Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act, the federal government has established requirements setting limits on emissions and discharges from municipal and private industrial facilities that might pollute the land, air, or water. EPA shares responsibility for administering and enforcing these requirements with the states that have been authorized to administer the permit programs. EPA’s implementing regulations cover activities such as setting levels and standards for air emissions, establishing effluent limitation guidelines for water discharges, evaluating the environmental impacts of air emissions, monitoring compliance with discharge limits for water permits, ensuring adequate public participation, and issuing permits or ensuring that state processes meet federal requirements for the issuance of permits. While EPA has retained oversight responsibility for these activities, it has authorized state, tribal, and local authorities to perform most activities related to issuing permits to industrial facilities. These authorities— referred to as permitting authorities—receive federal funding from EPA to carry out these activities and must adopt standards that are equivalent to or more stringent than the federal standards. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and EPA’s Title VI implementing regulations prohibit permitting authorities from taking actions that are intentionally discriminatory or that have a discriminatory effect based on race, color, or national origin. EPA’s Title VI regulations allow citizens to file administrative complaints with EPA that allege discrimination by programs or activities receiving EPA funding [40 C.F.R.§§7.120(1998)]. Title VI complaints must be filed in response to a specific action, such as the issuance of a permit. Because they must be linked to the actions of the recipients of federal funds, complaints alleging discrimination in the permitting process are filed against the permitting authority, rather than the facility receiving the permit. Complaints may be based on one permitting action or may relate to several actions or facilities that together have allegedly had an adverse disparate impact. Neither the filing of a Title VI complaint nor the acceptance of one for investigation by EPA stays the permit at issue. As of February 7, 2002, EPA’s complaint system showed 44 pending complaints alleging that state agencies had taken actions resulting in adverse environmental impacts that disproportionately affected protected groups. Of these complaints, 30 involved complaints that were accepted by EPA and were related to permits allowing proposed facilities to operate at a specified level of emissions. Other complaints involved issues such as cleanup enforcement and compliance. The 15 facilities covered in our study included waste treatment plants, recycling operations, landfills, chemical plants, and packaging facilities. These facilities were in nine locations, and some were in rural areas, while others were in urban areas. (See app. II for additional information on the location and description of the facilities). All of the facilities that we studied reported that they had provided jobs as a result of the creation or expansion of their facility. As shown in table 1, the number of full-time jobs ranged from 4 to 103 per facility, with 9 of the facilities having 25 jobs or less. Most of the facilities involved waste-related operations, which generally employ small numbers of employees. For four of the facilities, information was available from documents prepared before the facilities began operating on the number of jobs the facilities had estimated they would provide. In each of these cases, the number of jobs estimated was greater than the number of jobs provided. Specifically, Genesee Power Station estimated it would provide 30 jobs and provided 25; ExxonMobil estimated it would provide 50 jobs and provided 40; Natural Resources Recovery estimated it would provide between 15 and 40 jobs and provided 6; and Safety-Kleen, Inc., estimated it would provide 50 jobs in Westmoreland and provided 22. Officials from a few facilities told us that their facilities, in addition to providing jobs directly, generated additional jobs outside of the facility. For example, a document from ExxonMobil indicated that for every job provided at the plant, 4.6 jobs resulted elsewhere in the East Baton Rouge Parish economy. Also, Chemical Waste Management officials told us that their landfill increased business in the area and that this enhanced business could result in more jobs. We did not verify the facilities’ estimates of jobs generated outside of the facility. In some cases, the number of jobs at these facilities decreased over time. For example, jobs at the chemical waste facility in Kettleman City, California, decreased from 200 in 1990 to 103 in 2002; and jobs at a similar facility in Buttonwillow, California, decreased from 110 in 1987 to 23 in 2002. In addition, jobs at a fertilizer plant in New York decreased from 80 in 1993 to 39 in 2002. Officials from the two facilities in California told us that the changes resulted from a decreased demand for the facilities due to a reduction in the amount of waste generated by a more environmentally conscious public. We obtained information on the salary ranges and types of jobs provided for 14 of the 15 facilities. According to officials at these facilities, the salaries for the jobs provided varied from about $15,000 to $80,000 per year, depending on factors such as the type of work and the location of the facility. However, the information that the facilities provided was not detailed enough to allow us to determine the numbers for each job type, the salaries for individual jobs, or the number of jobs filled by people from the surrounding communities. The information indicates a wide range of salaries; however, community organizations in some locations told us that, in their view, the majority of the jobs filled by community residents were low paying. The facilities provided the following information: The ExxonMobil Corporation told us that their facility in Louisiana had both hourly and salaried jobs. According to ExxonMobil, its hourly jobs included mechanics, electricians, and laboratory technicians; and its average wage was about $23 an hour, which is equivalent to $47,840 per year. Salaried jobs included engineers, a chemist, accountants, and administrative assistants, and the average salary was just under $70,000 annually. The Texas Industries Package Plant, located in Texas, told us that its jobs included plant manager, sales representative, dispatcher, packaging coordinator, maintenance mechanic, plant operator, crew operators, crew members, and administrative positions. The salaries ranged from about $10 to $15 per hour, which is equivalent to $20,800 and $31,200 per year, respectively. The three hazardous waste treatment facilities in California reported that the jobs at their facilities—facility manager, manager, heavy equipment operators, plant operators, truck receiving operators, customer service representatives, and waste acceptance specialists— had salaries ranging from $28,000 to $82,000 annually. The nine nonhazardous waste-related facilities located in Connecticut, Louisiana, Michigan, and New York reported having jobs that included facility site managers, site supervisors, scale and machine operators, technical assistants, mechanics, and laborers. Salaries for these jobs ranged from $7.50 to $33.50 per hour, which is equivalent to $15,600 and $69,680 per year, respectively. About half of the facilities provided some information on whether their jobs were filled by people from the communities. Specifically, according to information provided by the Hunts Point, South Bronx, New York facilities, a large number of employees in the waste-related facilities resided in the Bronx. The Hunts Point Water Pollution Control Plant had 67 employees from the Bronx, with 1 living in the immediate Hunts Point neighborhood. Safety-Kleen, Inc., told us that the majority of the employees in its two facilities lived in the county where the facilities were located. Over the years of the Genesee Power Station’s operation, about half of the 68 employees resided in Flint or Genesee County, Michigan; however, the facility did not indicate how many employees, if any, lived in Genesee Township—the home of the power station—or the Flint community that is close to the plant. Similarly, information provided by the Texas Industries Package Plant in Austin, Texas, indicated that its 10 employees all resided in a nearby community, town, or city but did not identify the number from the community immediately surrounding the plant. And in a 1998 document submitted to EPA, Natural Resources Recovery, Inc., indicated that four of its five employees lived in the town where the plant was located. However, community representatives told us that few, if any, town residents worked at the landfill at the time of our visit. As shown in table 2, officials from 10 of the 15 facilities said they had contributed to the communities in which they were located. Specifically, they performed volunteer work that included offering firefighting assistance and organizing cleanups in the area. They also made infrastructure improvements, such as installing a new water drainage system. In addition, some of the facilities made or were planning to make financial contributions in the communities where they were located. These financial contributions would assist schools and universities as well as community groups and other organizations. For example, the Genesee Power Station awarded eight $1,000 scholarships to high school students. In three communities, the facilities established foundations or funds to manage and disburse the financial contributions. One foundation was set up following legal action taken by community groups. In another case, the foundation was not linked to legal action. The fund resulted from collaboration among the state environmental agency, the facility, and the community that ultimately resulted in the community dropping its complaint with EPA. The facilities and community groups in these three locations provided the following information: The Kettleman City Foundation, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, was set up after legal action was taken by the community against Chemical Waste Management. The foundation was organized to improve the quality of life of the residents of Kettleman City and nearby areas of Kings County, California, by developing capacity, leveraging additional resources, and protecting the environment and residents’ health and welfare. The board of this foundation consisted of the legal representative for the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment; three community residents; and the manager of the Chemical Waste Management facility.