I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1972 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimination regarding 
exposure to hazardous substances, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 19, 2007 
Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ (for herself, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of 
Texas, Mr. SERRANO, and Mrs. CHRISTENSEN) introduced the following 
bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimi-
nation regarding exposure to hazardous substances, and 
for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Community Environ-
mental Equity Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSES. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) There is a growing recognition that urban, 
low-income, and minority communities tend to be 
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overburdened with polluting facilities such as waste 
transfer stations, power plants, superfund sites, 
brownfields, and toxic release inventory sites. 
(2) Poor and urban neighborhoods are forced to 
suffer the effects associated with increased waste 
processing because they often lack the resources to 
defend their rights and cannot quantify unhealthy 
environmental factors. 
(3) Addressing the problem of contaminated 
surroundings impacting low-income or minority com-
munities must be a priority of this Nation. 
(4) Health respiratory conditions such as asth-
ma can be traced to environmental conditions im-
pacting a community such as air pollution and bio-
logical contaminants. 
(5) Asthma is one of the leading chronic health 
conditions in the United States (affecting over 15 
million people) and the leading chronic youth illness 
(affecting 6.5 million children). 
(6) At risk communities need resources to gath-
er information useful in planning preventive health 
and environmental strategies to protect residents 
from polluting conditions. 
(7) Alliances of community-based organizations 
and community health centers are often in the best 
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position to develop neighborhood health profiles to 
assist heath policy makers in assessing the health 
impact of future growth or redevelopment. 
(8) Federal resources can help communities 
protect themselves from being disproportionately ex-
posed to contaminants which can cause respiratory 
health complications such as asthma. 
(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are— 
(1) to prevent any individual or community 
from being disproportionately exposed to hazardous 
materials; 
(2) to enable government agencies to protect in-
dividuals and communities from such exposure; 
(3) to give community-based organizations and 
community health centers the tools necessary to 
measure neighborhood impacts of environmental 
hazards; and 
(4) to enable such organizations and centers to 
maintain a health profile for their communities and 
in this manner prevent discriminatory exposure to 
hazardous substances. 
SEC. 3. DISCRIMINATION REGARDING EXPOSURE TO HAZ-
ARDOUS SUBSTANCES. 
The Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 201 et 
seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following title: 
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‘‘TITLE 
XXX—DISCRIMINATION 
REGARDING 
EXPOSURE 
TO 
COVERED SUBSTANCES 
‘‘SEC. 3001. DEFINITIONS. 
‘‘In this title: 
‘‘(1) COVERED ENTITY.—The term ‘covered en-
tity’ means any entity which handles, manages, 
treats, releases, discharges, disposes of, stores, 
transports, removes, moves, or delivers covered sub-
stances. 
‘‘(2) COVERED SUBSTANCE.—The term ‘covered 
substance’ means any of the following: 
‘‘(A) Any contaminant identified under the 
Safe Drinking Water Act (title XIV of this 
Act). 
‘‘(B) Any substance described in section 
201(q) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cos-
metic Act, and any material registered pursuant 
to the Act referred to in paragraph (1) of such 
section. 
‘‘(C) Any chemical listed by the National 
Toxicology Program of the Department of 
Health and Human Services as a known or 
probable human carcinogen. 
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