"California is back in the driver’s seat as it steers the nation toward a future of cleaner cars and light trucks. The Biden administration on Wednesday reinstated the state’s authority to set motor vehicle pollution standards stricter than the federal government’s."
"Decades of federal housing discrimination did not only depress home values, lower job opportunities and spur poverty in communities deemed undesirable because of race. It’s why 45 million Americans are breathing dirtier air today, according to a landmark study released Wednesday."
"A new study finds communities of color face the greatest increase in emergency room visits for flood-borne illnesses, showing the growing health risks and disproportionate burdens of climate change."
"On the eve of the Selma Jubilee, commemorating the “Bloody Sunday” march that helped catalyze support for the Voting Rights Act 57 years ago, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toured Alabama’s Black Belt to witness a different kind of struggle: the battle for clean water and basic sanitation."
The Biden administration, which has been making environmental justice a top goal, has released a new screening tool that complements existing environmental equity databases, but with especially strong attention to a range of categories like clean transit, clean water, housing issues, life expectancy and more (although, interestingly, not race). The latest Reporter’s Toolbox has a guide to the new screening tool.
"The filters distributed in Benton Harbor, Michigan during the city’s recent lead water crisis worked properly, according to a study state officials said was conducted to give residents assurance."
"The RCMP’s costs for policing a remote resource road on Wet’suwet’en territory have steadily dropped over the past three years, according to information obtained by The Tyee through freedom of information laws."
"The Biden administration’s backing of a Trump-era move to expedite cleanup of the country’s biggest nuclear waste site has run into staunch opposition from Washington state and tribal officials."
"Three Democratic U.S. representatives introduced a bill last week that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to create a pilot program for air monitoring in communities overburdened with pollution."
"Long home to industrial hog facilities, North Carolina has seen a huge increase in large-scale poultry farms, with more than 1,000 added in 2020 alone. The state scarcely regulates the poultry industry and its waste, which threatens waters in low-wealth communities of color."
