US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan Thursday announced a new series of government actions to secure environmental justice for Americans. The series includes three actions targeted at providing Americans—particularly communities of color, low income and indigenous populations—a path towards justice. According to a statement from Garland, the new actions will prioritize action in communities suffering the greatest impact of environmental harm. The new actions are a part of the Biden administration’s whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.
The first of the three actions is a comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy developed in partnership between the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) and the EPA. Broadly, the strategy enacts President Joe Biden’s Executive Order Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad by ensuring all legal tools to promote environmental justice, both civil and criminal. More specifically, the strategy identifies certain principles and lays out methods by which to further and achieve them. Those principles include reducing public health and environmental harm for overburdened and underserved communities, strategic use of all available legal tools, meaningful engagement with impacted communities and transparency regarding efforts and their results.
The second action is the creation of a new DOJ office called the Office of Environmental Justice. The office will be a subdivision of the ENRD. ENRD Attorney Cynthia Ferguson is set to lead the office as acting director. The office will serve as the center for many of the principles laid out in the new comprehensive strategy.
The third action is an interim final rule from the DOJ that restores the use of supplemental environmental projects, environmentally beneficial projects which defendants in environmental criminal or civil suits agree to implement as part of the settlement with the DOJ. According to a memorandum issued by Garland, the projects provide the DOJ with a useful tool for ensuring more holistic compensation and remedy to environmental issues plaguing American communities and ensure some level of deterrence against future harm. The DOJ had previously limited these types of settlements under the Trump administration.
