Biden Urged to Flood Agencies With Environmental Equity Advisers

by Dean Scott (Bloomberg Law) Would ensure equity weighed in rulemakings, policies; Transparency urged for environment justice decisions -- The time is ripe to bring a wave of environmental justice advisers into federal agencies to ensure the incoming Biden administration makes good on its pledge to improve racial equity across government, advocates and attorneys say.

Placing such advisers in high-level positions, with direct access to Cabinet secretaries and agency administrators, would elevate issues such as pollution that disproportionately affect low-income and minority populations, observers say.

They also say environmental justice advisers would help agencies—from the Transportation Department to the Small Business Administration—ensure their policies don’t hurt vulnerable communities but also don’t leave them behind on Biden priority issues such as clean energy, climate solutions, and big-ticket infrastructure packages.

“I think it’s absolutely the way you get those issues to the forefront of decision-making and have people thinking about them in all the departments—that completely makes sense to me,” said Megan Houdeshel, a regulatory compliance attorney with Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

Other attorneys have concerns about placing environmental advisers in every branch of the administration as yet another indication of the growing political power of advocates, said Maureen Gorsen, a partner at Alston & Bird LLP and former general counsel of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Gorsen, who represents the kinds of operations often targeted by such groups—from steel and cement operations to refineries and landfills—said those operations have to go somewhere.

“Nobody wants any of these things near them,” she said. “Where are they located? In industrial-zoned areas,” many of which historically have had poorer neighborhoods around them. READ MORE