incineration. We need massive waste reduction on a national level — requiring

manufacturers to take back their products and recycle the packaging and the components.

We need a recycling infrastructure which can safely, without damaging the local

environment, handle the major forms of recyclable materials. We need a national

commitment to composting food waste and other compostable materials. We need to

figure out how to get all these waste materials to where they can be reused, recycled, or

composted without large numbers of highly polluting trucks. We need people trained to

do this work in a safe, healthy, environmentally sound way.

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Region 4: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South

Carolina, Tennessee,

Dear Chair Orduño and Council Members, Thank you for your valuable service on the National

Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) and your important work to advance

environmental justice priorities for our nation. On behalf of Audubon Delta, Mississippi Sierra

Club, American Rivers, and Healthy Gulf, we deeply appreciate the opportunity to submit this

letter and supporting materials (attached) in advance of your virtual public meeting scheduled on

August 18-19, 2021, regarding a dangerous, destructive project being proposed in the Mississippi

Delta known as the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant (“Yazoo Pumps”). Our organizations

reiterate our unwavering support of EPA’s Clean Water Act 404(c) authority to have issued a

veto in 2008 that stopped the destructive, ineffective Yazoo Pumps project and thus protected

tens of thousands of acres of nationally significant wetlands – 1 of 13 vetoes ever issued under

the law. Congressionally authorized in 1941, the antiquated $440 million-dollar Pumps continue

to be touted as the only solution to address flooding problems in vulnerable communities of the

Yazoo Backwater Area. Tragically, unprecedented and unlawful actions by the previous

Administration revived the project, dangling a false promise of hope to the people of the Yazoo

Backwater Area by perpetuating a demonstrably untrue narrative that the Yazoo Pumps are

designed to, and somehow magically will, protect communities from flooding. We have called

for EPA to immediately restore the 2008 veto protection that was revoked by the Trump

Administration, reconfirm that the veto applies to the Corps’ current plan, and as a critical matter

of environmental justice, work with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to develop an

interagency task force to implement prompt, effective flood relief to underserved communities in

the Yazoo Backwater Area through existing federal programs. We respectfully ask NEJAC to

join us in making a similar request to EPA Administrator Regan. Specifically, this task force

could help redress a series of long-standing environmental injustices by drawing on an

alternative Resilience Strategy that our organizations have developed, which identifies prompt,

affordable, and effective flood risk management solutions that can be implemented through

existing federal programs to provide lasting, meaningful relief to underserved Yazoo backwater

communities while protecting the region’s hemispherically important wetlands (see

attached). Importantly, the Resilience Strategy features elements (e.g., FEMA Building

Resilient Infrastructure and Communities and Flood Mitigation Assistance programs) that

support and advance the Biden Administration’s environmental justice priorities, including the

Justice40 Initiative and Executive Order 14008 “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and

Abroad”. Studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) in 2020 and 2007 demonstrate

that construction and operation of the Yazoo Pumps would severely undermine the Biden

Administration’s most fundamental environmental justice and social justice priorities. Further,

EPA’s veto was based on an extensive administrative record of decision that remains as valid

today as it was when it was issued in 2008 (see attached, Fact Sheet, Immediate Action is

Required to Stop the Yazoo Pumps).

[1]

The Yazoo Pumps are not designed to protect people,

[1]

EPA Final Determination of The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for Water

Pursuant to Section 404(C) of the Clean Water Act Concerning the Proposed Yazoo Backwater Area Pumps Project,

Issaquena County, MS (8/31/2008)

105

homes, or communities—and they will not do so. The Corps’ own data shows that had the

Pumps been operating in 2019 (a 25-year flood event), 83% of the lands that flooded in the

Yazoo Backwater Area would still have flooded, and it would have taken more than 2 months for

the Pumps to drain the water from the remaining acres (see attached, 2019 Flood Inundation

Map).

[2]

This reinforces the Corps’ 2007 findings that the Pumps are not designed to protect

communities from flooding but are instead an agricultural drainage project with 80% of project

benefits coming from intensified agricultural production on marginal lands. Also, it is clear that

the vast majority of any agricultural benefits will not reach communities of color, as 83% of

agricultural producers in Mississippi are white, according to the 2017 U.S. Department of

Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture.

[3]

The disparity is even greater in the Yazoo Backwater

Area. For example, 92% of agricultural producers in Sharkey County and 87% of agricultural

producers in Issaquena County are white. Equally alarming, the Yazoo Pumps will also increase

flood risks for highly vulnerable downstream communities, including predominantly African

American neighborhoods of North Vicksburg, by discharging 9 billion gallons of water a day

directly into the Yazoo River when the river is already at flood stage. This massive influx of

extra water also could breach the levee that protects the Yazoo Backwater Area from high water

in the Yazoo River, exposing the very same backwater communities that the Pumps are

purported to protect to the full force of a Yazoo River flood. This levee is so low that it is not

accredited to handle a 100-year flood, as acknowledged by FEMA and the Corps.

[4]

These

serious safety risks cannot be, and are not, offset by the alleged flood protection benefits of the

Yazoo Pumps. During the Corps’ 2020 study process, more than 230 conservation groups, social

justice organizations, and scientific professionals joined over 90,000 members of the public in

urging the Corps to abandon the ineffective Pumps and instead prioritize proven, available flood

solutions to meaningfully benefit Yazoo backwater communities (see attached, 2 letters). 94%

of the comments the Corps received during the draft SEIS process expressed opposition to the

Pumps and called for commonsense natural infrastructure and non-structural approaches that are

available now to help protect the lives, property, and livelihoods of vulnerable Yazoo backwater

communities. As outlined in the Resilience Alternative, these approaches include measures such

as elevating homes and roads, flood-proofing, and paying farmers to restore cropland back to

wetlands. In closing, our organizations thank you for your consideration of our request, to ask

EPA to immediately restore the 2008 veto protection and to work in partnership with CEQ

to assemble an interagency task force to advance this alternative suite of solutions that can

provide prompt, meaningful relief and lasting benefits for Yazoo backwater

communities. Thank you for your time and attention. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us

with questions or if more details are needed. Sincerely,

Jill Mastrototaro, Mississippi Policy Director, Audubon Delta, Ridgeland, MS,

Louie Miller, State Director, Mississippi Sierra Club, Jackson, MS,

Olivia Dorothy, CFM, Restoration Director, American Rivers, East Moline, IL,

[email protected]

Full Name (First and Last): JOHN OLADEJO OLUWALEYE

[2]

Corps’ 2020 FSEIS, Appendix C (Tables) at Table 5.3; Corps’ 2020 SEIS, Appendix G (Engineering Report) at 135,

Table 2-26.

[3]

U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2017 Census of Agriculture at https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/index.php

[4]

National Levee Database at https://levees.sec.usace.army.mil/#/levees/system/5905000041/fema (accessed

11/6/2020). Lack of accreditation means that the Yazoo Backwater Levee cannot protect Yazoo Backwater

communities during flood events at or greater than the 1% chance of exceedance (100-year flood event).

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Name of Organization or Community: Gender-Based violence as a public Health Issue

City and State: Mowe

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: I submit written comment In the web, I will provide

public comments during the meeting

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Provide Help

Good afternoon, thank you so much for reaching out. Note: All points are in more detail in the

written comment section.

• I am from the Route 9 area of New Castle, Delaware. Recently Fuji Film on Cherry Lane

in New Castle, Delaware obtained a permit which projected a 1,525% increase in

pollution that used the Credit System to offset this pollution increase.

• The community has questions about whether the credits were applied accurately.

• Even if the credits were applied accurately how can a permit be approved for 20ty years

without a plan in place to reduce or monitor pollution emission through technology.

• This becomes an ethical issue. Can credits obtained from Southern Delaware reduce

pollution created next to the Collins Park Community along Route 9 .

And the community has no idea of how much the 1,525% increase in most of the major

pollutants are going to impact their health because no one explained it to them. Therefore, we ask

will the NEJAC challenge the way DNREC uses pollution Credits in the Future? Can the

NEJAC look into the unjust way that states are using credits to grant permits in already over-

burdened communities? The community believes that What they are doing violates the Clean Air

Act. Thank you for this opportunity . Dora Williams, GODSPEED to us all.

Region 5: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin,

Thank you, National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

I thank you for your time and attention today in allowing me to speak to you directly. My name

is Anthony Paciorek, I’m an Environmental Justice Organizer with Michigan United in Flint Mi,

I’m also a member of a community anti Ajax asphalt coalition trying to stop the permitting of an

Hot Mix Asphalt plant in Flint Michigan. We have been fighting and resisting the permitting

process since we found it posted on our state agency EGLE (EGLE - Environment, Great Lakes

& Energy - State of Michigan website in a dark corner on July 1st.The neighborhood that its

proposed to go in is in a predominantly minority community in low-income housing. The ward

that the plant is in holds the largest amount of parks and green spaces in the city ,13, including

not to far away Kearsley reservoir which is a backup source for our drinking water. My State

agency tasked with informing the public failed to this date. Residents in that community are still

unaware of the plant's intention in their community.

Through the efforts of our coalition, we have been able to organize and mobilize citizens in the

city of flint and the surrounding neighborhood of the asphalt plant. We have successfully pushed

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back the permitting process 5 times, that's unprecedented in our state and should show the public

support in the matter. I wish in my job that I could propose something so unfinished and under

researched that I would have to put it under review to be set back 5 times. I would be

embarrassed as a professional, those in these agencies as well as my governor should be

ashamed. It’s my opinion that this sort of work is unacceptable in regard to environmental

justice. The Citizens of Flint are going through 2 crises right now that highlight environmental

racism, the ongoing Flint Water Crisis and Covid-19. My city Doesn't need another man-made

crisis.

I would like to take the time to address a few points of concern.

1. The decision to site the asphalt plant on Energy Drive poses environmental risks

to the surrounding community and those risks have not been properly evaluated

by EGLE. Medical reports state. Asphalt fumes exposure can lead to cancer, lung

cancer, and asthma. This community already is predisposed to high rates of

asthma and other health issues from previously having an incinerator plant and

other industrial pollutants in the environment of their neighborhood.

2. The decision to site the asphalt plant likely violates the civil rights of the

surrounding low-income, predominantly Black community. The plant is very close

to St. Francis Prayer Center, is 1,550 feet from River Park apartments and less

than .5 miles from Ridge Crest Townhomes, and is close to other meeting centers,

parks, and waterways. This community is already exposed to extremely high levels

of pollution according to EPA’s EJ Screen tool.

3. No agency has considered the cumulative risks or impacts associated with adding

another facility to this frontline community.

4. The failure to consider cumulative risks or impacts in permitting leads to

discrimination against low-income communities of color, because those

communities face the biggest threat from a permitting decision. Without the

cumulative impact study, there is no way for the most impacted communities to

demonstrate the injustice that would stem from the issuance of the permit.

5. Title 6 violations are pre-established in that neighborhood in environmental

justice issues. The neighborhood had title 6 violations in 94 regarding a tire

incinerator plant in the same neighborhood.

6. The Governor and the agency she created to deal with these situations has a duty

and responsibility under Executive Order 2019-06.in which she creates EGLE and

tasks it with, (D) Recommend mechanisms for members of the public,

communities, tribal governments, and groups, including disproportionately-

burdened communities, to assert adverse or disproportionate social, economic, or

environmental impact upon a community and request responsive state action.

The Anti Ajax asphalt coalition understands and expects that Governor Whitmer is the One with

the power and responsibility to ensure The Environmental Justice of our community. The

Citizens of Flint Recognize that Agencies such as the EPA and HUD have been involved and We

in the city of Flint appreciate the weighing in which again, shows the support of the public. We

understand a bigger problem in our state is that there are agencies that would check such issues

but are lacking the strength to provide checks necessary to the Gov agencies tasked with the

mission of protecting us. This feels Especially to the citizens of Flint like we are repeating an

unnecessary history.

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The coalition has been holding vigil events or as members of the coalition call it “Death of the

community” if This Plant goes up in that neighborhood, many feel it will kill the community.

The Fine Particulates that would be released into the local air that is already polluted .This leads

the community to be predisposed to high rate of asthma and other conditions from previous

pollutants exposure in the neighborhood by other industries.

My Request and expectation of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council is to

Continue to show public Support in the communities ongoing Resistance of The Ajax Asphalt

plant in Flint MI and other communities like ours Facing continual environmental racism issues.

We also request the further support of the EPA continue to find ways to strengthen its agency in

dealing with Matters like ours across the nation. We also request to be put on the list of

communities to be visited by the deputy directors’ visits of impacted cities. The citizens of Flint

have gone to the appropriate channels of objection, from gathering city council support, going to

township hall meetings, canvassing the neighborhood, talking with EGLE, hosting multiple issue

awareness to talking with our representatives, to taking it to the Governor herself. She ran on a

campaign of fixing the damn roads but fixing the damn roads shouldn't come at the expense of

our community or other poor and minority communities. The Governor's stance on industry

contradicts her campaign promises of being there for the community of Flint and other

environmental justice cities and we must hold her responsible. Thank you.

See attached file(s) (The comments submitted below are also in the attached PDF file called

"Jan'sTalkAnnotated(sent in).pdf"

Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0671

(Forgot to introduce myself: Jan Boudart, board member, Nuclear Energy Information Service,

NEIS.org, located in Chicago, IL 60647)

Thanks to Leticia for comment about the invisibility of energy. And to Scott Clow, this talk

started to be about the Diné lands, but developed into an overview of environmental justice

communities relative to the U.S. fission project.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

What is an environmental justice community?: (from Google) The term describes situations

where multiple factors, including both environmental and socioeconomic stressors, may act

cumulatively to affect health and the environment and contribute to persistent environmental

health disparities. (Google of "Environmental Justice Community Definition".)

It’s important to understand that environmental justice communities live near all aspects of the

U.S. fission venture from the Manhattan project through to today’s upgrade of our nuclear

arsenal., This includes communities near (1) mining, (2) milling,, (3) processing for the gas

UF6,, (4) fuel fabrication and experimental activities for fuel fabrication; communities and U.S.

military personnel victimized by so-called Depleted Uranium (which is obfuscating jargon for

U238, a non-fissionable isotope that steadily releases ionizing radiation in the form of alpha,

beta, and gamma rays and forms hot particles in ground dust and in the air). Military personnel

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are further exposed to Uranium 238 in tank bodies and ordnance exploded near them in ground

battles. (See footnote 9)

Among fissioning activities are included merchant, military and experimental reactors and those

used to produce medical isotopes. Refueling reactors requires about 1000 contractors from all

over the nation. Local jurisdictions had no say, during COVID, as to whether these people

hosteled in their mostly small communities and ate in the restaurants and bars. The draconian

rules that resulted were, well … draconian.,

EJ communities victimized by the U.S. fission venture also involve waste installations,

…(Pause) including waste from the military explosions dating back to WWII in both the U.S.

and the former USSR, experimental reactors, and merchant electric power plants that exploit

fission to produce heat. This radioactive waste includes military Low-level nuclear waste,

Greater than Class C waste, the gloves, booties and hazmat suits, debris and irradiated metals

from the discarded reactor vessel when Merchant plants close and HLRW (high-level radioactive

waste), such as spent radioactive fuel (SRF). [we have 11 active merchant reactors in Illinois (4

Fuk-style reactors), almost 100, (some are Mark I or II, the same design as Fukushima)

nationwide. Brown’s Ferry Units 1 and 2 are Mark I or II reactors and are presently applying for

an extension on their license thru the TVA.]

For an understanding of the evacuation zones for these reactors in case of an accident refer to the

Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. Yet there are plans for new projects in so-called small (they

aren’t small) modular nuclear reactors. But their emergency zones have been reduced to the area

occupied by the reactor itself, if they are ever built, on the theory that an accident is a non-

credible event. Pending

So there are lots of environmental justice communities and they are becoming more numerous as

we continue the folly of pursuing radioactive methods to produce the energy we have become

addicted to. In addition, we continue our addiction to the idea that technology will solve the

looming need for more and more energy.

But we need to change our focus away from technology and pour our resources into those

environmental justice populations. Nuclear technology and engineering got us this far and it’s

not a pretty picture.

I think it is a tragedy that this inland port is being considered. I would say the average citizen has

no idea what is being proposed. With how bad the air quality gets here in the valley, we cannot

encourage such an influx of trucks. If we cannot even manage the current pollution we have, why

deliberately add more. We already have high rates of asthma and other negative health effects. It

is the poorer communities who would bear the brunt of this increase, but the entire valley would

suffer as well. Please put health first above economic growth. We can learn to do without

commodities but we cannot live without health.

Region 6: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas,

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Full Name (First and Last): John Mueller

Name of Organization or Community: Supporter, Fluoride Action Network of the American

Environmental Health Studies Project

City and State: Tulsa

Type of Comment: Present Comment at Meeting

Brief description about the concern: Artificial water fluoridation needs to be addressed in a

workgroup and agenized.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? :

The following is my prepared comment I plan to read at the meeting.

Good afternoon. I am John Mueller, retired civil engineer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with more than

25 years in public works engineering, and an active supporter of the American Environmental

Health Studies Project by way of its Fluoride Action Network. I first want to remind you, or

inform you for the first time, as the case may be, that I have attended and commented at the

previous NEJAC public meetings held on June 17 and August 18 & 19, as well as the earlier

inaugural WHEJAC meeting on March 30. I also attended and commented at the July 6 Board of

Scientific Counselors (BOSC) public meeting. I have also nominated two experienced, expert

scientists to the BOSC in response to its current request for nominations.

Regarding the Strategic Plan draft, I have submitted one very brief comment so far, and plan to

submit more comment with more specifics because there are very real opportunities for this

groundbreaking Strategic Plan to facilitate resolving the EPA’s and CDC’s conundrum of how to

end fluoridation in light of the new evidence showing unacceptable risk of disproportionate harm

to Blacks and other vulnerable subgroups, especially brain damage in the unborn fetus in a

mother with excess fluoride exposure, and in bottle-fed infants and in young children, harm to

the developing brain similar to the harm from lead. My comment points out the need for

language to include application of the Precautionary Principle anywhere in the Plan where

contaminant threshold values for safe human exposure are being addressed, evaluated and/or

determined for regulatory rulemaking.

And here is what Wikipedia says, in part, about the Precautionary Principle:

"The principle has become an underlying rationale for a large and increasing number of

international treaties and declarations in the fields of sustainable development, environmental

protection, health, trade and food safety . . . In some legal systems, as in law of the European

Union, the application of the precautionary principle has been made a statutory requirement in

some areas of law.["

What I request of NEJAC from this meeting is to create a special fluoridation workgroup, or

assign it priority in the Water Infrastructure Workgroup, and place fluoridation on the next

NEJAC agenda for discussion to determine and articulate a recommendation to the OEJ, and

ultimately to Administrator Regan, after the NEJAC members have had time to review and

consider the submitted additional materials. That is all I have for today’s meeting. New

additional material will be sent by email. Thank you so much for this unique opportunity to

participate in your most important work.

To WHEJAC Members, NEJAC Members and EPA facilitating officials:

Please allow me to “kill two birds with one stone” since the additional materials in this email

pertain to both NEJAC and WHEJAC public meetings in November 2021.

111

Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute this public comment regarding the federal

agencies’ policies for allowing and promoting artificial fluoridation of public drinking water,

best known as the Community Water Fluoridation (CWF) program of the CDC’s Division of

Oral Health. I greatly appreciate your commitments of time and energy to help direct our federal

agencies’ efforts to resolve and eliminate or mitigate environmental injustices as public health

issues. My commitment to this cause may require no less volunteer time and energy on my part,

now in my retirement years, to pursue what stands to be the most gratifying accomplishment

resulting from my professional engineering career, for which the first and foremost performance

criterion is to “Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.” (F.S. Merritt,

Standard Handbook of Civil Engineering, 3rd Ed., McGraw-Hill 1983). That accomplishment

will be helping end CWF and seeing the dentistry industry undertake a paradigm shift from mass

medication via our tap water, to taking dental professionals’ skills and training to targeted,

disproportionately suffering, disadvantaged populations, to be instituted under new and

innovative dental caries (tooth decay) prevention and treatment programs for the underserved.

If you will, please first read my letter to Administrator Regan (2 MB pdf file attached) that I

emailed and sent the original via USPS early this year; it is just as relevant and informative today

as when sent in February. Along with the attached Annotated Bibliography containing links to

published science and relevant literature, my February letter to Mr. Regan provides supporting

information for what I am asking of the WHEJAC and NEJAC, even though I had no idea at that

time that this opportunity would present itself! The desired endpoint is for the defendant EPA et

al to graciously and honorably concede to the plaintiffs in the current TSCA lawsuit filed by

Food & Water Watch et al v. EPA et al, and presently in abeyance by the Honorable Judge

Edward M. Chen in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and awaiting final

publication of the NTP’s much anticipated state of the science report on fluoride’s

developmental neurotoxicity. Of particular note with this email, on page 7 of the attached pdf file

of Annotated Bibliography, is the study published in the August 29, 2019, JAMA Pediatrics,

funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, which concludes,

in part: “In this study, maternal exposure to higher levels of fluoride during pregnancy was

associated with lower IQ scores in children aged 3 to 4 years. These findings indicate the

possible need to reduce fluoride intake during pregnancy.” This conclusion, as with other recent

studies, begs invoking the Precautionary Principle, as new evidence of fluoride’s neurotoxicity

has created an urgency that has not yet received the necessary attention. Attention should also be

paid especially to the 2015 report by the Fluoride Action Network, Water Fluoridation and

Environmental Justice, (attached ej-report-9-25-15.pdf) as it presents viable alternatives to

fluoridation as well as well documented justification for ending the practice. This report has been

included in previous materials submitted to NEJAC and WHEJAC in previous public

commenting periods, but I am attaching it again here for ready access and further consideration.

Finally, in this submittal at least, I express my deepest gratitude to Karen Spencer for compiling

the Annotated Bibliography. I know Karen and her son have suffered tremendous pain and

hardship from their individual hypersensitivities to fluoride, and she continues to work tirelessly

to educate the powers-that-be about how and why CWF needs to be one for the history books,

sooner than later. And again I thank you for this opportunity. Sincerely, John Mueller, P.E.

Tulsa, OK 74137

Region 8: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming,

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Full Name (First and Last): Brian Moench

Name of Organization or Community: Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment

City and State: UT

Type of Comment: Present Comment at Meeting

Brief description about the concern: I'm Dr. Brian Moench. On behalf of Utah Physicians for a

Healthy Environment, and the 450 physicians and 3,000 members of the lay public within the

organization, I congratulate the Biden Administration for giving the issue of environmental

justice long overdue attention. But the Administration should not just focus existing on injustice,

it should also try to intervene and prevent projects that are destined to become monuments of

future environmental injustice. One such project being designed and given hundreds of millions

of dollars of taxpayer money by our legislature, is the Salt Lake City inland port. This is a

massive transmodal shipping hub and warehouse farm now planned for the Westside of Salt

Lake City, in the immediate vicinity of 250,000 people who already suffer the most pollution and

environmental toxin exposure of the 2 million people who live in the SL Valley. They suffer the

traffic pollution of our busiest freeways, are immediately downwind of several oil refineries,

near an enormous open pit copper mine and smelter, downwind of summer-long aerial spraying

of pesticides, numerous industrial smokestacks, are downwind of a major international airport

and secondary airport whose planes still use leaded gas. None of this would be tolerated on the

East side of Salt Lake City, but because of lack of political clout, the Utah legislature is shoving

this down the throats of those who are already the most victimized by our numerous pollution

sources. This transmodal shipping hub would be the epicenter of multiple new sources of

pollution--an estimated 70,000 more daily diesel truck trips, diesel powered switcher engines,

150,000 more cars, increased air traffic pollution, more pesticide spraying, and dozens more train

locomotives (incidentally one Tier 0 train locomotive can emit pollution equal to that from

around ten thousand cars). This project clearly exploits the economic, and racial disadvantages of

this community, and Utah politicians remain unflinching in their determination to push it

forward. Other inland ports and warehouse farms, smaller than what is planned in SLC, are now

nicknamed “Diesel Death” zones because of the pollution they generate. There is absolutely no

reason to think that developing one in Utah will produce a different outcome. This port is also

intended to facilitate more fossil fuel extraction, something squarely contradictory to the Biden

Administration’s climate goals. The rationale being offered that the port is needed to produce

jobs is a smoke screen. Utah historically has a very tight labor market, the current unemployment

rate is 2.4%, and most of the anticipated port employment will be low wage warehouse jobs. The

real beneficiaries are well connected developers and powerful international corporations eager to

exploit this community for profit. Using the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, several federal

agencies could intervene and prevent this injustice from happening. Dealing with the obvious

consequences after the fact will only further victimize this community.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? :

We believe that the EPA can use tools within the Clean Air Act to prevent this project. More

specifically, the forces behind building this inland port intend to dilute public opposition evade

regulatory review and the protections that might be afforded through the CAA by building this

project piece meal. In other words, it seems that, by refusing to present the Inland Port project in

its entirety or estimate its emissions, proponents are keeping the extent and details of their

ultimate plans secret and will instead complete the project incrementally such that each of these

smaller projects will escape the review, analysis, well-informed decision making and public

participation that would otherwise be directed at the whole project. We are particularly

113

concerned that the Inland Port will never be subject to meaningful review based on its impacts on

air quality – particularly on ozone and PM2.5 concentrations – and on environmental justice and

disproportionately impacted communities. More specifically, we ask the EPA: will NEPA,

general and transportation conformity (required by the Clean Air Act) and 404 (CWA) apply to

this project?

Full Name (First and Last): Alice McHugh

Name of Organization or Community: Salt Lake Indivisible

City and State: Salt Lake City

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: EPA needs to look at the cumulative implications of

decisions being made by an independent Authority concerning the development of Utah's Inland

Port . UIPA has no accountability to the taxpayers funding it; no community representatives on

its Board; and unfettered access to millions of $$ from the leaders in Utah Legislature (none of

whom live in the Salt Lake Valley). This project will further pollute the air of an impacted

community on the Westside of SLC: the only predominantly minority community in Utah. It

already has quarries, freeways, an airport, two unlined Rio Tinto tailings ponds....and the worst

air in Salt Lake Valley. Rates of asthma and autism among Westside children is off the charts.

But EPA has told us, "there is nothing we can do because you have not been damaged". Well, we

are fighting to keep from being damaged. Scarce water resources, groundwater contamination,

PM2.5 and nitrous oxides are problems that will be inexorably worsened by this Port, yet EPA

has done NOTHING to help us stop this ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : SUSPEND all government approvals of

permits and conditional uses and DEMAND that studies be completed, ( e.g. human health risk

assessment, EISs )under Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Full Name (First and Last): David Scheer

Name of Organization or Community: Salt Lake City, UT

City and State: Salt Lake City, UT

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: The west side of Salt Lake City is a largely Hispanic,

low-income area. Over the years it has been systematically targeted for air-polluting

developments including freeways, oil refineries, power plants, trucking hubs and the airport.

There is no question that the area's residents' lack of a political voice has allowed these

developments to occur. Now an inland port is being planned adjacent to this area that will

generate enormous amounts of air pollution from diesel exhaust that will most directly impact its

residents. This is a clear-cut case of ongoing environmental injustice targeting a disadvantaged

community of color.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? :

The Utah Inland Port Authority which governs the developing port has steadfastly refused to

conduct and studies of the potential impacts of the port on air quality. The Salt Lake alley is

already in non-attainment for ozone which the port is likely to worsen. The EPA should actively

monitor the development of the port and require the Utah Inland Port Authority to conduct

studies to assess the likely impacts of the port on the air quality in the west side community

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Full Name (First and Last): Heather Dorrell

Name of Organization or Community: none

City and State: Salt Lake City

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: The Utah Legislature has not listened to our questions

about the environmental impact of the Inland Port. Instead, using our tax dollars, the Legislature

created its own committee and its self-appointed board members to build the Port, without public

input, from the beginning, 2018. There have been no independent, scientifically based

environmental impact studies, not one. We need to stop further inland Port development until

questions are answered. Poor air quality harms the body--the brain (IQ), circulation system, the

lungs, nervous system, life expectation.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Please invoke power of injunction until

independent studies can be carried out.

Full Name (First and Last): Marvin Goldstein and Jeanne Leigh-Goldstein

Name of Organization or Community: myself

City and State: Holladay, Utah

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: the effect on the environment and air pollution of the

proposed Utah Inland Port in Salt Lake City

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : I'd ask for you the NEJAC to advise the

EPA to stop any further work on the port due to it's potential to inflict harms(air and water

pollution, increased road traffic, damage to the birds utilizing the area) on those of us living in

the Salt Lake City vicinity. We've increasingly noticed how it's negatively affecting our

breathing and it seems government seems ineffective in protecting our health. We're really

needing some higher governmental intervention to stop this project and the Utah legislature's

attempt to overrule to desire of the residents in the area. I believe this is a non-attainment area -

we already don't meet the standards for reducing air pollution. Why isn't the government taking

action to protect us?

Full Name (First and Last): Eileen Keen

Name of Organization or Community: Salt Lake City

City and State: Salt Lake City

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: Salt Lake City, Utah, and its surrounding area exist in

valley bordered by mountains on the east and west. This "bowl" has been trapping pollution in

the valley for years. The severity of this effect has been increasing year after year as our

population grows (Utah has been named the fastest growing state between the census in 2010

and 2020.) This last summer, several times, Salt Lake was also rated the worst city in the

WORLD for air quality by IQ Air, a Swiss-based air quality technology company.

The Inland Port Authority authorized by the Utah State Legislature in 2016 has been

controversial since its inception. Lawsuits and protests have been sparked by a lack of

transparency and rushed legislation. If not halted by a decision from the Utah Supreme Court, its

completion will irreparably damage the quality of life in nearby communities as well as a

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multitude of wildlife habitats. The increased traffic of diesel-fueled semi-trucks receiving freight

from rail transport for distribution nationwide, will significantly add to the already deadly air

quality currently experienced in our valley. The "diesel death zones" of Los Angeles County will

be exported to the Salt Lake valley.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : I ask the EPA to use its tools within the

Clean Air Act to prevent this project from being completed.

Full Name (First and Last): Rebecca Burrage

Name of Organization or Community: Member of Holladay United Church of Christ

City and State: Salt Lake City, Utah

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: I am grateful that your group asked for input regarding

environmental injustice in Salt Lake City . Many members of my church have become more

aware during the pandemic of the dire needs of our neighbors who live in the northwest quadrant

of our county. This section of the city has a high percentage of people of color, and a lower level

of income. They are also subject to the highest levels of pollution of any local group. Research

through the University of Utah demonstrated patterns of distributive inequity under different PM

2.5 and that school children in this area are more vulnerable to asthma, ( Casey Mullen, et al.

Environmental Research. 186 (2020) 109543.) and the results are poor academic outcomes. (C.

Mullen et al. Int. J. of Env. Research & Public Health. Sept. 22,2020). Now we are faced with a

major initiative, the building of an inland port on the edge of this community. Many experts have

no doubt it will lead to even worse air quality, despite claims to the contrary, because of the

inevitable increase in diesel truck and train traffic. It's being built on wetlands of an

internationally famous bird flyway, the Great Salt Lake, where mosquitoes abound, so the

already heavy spraying of toxic pesticides will no doubt increase in this vicinity. I fear that the

children and unborn fetuses who live close by will suffer the most. We have a high incidence of

autism in young boys in our area, and it's a concern that the pesticides may be causing that

problem.

Most people oppose the inland port, yet the business interests march on with slowly getting more

money from the people in the way of bonds . It would be extremely helpful if the federal

government could help hold this organization accountable for the environmental injustice that is

exploding before our eyes. But they seem to know how to get around a requirement that many of

us want ...a health risk assessment and environmental risk assessment.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Two weeks ago I wrote to our EPA

regional office asking for an Environmental Injustice Assessment but have not had a response.

Would you please ask the EPA to consider doing one of these assessments? Also please relay

that we are concerned about the change in the local nonattainment level for ozone, which was

changed by the EPA in response to a request from local businesses. Could this be changed back

to the original level which is consistent with the rest of the country? Thanks so much.

Full Name (First and Last): Dianne Gaschler

Name of Organization or Community: Retired person in Salt Lake City, Utah

City and State: SLC, Utah

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

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Brief description about the concern: I live one block away from I 80 freeway that runs

East/West through middle of SLC. I see, feel, smell, & hear the effects of increasingly expanded

freeway usage & bad air quality. The proposed Inland Port that would make SLC a shipping hub

has been birthed and promoted by the Utah Legislature behind closed doors, without public

details or explanation, in spite of SLC Mayor & county people being solidly against the proposal.

Other such “hubs” in LA and Oakland have turned out to be disaster areas, nicknamed “Diesel

Disasters.” We live in a geographic bowl that is already easily succumbing to below standard air

quality. We can’t breathe or tolerate any more polluted air.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Can you help us? We need your EPA

tools that have some teeth in them to combat this lousy air quality we have to live in. We don’t

need or want the extra congestion, Diesel engines, railroad lines that would come with this

disastrous Inland

Port. Please hear our pleas. Our Utah Legislature is determined to make us into sacrificial

lambs for their profitability. We need all and any help you can give us. Dianne Gaschler, SLC,

Utah.

Full Name (First and Last): Calverna Letts

Name of Organization or Community: Salt Lake City Community

City and State: Salt Lake City Ut

Type of Comment: Written Comment Only

Brief description about the concern: Please. We live in a bowl (mountains on both sides of the

valley). It captures tons and tons and tons of deadly pollution. Our population is exploding,

adding further to the problem. The inland port will be the literal death of our community.

Increased pollution. Overuse of water, a scarce resource. Destruction of vital habitat for

migrating birds. And more. Please make well- being of the community a higher priority than a

few white, rich men getting richer. Thank you for reading this.

What do you want the NEJAC to advise EPA to do? : Stop the inland port in Salt Lake City

for the wellbeing of all of its citizens. Make the administration aware that infrastructure money

will likely be used to create the profound human disaster. Trucks and more trucks pouring down

our already packed highways. Pollution added to already bad air. Don't let infrastructure money

be used for a massive polluting and water sucking project. It's not just.

As a citizen of Salt Lake City I am concerned about the inland port due to the health and

environmental impact of increased pollution. Salt Lake City is one of the most polluted cities in

the country, and during inversion periods the air quality is outright dangerous. I strongly

encourage the EPA to use provisions in the Clean Air Act to stop this project moving forward

and to protect the health and safety of Utahns.

As a longtime resident of the west side I strongly oppose the development of the inland port. The

air quality of the Salt Lake valley is already some of the worst in the country and adding this port

will only compound the problem. One only has to drive through Salt Lake valley to see the

economic inequality that exists between the east and west sides. The west side is full of

freeways, a large copper mine, two airports, oil refineries, and very little green space. The port

will only further endanger the health of west side residents who are at an economic disadvantage.

Please intervene before it is too late.

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Sincerely, concerned west side resident, Miriam Bastian

I am writing to express my vehement opposition to the Salt Lake City inland port. This massive

transmodal shipping hub and warehouse farm is planned for the westside of Salt Lake City near a

quarter of a million people that already suffer from the most pollution and toxin exposure out of

the two million residents in the area. These people deal with air pollution from the busiest

freeways and a nearby international airport. They are downwind from pesticide spray. They are

next to an open copper mine and smelter, as well as several oil refineries. And now, hundreds of

millions of taxpayer dollars are going towards this transmodal shipping hub that will add to the

pollution. How much pollution? And an estimated 70,000 more daily diesel truck trips, diesel

powered switcher engines, 150,000 more cars, increased air traffic pollution, more pesticide

spraying, and dozens more train locomotives (incidentally one Tier 0 train locomotive can emit

pollution equal to that from around ten thousand cars).

These pollutive projects would never be built on the East side, but because the West side lacks

the political clout comparatively, they bear the brunt of the pollution. The West residents already

suffer from pollution, and this new project will add to their suffering (and, because of the valley's

topography, all the of the residents will be affected--although the West more-so). This project

was created by a board of unelected officials that tried to pass the plans without a public vote.

Despite citizens' outcry, Utah legislature is unflinching. Everything about this project goes

against the Biden administration's climate goals: the climate injustice, the fossil fuel extraction,

and the carbon emissions, to name a few.

Legislature argues that the inland port will create more job opportunities. However, Utah has a

robust job market, with only a 2.4% unemployment rate. Most of the new jobs created will be

low wage warehouse jobs; the ones that will profit will be wealthy developers and powerful

international corporations, all at the expense of our community. Besides that, Salt Lake valley

has notorious air quality issues, so much so that an estimated $2 billion is lost for Utah's

economy annually because of the air pollution. (People don't want to move here when they find

out how bad the air gets.) In the larger picture, adding to the pollution for the sake of more jobs

doesn't make sense. Protecting our air and improving its quality would create more jobs and

generate more money for Utah's economy. Using the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, several

federal agencies could intervene and prevent this injustice from happening. Dealing with the

obvious consequences after the fact will only further victimize this community.

The EPA can use tools within the Clean Air Act to prevent this project. More specifically, the

forces behind building this inland port intend to dilute public opposition, and to evade regulatory

review and the protections that might be afforded through the CAA, by building this project

piece meal. In other words, it seems that by refusing to present the inland port project in its

entirety or estimate its emissions, proponents are keeping the extent and details of their ultimate

plans secret and will instead complete the project incrementally such that each of these smaller

projects will escape the review, analysis, well-informed decision making and public participation

that would otherwise be directed at the whole project.

I am concerned that the Inland Port will never be subject to meaningful review based on its

impacts on air quality – particularly on ozone and PM2.5 concentrations – and on environmental

justice and disproportionately impacted communities. More specifically, I ask the EPA: will

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NEPA, general and transportation conformity (required by the Clean Air Act) and 404 (CWA)

apply to this project?

Utah's already horrendous air cannot handle a pretty such as this! You'll kill us all! Please don't

build it here, we don't have the freeways to handle this either.

As a resident of Salt Lake County, I’ve grown increasingly concerned with how our government

is ignoring the ugly truth of Utah’s environmental crisis. Our politicians are moving forward

with plans to build an inland port despite the glaring facts that these kinds of shipping hubs have

ruined the towns around them in other cities. Because west Salt Lake County doesn’t have as

much money or clout, they are constantly abused and polluted behind the visage of creating more

jobs. Utah doesn’t need more jobs. We have the second lowest unemployment rate in the nation.

But we have some of the worst air quality in the WORLD. This I land port goes against

everything this administration stands for- it is environmentally and economically unjust. The

EPA has to step in and stop a corrupt government from lining their pockets while the people of

west valley choke on fumes. The Clean Air Act demands it and we shouldn’t risk our future

health for temporary wealth.