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May 19, 2016
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a briefing presenting the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJSCREEN, a mapping and environmental justice screening tool that EPA developed to help fulfill its responsibility to protect public health and the environment. The tool, freely available to the public online, enables users to compare environmental and demographic information in locations across the country. EPA uses EJSCREEN to find communities that may qualify for extra consideration, engagement and analysis as the agency develops its enforcement, compliance and permitting strategies. Stakeholders outside of EPA may also find EJSCREEN helpful for community awareness projects, education, research, and many other uses. EJSCREEN can show users where minority and low-income areas are located, the demographics in these communities, and the environmental issues they face. The briefing's speaker showed how can you use EJSCREEN to learn more about environmental justice issues in your city, town, or Congressional district.
EPA released EJSCREEN in 2015, in time for its release of the Clean Power Plan, the United States' first-ever regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. Although there are many Clean Power Plan compliance options available to states, EPA is creating a model carbon trading scheme which states can adopt. Using EPA's model will allow states to be more confident their compliance plans will be approved. However, carbon trading schemes can have deleterious environmental justice consequences, as they could allow some dirty power plants to stay open for longer than they otherwise would under regulatory limits; these plants could continue to pollute surrounding communities, which tend to be low-income. EJSCREEN is an important tool as states and communities consider how best to address carbon emissions, and assess how power plants are impacting the people who live near them.
EJSCREEN was developed in accordance with Executive Order 12898, which President Clinton signed in 1994 to require all federal agencies to "collect, maintain and analyze information assessing and comparing environmental and human health risks borne by populations identified by race, national origin or income." EPA has created several environmental justice mapping tools, of which EJSCREEN is the latest, replacing EJView.
This briefing is the latest in a series examining the Clean Power Plan and its environmental justice implications.