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Testimony: 

Before the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, 
Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EDT: 

July 25, 2007: 

Environmental Justice: 

Measurable Benchmarks Needed to Gauge EPA Progress in Correcting Past 
Problems: 

Statement of John B. Stephenson, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

GAO-07-1140T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-07-1140T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
Superfund and Environmental Health, Committee on Environment and Public 
Works, United States Senate 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

A 1994 Executive Order sought to ensure that minority and low-income 
populations are not subjected to disproportionately high levels of 
environmental risk. Studies have shown that these groups are indeed 
disproportionately exposed to air pollution and other environmental and 
health problems. The Order sought to address the problem by requiring 
EPA and other federal agencies to make achieving environmental justice 
part of their missions. 

In July 2005, GAO issued a report entitled, Environmental Justice: EPA 
Should Devote More Attention to Environmental Justice When Developing 
Clean Air Rules (GAO-05-289). Focusing on three specific rules for 
detailed study, the report identified a number of weaknesses in EPA’s 
approach to ensuring that environmental justice is considered from the 
early stages of rule development through their issuance. The report 
made several recommendations, to which EPA replied in an August 24, 
2006 letter. GAO also met recently with cognizant EPA staff to obtain 
updated information on the agency’s responses to these recommendations. 

In this testimony, GAO (1) summarizes the key findings of its 2005 
report, (2) outlines its recommendations to EPA and EPA’s August 2006 
responses, and (3) provides updated information on subsequent EPA 
actions. 

What GAO Found: 

EPA generally devoted little attention to environmental justice when 
drafting three significant clean air rules between fiscal years 2000 
and 2004. GAO’s 2005 report concluded, for example, that while EPA 
guidance on rulemaking states that workgroups should consider 
environmental justice early in the process, a lack of guidance and 
training for workgroup members on how to identify potential 
environmental justice impacts limited their ability to analyze such 
issues. Similarly, while EPA considered environmental justice to 
varying degrees in the final stages of the rulemaking process, in 
general the agency rarely provided a clear rationale for its decisions 
on environmental justice-related matters. For example, in responding to 
comments during the final phase of one of the rules, EPA asserted that 
the rule would not have any disproportionate impacts on low-income or 
minority communities, but did not publish any data or the agency’s 
assumptions in support of that conclusion. 

Among its recommendations, GAO called on EPA to ensure that its 
rulemaking workgroups devote attention to environmental justice while 
drafting and finalizing clean air rules. EPA’s August 2006 letter 
responded that it had made its Office of Environmental Justice an ex 
officio member of the Regulatory Steering Committee so that it would be 
aware of important regulations under development and participate in 
workgroups as necessary. GAO also recommended that EPA improve the way 
environmental justice impacts are addressed in its economic reviews by 
identifying the data and developing the modeling techniques needed to 
assess such impacts. EPA responded that its Office of Air and Radiation 
was examining ways to improve its air models so it could better account 
for the socioeconomic variables identified in the Executive Order. GAO 
also recommended that cognizant EPA officials respond more fully to 
public comments on environmental justice by better explaining their 
rationale and by providing the supporting data for the agency’s 
decisions. EPA responded that it would re-emphasize the need to respond 
fully to public comments, include the rationale for its regulatory 
approach, and describe its supporting data 

Recent discussions between GAO and EPA officials suggest that some 
progress has been made to incorporate environmental justice concerns in 
the agency’s air rulemaking, but that significant challenges remain. 
For example, while the Office of Environmental Justice may be an ex 
officio member of the Regulatory Steering Committee, it has not 
participated directly in any air rules that have been proposed or 
finalized since EPA’s August 2006 letter to GAO. Also, according to EPA 
staff, some of the training courses that were planned have not yet been 
developed due to staff turnover among other reasons. When asked about 
GAO’s recommendation that cognizant officials respond more fully to 
public comments on environmental justice, the EPA officials cited a 
recent rulemaking in which this was done. But the officials said they 
were unaware of any memoranda or revised guidance that would encourage 
more global progress on this key issue. 

[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1140T]. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above.
For more information, contact John Stephenson at (202) 512-3841 or 
Stephensonj@gao.gov. 

[end of section] 

Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Environmental Protection 
Agency's (EPA) consideration of environmental justice, particularly as 
it has been used to develop clean air rules. According to EPA studies, 
low-income and minority populations are disproportionately exposed to 
air pollution and other environmental risks. In 1994 President Clinton 
issued Executive Order 12898, which stated that EPA and other federal 
agencies, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, 
shall make achieving environmental justice part of their missions by 
identifying and addressing as appropriate, the disproportionately high 
and adverse human health of environmental effects of their programs, 
policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income 
populations in the United States.[Footnote 1] 

To implement the order, EPA developed guidance for incorporating 
environmental justice into its programs, such as the enforcement of the 
Clean Air Act, which is intended in part, to control emissions that 
harm human health. A key to ensuring that environmental justice is 
sufficiently accounted for in agency decisions and operations is that 
it be considered at each point in the rulemaking process--including the 
point when agency workgroups typically consider regulatory options; 
perform economic analyses of proposed rules' costs; make proposed rules 
available for public comment; and finalize them in advance of their 
implementation. 

My testimony today is based largely on our 2005 report,[Footnote 2] 
which recommended that EPA devote more attention to environmental 
justice when developing clean air rules. In addition, we met with 
cognizant EPA staff to understand what actions the agency has taken 
since the report's issuance to improve its treatment of environmental 
justice issues during its air rulemaking process. 

Our report examined how EPA considered environmental justice during the 
drafting of these air rules (including activities of the workgroups 
that typically consider regulatory options, the economic review of the 
rules' costs, and the manner in which proposed rules are made available 
for public comment) and their finalization (including how public 
comments are addressed and how the economic review is revised). The 
three rules we examined included a 2000 gasoline rule to reduce sulfur 
in gasoline and to reduce emissions from new vehicles; a 2001 diesel 
rule to reduce sulfur in diesel fuel and to reduce emissions from new 
heavy-duty engines; and a 2004 ozone implementation rule to implement a 
new ozone standard. My testimony today (1) summarizes the key findings 
of our 2005 report, (2) provides both the recommendations we made to 
EPA to address the problems identified and EPA's written response to 
these recommendations in August 2006, and (3) provides updated 
information on pertinent EPA actions. 

In summary: 

When drafting the three clean air rules, EPA generally devoted little 
attention to environmental justice. Our 2005 report concluded, for 
example, that while EPA guidance on rulemaking states that workgroups 
should consider environmental justice in the rule-making process, a 
lack of guidance and training for workgroup members on identifying 
environmental justice issues limited their ability to identify such 
issues. In addition, while EPA officials stated that economic reviews 
of proposed rules considered potential environmental justice impacts, 
the gasoline and diesel rules did not provide decision makers with 
environmental justice analyses, and EPA did not identify all the types 
of data necessary to analyze such impacts. In finalizing the three 
rules, EPA considered environmental justice to varying degrees 
although, in general, the agency rarely provided a clear rationale for 
its decisions on environmental justice-related matters. In responding 
to comments during the final phase of the gasoline rule, for example, 
EPA asserted that the rule would not raise environmental justice 
concerns, but did not publish data and assumptions to support that 
conclusion. 

Our report made four recommendations to help EPA ensure that 
environmental justice issues are adequately identified and considered 
when clean air rules are being drafted and finalized. The following 
includes each recommendation and summarizes the response provided in 
EPA's August 24, 2006, letter to the Comptroller General and cognizant 
committees of the Congress: 

* Ensure that the agency's rulemaking workgroups devote attention to 
environmental justice while drafting and finalizing clean air rules. 
Among the actions highlighted by EPA were that the Office of 
Environmental Justice was made an ex officio member of the Regulatory 
Steering Committee so that it would be aware of important regulations 
under development and participate in workgroups. 

* Enhance the workgroups' ability to identify potential environmental 
justice issues through such steps as (a) providing workgroup members 
with guidance and training to help them identify potential 
environmental justice problems and (b) involving environmental justice 
coordinators in the workgroups when appropriate. EPA responded that it 
would supplement its existing environmental justice training with 
additional courses to create a comprehensive curriculum to assist 
agency rule writers. In response to our call for greater involvement of 
Environmental Justice coordinators in workgroup activities, EPA said 
that as an ex officio member of the Regulatory Steering Committee, the 
Office of Environmental Justice would be able to keep the program 
offices' environmental justice coordinators informed about new and 
ongoing rulemakings with potential environmental justice implications. 
It said that the mechanism for this communication would be monthly 
conference calls between the Office of Environmental Justice and the 
environmental justice coordinators. 

* Improve assessments of potential environmental justice impacts in 
economic reviews by identifying the data and developing the modeling 
techniques that are needed to assess such impacts. EPA responded that 
the Office of Air and Radiation was examining ways to improve its air 
models so they could better account for the socioeconomic variables 
identified in Executive Order 12898. 

* Direct cognizant officials to respond fully, when feasible, to public 
comments on environmental justice by, for example, better explaining 
the rationale for EPA's beliefs and by providing its supporting data. 
EPA responded that it would re-emphasize the need to respond fully to 
public comments and to include in those responses the rationale for its 
regulatory approach and a description of its supporting data. 

Upon meeting with cognizant EPA officials on July 18, 2007, we learned 
that in the two years since our July 2005 report was issued, some 
progress has been made to incorporate environmental justice concerns 
into EPA's air rulemaking process but that considerably more remains to 
be done. For example, while the Office of Environmental Justice may be 
an ex officio member of the Regulatory Steering Committee, it has not 
participated directly in any air rules that have been proposed or 
finalized since EPA's August 2006 letter to us. In addition, according 
to EPA staff, some of the training courses that were planned have not 
yet been developed due to staff turnover, among other reasons. 
Regarding EPA's efforts to improve assessments of potential 
environmental justice impacts in economic reviews, agency officials 
said that their data and models have improved since our 2005 report, 
but that their level of sophistication has not reached their goal for 
purposes of environmental justice considerations. They said that 
economists within the Office of Air and Radiation are, among other 
things, continuing to evaluate and enhance their models in a way that 
will further improve consideration of environmental justice during 
rulemaking. When asked about GAO's recommendation that cognizant 
officials respond more fully to public comments on environmental 
justice, the EPA officials cited a recent rulemaking in which this was 
done; but added that they were unaware of any memoranda or revised 
guidance that would encourage more global, EPA-wide progress on this 
important issue. 

Background: 

Executive Order 12898 stated that to the extent practicable and 
permitted by law, each federal agency, including the EPA, "…shall make 
achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and 
addressing, as appropriate, the disproportionately high and adverse 
human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and 
activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the 
United States…" In response to the 1994 order, among other things, the 
EPA Administrator issued guidance the same year providing that 
environmental justice should be considered early in the rule-making 
process. EPA continued to provide guidance regarding environmental 
justice in the following years. For example, in 1995, EPA issued an 
Environmental Justice Strategy that included, among other provisions, 
(1) ensuring that environmental justice is incorporated into the 
agency's regulatory process, (2) continuing to develop human exposure 
data through model development, and (3) enhancing public participation 
in agency decision making. 

The Office of Environmental Justice, located within EPA's Office of 
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, provides a central point for the 
agency to address environmental and human health concerns in minority 
communities and/or low-income communities. However, the agency's 
program offices also play essential roles. As such, the key program 
office dealing with air quality issues is the agency's Office of Air 
and Radiation. In fulfilling its Clean Air Act responsibilities, the 
Office works with state and local governments and other entities to 
regulate air emissions of various substances that harm human health. It 
also sets primary national ambient air quality standards for six 
principal pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, 
particulate matter, ground level ozone, and lead) that harm human 
health and the environment. These standards are to be set at a level 
that protects human health with an adequate margin of safety which, 
according to EPA, includes protecting sensitive populations, such as 
the elderly and people with respiratory or circulatory problems. 

The Office of Air and Radiation has a multistage process for developing 
clean air and other rules that it considers a high priority. Initially, 
a workgroup chair is chosen from the lead program office--normally the 
Office of Air and Radiation in the case of clean air rulemakings. The 
workgroup chair assigns the rule one of the three priority levels, and 
EPA's top management makes a final determination of the rule's 
priority. The priority level assigned depends on such factors as the 
level of the Administrator's involvement and whether more than one 
office in the agency is involved. The gasoline, diesel, and ozone 
implementation rules were classified as high-priority rules on the 
basis of these factors. They were also deemed high priority because 
they were estimated to have an effect on the economy of at least $100 
million per year or were viewed as raising novel legal and/or policy 
issues.[Footnote 3] 

For high-priority rules, the workgroup chair is primarily responsible 
for ensuring that the necessary work gets done and the process is 
documented. Other workgroup members are assigned from the lead program 
office and, in the case of the two highest priority rules, from other 
offices. Among its key functions, the workgroup (1) prepares a plan for 
developing the rule, (2) seeks early input from senior management, (3) 
consults with stakeholders, (4) collects data and analyze issues, (5) 
analyzes alternative options, and (6) recommends one or more options to 
agency management. In addition, a workgroup economist typically 
prepares an economic review of the proposed rule's costs to society. 
According to EPA, the "ultimate purpose" of an economic review is to 
inform decision makers of the social welfare consequences of the rule. 

After approval by relevant offices within EPA, the proposed rule is 
published in the Federal Register, the public is invited to comment on 
it, and EPA considers the comments. Comments may address any aspect of 
the proposed rule, including whether environmental justice concerns are 
raised and appropriately addressed in the proposed rule. Sometimes, 
prior to the publication of the proposed rule, EPA publishes an 
Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register. The 
notice provides an opportunity for interested stakeholders to provide 
input to EPA early in the process, and the agency takes such comments 
into account to the extent it believes is appropriate. 

As required by the Clean Air Act, when finalizing a rule, EPA must 
respond to each significant comment raised during the comment period. 
In addition, EPA's public involvement policy states that agency 
officials should explain how they considered the comments, including 
any change in the rule or the reason the agency did not make any 
changes. After these tasks are completed, the rule, if it is 
significant, is sent to OMB for approval. Once OMB approves the final 
rule and the Administrator signs it, it is published in the Federal 
Register. After a specified time period, the rule takes effect. 

EPA Generally Devoted Little Attention To Environmental Justice in 
Drafting Three Rules and Considered it to Varying Degrees in Finalizing 
Them: 

When drafting the three clean air rules, EPA generally devoted little 
attention to environmental justice. We found, for example, that while 
EPA guidance states that workgroups should consider environmental 
justice early in the rulemaking process, this was accomplished only to 
a limited extent. Key contributing factors included a lack of guidance 
and training for workgroup members on identifying environmental justice 
issues. In addition, while EPA officials stated that economic reviews 
of proposed rules considered potential environmental justice impacts, 
the gasoline and diesel rules did not provide analyses of such impacts, 
nor did EPA identify all the types of data that would have been needed 
to perform such analyses. In finalizing the three rules, EPA considered 
environmental justice to varying degrees although, in general, the 
agency rarely provided a clear rationale for its decisions on 
environmental justice-related matters. 

For the three rules we examined, concerns about whether environmental 
justice was being considered sufficiently early in the rulemaking 
process first became evident by its omission on the agency's "Tiering 
Form." Once a workgroup chair is designated to lead a rulemaking 
effort, the chair completes this key form to alert senior managers to 
potential issues related to compliance with statutes, executive orders 
and other matters. In each case, however, the form did not include a 
question regarding the rule's potential to raise environmental justice 
concerns, nor did we find any mention of environmental justice on the 
completed form. 

Beyond this omission, EPA officials had differing recollections about 
the extent to which the three workgroups considered environmental 
justice at this early stage of the rulemaking process. The chairs of 
the workgroups for the two mobile source rules told us that they did 
not recall any specific time when they considered environmental justice 
while drafting the rules. Other EPA officials associated with these 
rules said environmental justice was considered, but provided no 
documentation to this effect. Similarly, the chair of the ozone 
workgroup told us that his group considered environmental justice, but 
could not provide any specific information. He did, however, provide a 
document stating that compliance with executive orders, including one 
related to low-income and minority populations, would be a part of the 
economic review that would take place later in the process. 

Overall, we identified three factors that may have limited the ability 
of workgroups to identify potential environmental justice concerns 
early in the rulemaking process. First, each of the three workgroup 
chairs told us that they received no guidance in how to analyze 
environmental justice concerns in rulemaking. Second, as a related 
matter, each said they received little, if any, environmental justice 
training. Two chairs did not know whether other members of the 
workgroups had received any training, and a third chair said at least 
one member did receive some training. Some EPA officials involved in 
developing these three rules told us that it would have been useful to 
have a better understanding of the definition of environmental justice 
and how to consider environmental justice issues in rulemaking. 
Finally, the Office of Air and Radiation's environmental justice 
coordinators--whose full-time responsibility is to promote 
environmental justice--were not involved in drafting any of the three 
rules. 

As required, an economic review of the costs, and certain other 
features, was prepared for all three rules. According to EPA officials, 
however, the economic review of the two mobile source rules did not 
include an analysis of environmental justice for various reasons, 
including the fact that EPA did not have a model with the ability to 
distinguish localized adverse impacts on a specific community or 
population. EPA's economic review of the 2004 ozone rule did discuss 
environmental justice, claiming that the rule would not raise 
environmental justice concerns. However, it based this claim on an 
earlier analysis of a 1997 rule that established the 8-hour ozone 
national ambient air quality standard. Yet rather than indicating that 
the 1997 ozone rule did not raise environmental justice concerns, this 
earlier economic review said it was not possible to rigorously consider 
the potential environmental justice effects because the states were 
responsible for its implementation. Hence, the inability of EPA to 
rigorously consider environmental justice in the economic review of the 
1997 rule appears to contradict EPA's subsequent statement that there 
were no environmental justice concerns raised by the 2004 ozone 
implementation rule. 

In finalizing each of the three rules, EPA considered environmental 
justice to varying degrees, but the gasoline rule in particular 
provided a questionable example of how comments and information related 
to environmental justice were received and handled. As noted earlier in 
this testimony, the Clean Air Act requires that a final rule must be 
accompanied by a response to each significant comment raised during the 
comment period. In addition, according to EPA's public involvement 
policy, agency officials should explain how they considered the 
comments, including any change in the rule or the reason the agency did 
not make any changes. In the case of the gasoline rule, representatives 
of the petroleum industry, environmental groups, and others had 
asserted during the comment period that the proposed rule did in fact 
raise significant environmental justice concerns. One commenter claimed 
that inequities arose from the fact that while the national air quality 
benefits were broadly distributed across the country, higher per capita 
air quality costs were disproportionately confined to areas around 
refineries. 

Despite comments such as these, EPA's final rule did not state 
explicitly whether it would ultimately raise an environmental justice 
concern, although EPA officials told us in late 2004 that it would not. 
Furthermore, EPA did not publish the data and assumptions supporting 
its position. In fact, an unpublished analysis EPA developed before 
finalizing the rule appeared to suggest that environmental justice may 
indeed have been an issue. Specifically, EPA's analysis showed that 
harmful air emissions would increase in 26 of the 86 counties with 
refineries affected by the rule. According to EPA's analysis, one or 
both types of emissions--nitrogen oxides and volatile organic 
compounds--could be greater in the 26 counties than the rule's benefit 
of decreased vehicle emissions. In one case involving a Louisiana 
parish, EPA estimated that net emissions of nitrogen oxides could 
increase 298 tons in 1 year as a result of the rule to refine cleaner 
gasoline. 

Under EPA's rulemaking process, the agency prepares a final economic 
review after considering public comments. EPA guidance indicates that 
this final economic review, like the economic review during the 
proposal stage, should identify the distribution of the rule's social 
costs across society. In the case of the three air rules, however, EPA 
completed a final economic review after receiving public comments but 
performed no environmental justice analyses. The publication of the 
final rules gave EPA another opportunity to explain how it considered 
environmental justice in the rule's development. When EPA published the 
final rules, however, two of the three rules did not explicitly state 
whether they would raise an environmental justice concern. Only the 
ozone rule stated explicitly that it would not raise an environmental 
justice concern. 

GAO's Recommendations and EPA's Response: 

We made four recommendations to help EPA resolve the problems 
identified by our study. In its June 10, 2005 letter on a draft of our 
report, EPA initially said it disagreed with the recommendations, 
saying it was already paying appropriate attention to environmental 
justice. However, EPA responded more positively to each of these 
recommendations in an August 24, 2006 letter.[Footnote 4] The first 
recommendation called upon EPA rulemaking workgroups to devote 
attention to environmental justice while drafting and finalizing clean 
air rules. EPA responded that to ensure consideration of environmental 
justice in the development of regulations, the Office of Environmental 
Justice was made an ex officio member of the agency's Regulatory 
Steering Committee, the body that oversees regulatory policy for EPA 
and the development of its rules. The letter also said that (1) the 
agency's Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation (responsible in 
part for providing support and guidance to EPA's program offices and 
regions as they develop their regulations) convened an agency-wide 
workgroup to consider where environmental justice might be considered 
in rulemakings and (2) it was developing "template language" to help 
rule writers communicate findings regarding environmental justice in 
the preamble of rules. 

Second, to enhance workgroups' ability to identify potential 
environmental justice issues, we called on EPA to (a) provide workgroup 
members with guidance and training to help them identify potential 
environmental justice problems and (b) involve environmental justice 
coordinators in the workgroups when appropriate. In response to the 
call for better training and guidance, EPA said it was supplementing 
existing training with additional courses to create a comprehensive 
curriculum that will meet the needs of agency rule writers. 
Specifically, it explained that its Office of Policy, Economics, and 
Innovation was focusing on how agency staff can best be trained to 
consider environmental justice during the regulation development 
process; while the Office of Air and Radiation had already developed 
environmental justice training tailored to the specific needs of that 
office. Among other training opportunities highlighted in the letter 
was a new on-line course offered by the Office of Environmental Justice 
that addresses a broad range of environmental justice issues. EPA also 
cited an initiative by the Office of Air and Radiation's Office of Air 
Quality Planning and Standards to use a regulatory development 
checklist to ensure that potential environmental justice issues and 
concerns are considered and addressed at each stage of the rulemaking 
process. In response to our call for greater involvement of 
Environmental Justice coordinators in workgroup activities, EPA said 
that as an ex officio member of the Regulatory Steering Committee, the 
Office of Environmental Justice will be able to keep the program office 
environmental justice coordinators informed about new and ongoing 
rulemakings with potential environmental justice implications. It said 
that the mechanism for this communication would be monthly conference 
calls between the Office of Environmental Justice and the environmental 
justice coordinators. 

Third, we recommended that the Administrator improve assessments of 
potential environmental justice impacts in economic reviews by 
identifying the data and developing the modeling techniques needed to 
assess such impacts. EPA responded that its Office of Air and Radiation 
was reviewing information in its air models to assess which demographic 
data could be introduced and analyzed to predict possible environmental 
justice effects. It also said it was considering additional economic 
guidance on methodological issues typically encountered when examining 
a proposed rule's impacts on subpopulations highlighted in the 
executive order. Finally, it noted that the Office of Air and Radiation 
was assessing models and tools to (1) determine the data required to 
identify communities of concern, (2) quantify environmental health, 
social and economic impacts on these communities, and (3) determine 
whether these impacts are disproportionately high and adverse. 

Fourth, we recommended that the EPA Administrator direct cognizant 
officials to respond more fully to public comments on environmental 
justice by, for example, better explaining the rationale for EPA's 
beliefs and by providing supporting data. EPA said that as a matter of 
policy, the agency includes a response to comments in the preamble of a 
final rule or in a separate "Response to Comments" document in the 
public docket. The agency noted, however, that it will re-emphasize the 
need to respond to comments fully, to include the rationale for its 
regulatory approach, and to better describe its supporting data. 

EPA's Progress in Responding to Our Recommendations: 

On July 18, 2007, we met with EPA officials to obtain more up-to-date 
information on EPA's environmental justice activities, focusing in 
particular on those most relevant to our report's recommendations. 
While we have not had the opportunity to independently verify the 
information provided in the few days since that meeting, our 
discussions did provide insights into EPA's progress in improving its 
environmental justice process in the two years since our report was 
issued. The following discusses EPA activities as they relate to each 
of our four recommendations. 

First, regarding our recommendation that workgroups consider 
environmental justice while drafting and finalizing regulations, EPA 
had emphasized in its August 2006 letter that making the Office of 
Environmental Justice an ex officio member of the Agency's Regulatory 
Steering Committee would not only allow it to be aware of all important 
EPA regulatory actions from their inception through rule development 
and final agency review, but more importantly, would allow it to 
participate on workgroups that are developing actions with potential 
environmental justice implications and/or recommend that workgroups 
consider environmental justice issues. To date, however, the Office of 
Environmental Justice has not participated directly in any of the 103 
air rules that have been proposed or finalized since EPA's August 2006 
letter. According to EPA officials, the Office of Environmental Justice 
did participate in one workgroup of the Office of Solid Waste and 
Emergency Response, and provided comments on the final agency review 
for the Toxic Release Inventory Reporting Burden Reduction Rule. EPA 
officials also emphasized that its Tiering Form would be revised to 
include a question on environmental justice. As noted earlier, this key 
form is completed by workgroup chairs to alert senior managers to the 
potential issues related to compliance with statutes, executive orders, 
and other matters. However, two years after we cited the omission of 
environmental justice from the Tiering Form, EPA explained that its 
inclusion has been delayed because it is only one of several issues 
being considered for inclusion in the Tiering process. 

Second, regarding our recommendation to (1) improve training and (2) 
include Environmental Justice coordinators from EPA's program offices 
in workgroups when appropriate, our latest information on EPA's 
progress shows mixed results. On the one hand, EPA continues to provide 
an environmental justice training course that began in 2002, and has 
included environmental justice in recent courses to help rule writers 
understand how environmental justice ties into the rulemaking process. 
On the other hand, some training courses that were planned have not yet 
been developed. Specifically, the Office of Policy, Economics, and 
Innovation has not completed the planned development of training on 
ways to consider environmental justice during the regulation 
development process. In addition, while the EPA said in its August 2006 
letter that Office of Air and Radiation had developed environmental 
justice training tailored to that office, air officials told us last 
week that in fact they were unable to develop the training due to staff 
turnover and other reasons. Regarding our recommendation to involve the 
Program Offices' Environmental Justice coordinators in rulemaking 
workgroups when appropriate, EPA's August 2006 letter had said that the 
Coordinators' involvement would be facilitated through the Office of 
Environmental Justice's participation on the Regulatory Steering 
Committee. Specifically, it said that the Office of Environmental 
Justice would be "able to keep the agency's [Environmental Justice] 
Coordinators fully informed about new and ongoing rulemakings with 
potential Environmental Justice implications about which the 
coordinators may want to participate." According to EPA officials, 
however, this active, hands-on participation by Environmental Justice 
coordinators in rulemakings has yet to occur. 

Third, regarding our recommendation that EPA improve assessments of 
potential environmental justice impacts in economic reviews by 
identifying the data and developing the modeling techniques that are 
needed to assess such impacts, EPA officials said that their data and 
models have improved since our 2005 report, but that their level of 
sophistication has not reached their goal for purposes of environmental 
justice considerations. EPA officials said that to understand how 
development of a rule might affect environmental justice for specific 
communities, further improvements are needed in modeling, and more 
specific data are needed about the socio-economic, health, and 
environmental composition of communities. Only when they have achieved 
such modeling and data improvements can they develop guidance on 
conducting an economic analysis of environmental justice issues. 
According to EPA, among other things, economists within the Office of 
Air and Radiation are continuing to evaluate and enhance their models 
in a way that will further improve consideration of environmental 
justice during rulemaking. For example, EPA officials told us that at 
the end of July, a contractor will begin to analyze the environmental 
justice implications of a yet-to-be-determined regulation to control a 
specific air pollutant. EPA expects that the study, due in June 2008, 
will give the agency information about what socio-economic groups 
experience the benefits of a particular air regulation, and which ones 
bear the costs. EPA expects that the analysis will serve as a prototype 
for analyses of other pollutants. 

Fourth, regarding our recommendation that the Administrator direct 
cognizant officials to respond more fully to public comments on 
environmental justice, EPA officials cited one example of an air rule 
in which the Office of Air and Radiation received comments from tribes 
and other commenters who believed that the proposed National Ambient 
Air Quality Standard for PM 10-2.5 raised environmental justice 
concerns. According to the officials, the agency discussed the comments 
in the preamble to the final rule and in the associated response-to- 
comments document. Nonetheless, the officials with whom we met said 
they were unaware of any memoranda or revised guidance that would 
encourage more global, EPA-wide progress on this important issue. 

Concluding Observation: 

Our 2005 report concluded that the manner in which EPA has incorporated 
environmental justice concerns into its air rulemaking process fell 
short of the goals set forth in Executive Order 12898. One year after 
that report, EPA committed to a number of actions to be taken to 
address these issues. Yet an additional year later, most of these 
commitments remain largely unfulfilled. While we acknowledge the 
technical and financial challenges involved in moving forward on many 
of these issues, EPA's experience to date suggests the need for 
measurable benchmarks--both to serve as goals to strive for in 
achieving environmental justice in its rulemaking process, and to hold 
cognizant officials accountable for making meaningful progress. 

Madam Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy 
to respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may 
have. 

Contacts and Acknowledgements: 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may be found on the last page of this testimony. For further 
information about this testimony, please contact John B. Stephenson, 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment (202) 512-3841, or 
stephensonj@gao.gov. Key contributors to this testimony included Steven 
Elstein, Karen Keegan, and Daniel Semick. Other contributors included 
Marc Castellano, John Delicath, Brenna Guarneros, Terry Horner, Richard 
Johnson, Carol Kolarik, Alison O'Neil, and Cynthia Taylor. 

FOOTNOTES 

[1] Efforts to identify and address disproportionately high and adverse 
impacts on specific populations and communities are commonly referred 
to under the term "environmental justice." 

[2] GAO, Environmental Justice: EPA Should Devote More Attention to 
Environmental Justice When Developing Clean Air Rules, GAO-05-289 
(Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2005). 

[3] President Clinton issued Executive Order 12866 on September 30, 
1993, to begin a program to reform the regulatory process and make it 
more efficient. Among other things, an OMB review is conducted to 
ensure that the rule is consistent with federal laws and the 
President's priorities, including executive orders. 

[4] 31 U.S.C. 720 requires the head of a federal agency to submit a 
written statement of the actions taken on our recommendations to the 
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House and 
Senate Committees on Appropriations within 60 days of issuance of our 
recommendations. 

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