A screening approach for identifying environmental justice issues in environmental impact statements

Technical Report · Fri Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:125940

Schexnayder, S S ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)

Executive Order 12898 and the accompanying memorandum addressed to Federal agency heads, both issued on February 11, 1994, require NEPA processes to incorporate environmental justice. The NEPA processes affected are: (1) public involvement formats, (2) analyses of potential impacts. The Executive Order clearly indicates that research strategies and mitigation measure should be developed with the input of the populations mentioned in the Executive Order, i.e., minority and low-income populations. However, an enhanced public involvement process may not occur because the NEPA activity may have been underway before the Executive Order was issued or because the agency chooses not to change traditional public participation mechanisms. It is also possible that enhanced mechanisms may not effectively elicit involvement. In either case, analysis that considers environmental justice must proceed. These analyses could be highly data-intensive--requiring new or modified methodological approaches-- and time-intensive, particularly if the process elements of the executive order are interpreted broadly, Federal agencies and NEPA project managers already have expressed concern about the potential cost of conducting exhaustive environmental justice related analyses where they may not be warranted. Also, the time and resources required to conduct a full environmental justice analysis is counter to recent trends to streamline the NEPA process. In light of this, a process to screen for indicators of the potential for environmental justice issues has been developed. The method incorporates separate screens for human health impacts, socioeconomic impacts, and social structural impacts. Positive results of any screen indicates the need for full-scale, environmental-justice-related analysis of that category of impact. The screen is intended as a useful tool in implementing environmental justice in environmental impact statements.

• Research Organization: National Association of Environmental Professionals, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 125940
• Report Number(s): CONF-9506115--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS
EVALUATION
REMEDIAL ACTION
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
US NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT