Race excluded as WH rolls out climate justice screening tool
ABC News
The Biden administration has released a screening tool to help identify disadvantaged communities long plagued by environmental hazards, but it won’t include race as a factor in deciding where to devote resources
The Biden administration on Friday released a screening tool to help identify disadvantaged communities long plagued by environmental hazards, but it won't include race as a factor in deciding where to devote resources.
Administration officials told reporters that excluding race will make projects less likely to draw legal challenges and will be easier to defend, even as they acknowledged that race has been a major factor in terms of who experiences environmental injustice.
The decision was harshly challenged by members of the environmental justice community.
“It’s a major disappointment and it’s a major flaw in trying to identify those communities that have been hit hardest by pollution,” said Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston and a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
