ABSTRACT
Environmental equity – preventing disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on people and places – has been a federal concern for at least three decades (seeChapter 16; also Berry, 1977; USGAO, 1997). In the early 1990s, coalitions of civil rights and environmental activists transformed environmental equity concerns into the environmental justice movement, ostensibly because of concerns about the placement of toxic waste facilities in low-income and minority communities (UCC, 1987; Bullard, 1990, 1994, 1996; Bryant, 1995). The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in 1991 and immediately was followed by the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Office of Environmental Equity. In 1994, environmental justice was institutionalized within the federal government through Executive Order 12898, which focused federal attention on human-health and environmental conditions in minority and low-income communities. It also provided for greater public participation and access to environmental information in these impacted communities.
