ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Federal Agencies Could Benefit from a Strategic Approach to Assess Progress
Released: 2019-11-20T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Together, Executive Order 12898 and the 2011 MOU include eight areas that agencies’ environmental justice efforts should address, as appropriate, including promoting enforcement of all health and environmental statutes in areas with minority populations and low-income populations and ensuring public participation.

Executive Order 12898 did not create new authorities or programs to carry out federal environmental justice efforts. As a result, federal environmental justice efforts seek to use existing federal laws, programs, and funding to address environmental and health problems that disproportionately burden minority and low-income communities, such as exposure to environmental pollutants.

Such existing laws include the following:

Environmental laws. Several environmental laws regulate pollutants in the air, water, or soil and generally require a regulated facility to obtain permits from EPA or a state. For example, under the Clean Air Act, EPA, along with state and local government units and other entities, regulates air emissions of various substances that harm human health. These laws also authorize the issuance of administrative orders, among other things, to require cleanup of contamination.

NEPA. Under NEPA, federal agencies must evaluate the environmental impacts of their proposed major federal actions using an environmental assessment or a more detailed environmental impact statement, with some exceptions.

Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. To carry out and enforce the provisions of the act, federal agencies have developed programs to receive and investigate allegations of discriminatory actions taken by recipients of federal funding.

Working Group Agencies Reported Taking Some Environmental Justice Actions, with Limited Resources

Most working group member agencies reported planning and implementing some actions to identify and address environmental justice issues. Some examples of key activities include the following:

EPA mapping tool. In 2015, EPA released its Environmental Justice Mapping and Screening Tool (EJSCREEN), a web-based mapping tool that includes environmental and demographic data at a local level. Users can identify potential exposure to environmental pollutants and related health risks across different communities. Officials from the Department of Justice told us they regularly use EJSCREEN to help determine whether cases involve environmental justice issues.

Incorporating environmental justice in NEPA analyses. At least 13 agencies provided examples of efforts to consider environmental justice in their NEPA analyses. At the Department of the Interior (DOI), departmental policy requires all bureaus to include consideration of environmental justice in the NEPA process, and some bureaus have developed their own guidance for doing so. For example, DOI’s 2015 National Park Service NEPA Handbook requires that the agency’s environmental analyses discuss and evaluate the impact of proposals on minority and low-income populations and communities. The Department of Homeland Security also issued an agency-wide directive on NEPA implementation in 2014, and the accompanying 2014 NEPA instruction manual included public involvement requirements for populations with environmental justice issues.

Data initiative and reports on chemical exposure. At the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) built a National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, which brings together health and environmental data from national, state, and city sources. The CDC also developed a National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals—a series of reports that uses biomonitoring to assess the U.S. population’s exposure to environmental chemicals.

As we reported in September 2019, for fiscal years 2015 through 2018, 11 of the 16 member agencies of the working group reported supporting environmental justice efforts through existing related program funding and staffing resources (i.e., resources not specifically dedicated to environmental justice, such as for civil rights or environmental programs). EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) dedicated resources specifically for environmental justice efforts in their budgets. In fiscal year 2018, EPA provided about $6.7 million and DOE provided about $1.6 million.

Progress toward Environmental Justice Is Difficult to Gauge

Agencies’ progress in identifying and addressing environmental justice issues related to their missions is difficult to gauge because most of the agencies do not have updated strategic plans and have not reported annually on their progress or developed methods to assess progress.

Most Agencies Have Strategic Plans with Goals but Have Not Recently Updated Them

As we reported in September 2019, 14 of the 16 agencies issued environmental justice strategic plans after they signed the 2011 MOU agreeing to develop or update such plans. Of the 14 agencies that issued their plans, 12 established strategic goals in these plans. Six of the 14 agencies further updated their plans in 2016 or 2017, and another agency published updated priority areas on its website. The Department of Defense (DOD), which issued a plan in 1995, has not updated it since, and the Small Business Administration (SBA) has never issued a plan. DOD officials said that the agency has not prioritized environmental justice efforts. SBA officials said the agency is uncertain whether it has a role in implementing environmental justice and they were reviewing whether SBA should continue its membership in the working group.

The 2011 MOU directs agencies to update their strategic plans periodically, and leading practices for strategic planning suggest that strategic plans should be updated every 4 years. We have previously reported that strategic planning serves as the starting point and foundation for defining what an agency seeks to accomplish, identifying the strategies it will use to achieve desired results, and then determining how well it succeeds in achieving goals and objectives. In our September 2019 report, we recommended that eight agencies update their environmental justice strategic plans. Four agencies agreed, three did not state if they agreed or disagreed, and one disagreed. Education stated that it does not believe this is the most appropriate course of action for the department or an efficient use of resources, but we continue to believe they should implement the recommendation.

Most Agencies Have Not Consistently Issued Progress Reports and Do Not Have Methods to Assess Progress

As we reported in September 2019, 12 of the 16 agencies developed environmental justice strategic plans with strategic goals, but most of the agencies have not shown clear progress toward achieving these goals and the purpose of the executive order. It is difficult to gauge the agencies’ progress for three primary reasons: 1. The agencies have not comprehensively assessed how environmental justice fits with their overall missions. Seven of the 14 agencies that developed environmental justice strategic plans assessed and discussed how their environmental justice efforts aligned with their overall missions after 2011. However, the other seven agencies did not clearly show how their efforts aligned with their missions. We recommended that EPA, as chair of the working group, should develop guidance for the agencies on what they should include in their environmental justice strategic plans. EPA agreed with this recommendation. 2. The agencies have not consistently issued annual progress reports. Fourteen agencies issued at least one progress report after 2011, but most have not issued such reports every year, as they agreed to do in the 2011 MOU. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice issued progress reports every year from 2012 through 2017. The General Services Administration issued progress reports every year through 2015 and then issued one progress report covering fiscal years 2016 through 2018. Several other agencies consistently reported in the first few years after 2011 but then stopped issuing reports. DOD and SBA have not issued any progress reports.

We have found that annual program performance reports can provide essential information needed to assess federal agencies’ performance and hold agencies accountable for achieving results. We recommended that 11 agencies report on their progress annually.

Five of the agencies agreed with this recommendation, one partially agreed, three did not state if they agreed or disagreed, and two said they did not agree. Education stated that it does not believe this is the most appropriate course of action for the department or an efficient use of resources, and DOD stated that it did not see a tangible benefit to additional reporting. We continue to believe that they should implement the recommendation. 3. Most agencies have not established methods for assessing progress toward goals. The agencies’ progress reports generally describe the environmental justice activities they conducted but do not include any methods to assess progress (e.g., performance measures). For the 14 agencies that issued at least one progress report since 2011, we reviewed the most recent report and found that each report contained information on activities that agency undertook over the previous year. However, our analysis showed that most of the agencies had not established a method that would allow them to assess their progress toward their environmental justice goals, such as tracking performance measures or milestones. Of the 16 agencies that signed the 2011 MOU, four—the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Health and Human Services (HHS), and DOI and EPA—have established performance measures or milestones for their environmental justice efforts. Of these four, HHS and EPA have reported on their progress toward achieving their performance measures or milestones. The other 12 agencies have not established any performance measures or milestones.

The executive order directs the working group to provide guidance to agencies in developing their environmental justice strategies. However, the working group has not provided such guidance on methods to assess and report on environmental justice progress, according to EPA officials. According to these officials, EPA is still pursuing its own agency-wide performance measures. We recommended that EPA, as chair of the working group, develop guidance or create a committee of the working group to develop guidance on methods the agencies could use to assess progress toward their environmental goals. EPA agreed with this recommendation.

Working Group Has Coordinated to Some Extent but Does Not Have a Strategic Approach or Full Participation

We found that the interagency working group has coordinated to some extent but does not have a strategic focus or full participation by all the federal agencies. Executive Order 12898 directed the working group to coordinate in seven functions, including to assist in coordinating data collection and examine existing data and studies on environmental justice. In 2016, the working group released its Framework for Collaboration, which describes how it planned to provide guidance, leadership, and support to federal agencies in carrying out environmental justice efforts. The working group has collaborated to develop and issue guidance on several topics, participated in a variety of public meetings to provide information and opportunities for communities to discuss environmental justice issues, and coordinated ways in which the 16 member agencies and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) could assist communities. For example, the working group created nine committees, including on Native American and Indigenous Peoples, Rural Communities, and Climate Change, based on the seven functions in the executive order and on public input, to help carry out its environmental justice responsibilities under the executive order. Officials from 13 member agencies agreed to either chair or become members of one or more committees.

Through these committees, among other things, the working group has released a number of documents to help guide federal efforts:

A compendium on publicly available federal resources to assist communities impacted by goods movement activities, released in 2017.

Guidance to help federal agencies incorporate environmental justice during their NEPA reviews, issued in March 2016, and guidance to communities about NEPA methods, issued in March 2019.

A web page, which USDA compiled and launched in fiscal year 2017 with input and vetting from the Rural Communities committee, that provides links to community tools, funding opportunities, educational and training assistance, and case studies to support rural communities, according to USDA officials.

However, we found that the working group’s organizational documents— the 2011 MOU, the working group’s 2011 charter, and the 2016-2018 Framework for Collaboration—do not provide strategic goals with clear direction for the committees to carry out the functions as laid out in the executive order. In September 2012, based on a government-wide study, we reported that collaborative mechanisms such as working groups benefit from clear goals to establish organizational outcomes and accountability. We reported that participants may not have the same overall interests or may even have conflicting interests, but by establishing a goal based on common interests, a collaborative group can shape its own vision and define its purpose.

The working group has developed some documents with agreed-upon goals, which is beneficial to collaboration, but none of these documents address all seven functions of the executive order. In our September 2019 report, we compared the functions of the executive order to documented working group roles and responsibilities and found that coordinated data collection and examination of research and studies on environmental justice are not included in these documents or committee purposes and have not been a focus of the interagency working group since at least 2011.

EPA officials said some agencies, such as HHS and EPA, have done work in environmental justice data collection and research. EPA officials told us that the 2011 MOU, committee groups, and Framework for Collaboration reflect the current priorities of the working group, based on public input. The officials were unsure whether a coordinated effort in the data collection, research, and studies areas was needed, but they said such an effort could be useful. They said that the most useful role of the working group in research might be as a forum for sharing information and providing training opportunities. In our September 2019 report, we recommended that EPA, as chair of the working group and in consultation with the working group, should clearly establish in its organizational documents strategic goals for the federal government’s efforts to carry out the 1994 executive order. EPA disagreed with this recommendation because it believes that the recommendation should be combined with a different recommendation we made about updating the MOU. We believe that EPA misunderstood our recommendation and therefore did not combine it with our other recommendation.

We also found that member agencies’ participation in working group activities has been mixed. In the 2011 MOU, the 16 signing agencies and CEQ agreed to participate as members of the working group, such as by chairing, co-chairing, or participating in committees. Eleven of the 16 agencies have not chaired or co-chaired one of the working group’s committees, and four have not participated in any. Our government-wide work has shown that it is important to ensure the relevant participants have been included in a collaborative effort. EPA officials said it is difficult to characterize what specific opportunities are missed because of an agency’s lack of representation. However, they said that nonparticipation limits the working group’s ability to fulfill its mandates in a strategic, methodical way across the entire federal government. EPA officials also said that the limiting factor in the working group’s efforts to address the executive order has always been the will of leadership across the federal government to make clear, measurable commitments to those priorities and ensure adequate resources.

We recommended that EPA, as chair of the working group and in consultation with the other working group members, update the 2011 MOU and renew the agencies’ commitments to participate in the interagency collaborative effort and the working group. EPA disagreed and said this recommendation could be combined with the recommendation to provide strategic direction for the working group. We continue to believe that EPA needs to update the MOU to address the matter of participation by the members who signed it but do not participate.

In conclusion, incorporating environmental justice into federal agencies’ policies, programs, and activities is a long-term and wide-ranging effort. Federal agencies, led by EPA, have made some headway in developing tools and coordinated policies and have identified others that they need to pursue. Strategic planning and reporting, with meaningful measures, and collaboration across all agencies can help them make and track progress.

Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member Shimkus, and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

If you or your staff have any questions about this testimony, please contact Alfredo Gómez, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, at (202) 512-3841or gomezj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. In addition to the contact named above, Susan Iott (Assistant Director), Allen Chan (Analyst in Charge), and Elise Vaughan Winfrey made key contributions to the testimony. Other staff who made contributions to this testimony or the report cited in the testimony were Peter Beck, Tara Congdon, Hannah Dodd, Juan Garay, Cindy Gilbert, Rich Johnson, Matthew Levie, Ben Licht, Cynthia Norris, Amber Sinclair, and Kiki Theodoropoulos.

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