Economic Reviews Did Not Always Provide Decision Makers with an Environmental Justice Analysis

EPA is required under the Clean Air Act, other statutes, and executive  orders to prepare an economic review for proposed rules, and the type of  economic review to be prepared depends on the rule’s impact on the  economy. All Three Proposed Rules Mentioned Environmental Justice, but the Discussion Appeared Contradictory in One Case

According to EPA’s director of regulatory management, the agency did not  have any guidance on whether environmental justice should be included in  the preamble of a rule at the time the gasoline and diesel rules were  developed. In one section, EPA stated that  it did not believe the rule would raise any environmental justice issues, but  in another section, it specifically invited comments on an option to  concentrate commercial, industrial, and residential growth, which it said  “may raise environmental justice concerns.”

	EPA Considered Environmental Justice to Varying Degrees in Finalizing Three Rules

In all three cases, EPA received and generally responded to public  comments on environmental justice, although in one case it did not explain  the basis for its response. EPA published all three  final rules, and EPA officials told us that they believed that these rules did  not create an environmental justice issue. The Diesel Rule

In response to an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, several  commenters expressed concern that the diesel rule would lead to increased  refinery emissions of regulated pollutants. In addition, because EPA decided to finalize the ozone  implementation rule in two phases, the addendum addressed only the part  of the rule that was finalized, not the entire proposed rule. Thus, the  assessment of the final rule did not change the conclusion of the  assessment of the proposed rule, namely that the ozone implementation  rule did not create any environmental justice issues. Conclusions

We found some evidence that EPA officials considered environmental  justice when drafting or finalizing the three clean air rules we examined. Recommendations for Executive Action

In order to ensure that environmental justice issues are adequately  identified and considered when clean air rules are being drafted and  finalized, we recommend that the EPA Administrator take the following  four actions:  ensure that the workgroups devote attention to environmental justice  while drafting and finalizing clean air rules;  enhance the workgroups’ ability to identify potential environmental  justice issues through such steps as (1) providing workgroup members  with guidance and training to help them identify potential  environmental justice problems and (2) involving environmental justice  coordinators in the workgroups when appropriate;  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; and  direct cognizant officials to respond fully, when feasible, to public  comments on environmental justice, for example, by better explaining  the rationale for EPA’s beliefs and by providing its supporting data. EPA’s Consideration of Environmental Justice in the Drafting of Three Proposed Clean Air Rules

Because of substantial congressional interest, we are including information  about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considered  environmental justice during the drafting of three additional proposed  clean air rules, up through their publication in the Federal Register. GAO Comments

1. 2. However, our objective was not to identify such issues with the  rules, but to review how EPA considered environmental justice in  developing the rules. As we stated, public commenters did raise such issues about all three  rules as they were proposed.
Why GAO Did This Study

Executive Order 12898 made achieving "environmental justice" part of the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies. According to EPA, environmental justice involves fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes. EPA developed guidance for considering environmental justice during the development of rules under the Clean Air Act and other activities. GAO was asked to examine how EPA considered environmental justice during two phases of developing clean air rules: (1) drafting the rule, including activities of the workgroup that considered regulatory options, the economic review of the rule's costs, and making the proposed rule available for public comment, and (2) finalizing the rule, including addressing public comments and revising the economic review. GAO reviewed the three clean air rules described in the next column.

What GAO Found

When drafting the three clean air rules, EPA generally devoted little attention to environmental justice. While EPA guidance on rulemaking states that workgroups should consider environmental justice early in this process, GAO found that a lack of guidance and training for workgroup members on identifying environmental justice issues may have limited their ability to identify such issues. In addition, while EPA officials stated that economic reviews of proposed rules consider potential environmental justice impacts, the gasoline and diesel rules did not provide decision makers with environmental justice analyses, and EPA has not identified all the types of data necessary to analyze such impacts. Finally, in all three rules, EPA mentioned environmental justice when they were published in proposed form, but the discussion in the ozone implementation rule was contradictory. In finalizing the three clean air rules, EPA considered environmental justice to varying degrees. Public commenters stated that all three rules, as proposed, raised environmental justice issues. In responding to such comments on the gasoline rule, EPA published its belief that the rule would not create such issues, but did not publish the data and assumptions supporting its belief. Specifically, EPA did not publish (1) its estimate that potentially harmful air emissions would increase in 26 of the 86 counties with refineries affected by the rule or (2) its assumption that this estimate overstated the eventual increases in refinery emissions. For the diesel rule, in response to refiners' concerns that their permits could be delayed if environmental justice issues were raised by citizens, EPA stated that the permits would not be delayed by such issues. Moreover, after reviewing the comments, EPA did not change its final economic reviews to discuss the gasoline and diesel rules' potential environmental justice impacts. Finally, the portions of the ozone implementation rule that prompted the comments about environmental justice were not included in the final rule. Overall, EPA officials said that these rules, as published in final form, did not create an environmental justice issue.