EPA to Offer Environmental Justice Grants

• Author: Monica Jackson
• Posted: 2024-03-15

Environmental justice is a concept that appeared in the United States in the 1980s. It aims to deal specifically with the idea that some corporations, politicians and other entities have committed injustices against the environment that have resulted in environmental harm and even economic and health harm to groups of people deemed protected and oppressed. In a social movement sense, environmental justice is an offshoot of systemic racism, whereby the term is used interchangeably with others like "white supremacy," so that social activists can redistribute funds to affected communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will be offering grant money to various organizations in order to curb and mitigate the "impacts of Covid-19 in environmental justice communities." Among these organizations and locations to receive these grants are Birmingham, Alabama, a place that is generally below the poverty line and has a population made up of a majority of African American residents, many of whom live in inner city housing projects that are nearby industrial centers of activity.

In a press release on Thursday, May 7, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said that these environmental justice grants aimed "to support public education and training-and emergency planning for communities" that are impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Wheeler, the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on lower income and minority communities and thus they need more assistance to get through this.

Opponents of such spending programs argue that people in these communities tend to not follow advice from the World Health Organization, the Surgeon General, or even their own state government. Some have pointed out that while many communities were taking stay-at-home orders seriously, people in these Birmingham communities were having block parties and taking advantage of emptier streets and parks, refusing to stay home and instead celebrating having the proverbial "run of the mill," as one opponent put it. So, many people do not believe that the environment has anything to do with it.

This is broken down into categories, however; they are not the same thing. Scientific evidence shows that it's demonstrable true that African Americans who live in these communities have a harder time dealing with Covid-19 and that they have a higher death rate. Though this is the point at which opponents of further spending point out that where they live has no bearing on whether or not they contract the virus. "If you stay home and observe social distancing, you will not get [the virus]," one opponent of the EPA grants said. "If you don't catch the virus, then it doesn't matter how well your body handles it."

Though the EPA doesn't believe this is a point with which to play politics. They see that groups are suffering, and they believe it's because they live nearer to industrial areas than other people, and so they're going to give these grants out, regardless of what the opposition claim. There's $1 million in total grands, with five different project grants given for $200,000 each.

The Efficacy of Environmental Justice as a Concept

This battle has waged for almost 40 years. Thomas Sowell, an African American social theorist and economist, has been speaking about this issue for years. He tells a story post-segregation where the government was going to build housing projects for African Americans. The government, according to Sowell, allowed African Americans to hand-pick their locations, after some started to complain that rural settings were too far away from grocery stores and schools and places of employment. "They asked to be inside of inner cities,' Sowell claims. " Right next to the factories, because it was more convenient for them to live; everything was at their fingertips. And, now, we have to correct that bad choice, or else it's some brand of injustice."

Of course, Sowell's take on the matter is his opinion, and is an opinion with which many disagree, including the EPA who are already handing out these grants while actually preparing to spend much more. This is a fairly contentious topic, and it often leads to heated debates at universities and the floor of Congress.

For a lot of people, "environmental justice"is just an excuse to spend taxpayer money on pet projects. For others, however, the reality of living in inner cities has borne real life consequences of poorer health, and so we see that they're dealing differently with the Covid-19 pandemic than members of other communities.