Book Description

In recent years, EPA has renewed its efforts to make environmental justice an important part of its mission by developing a new strategy and approach for integrating environmental justice considerations into the agency's programs, policies, and activities. Under Plan EJ 2014, the agency's 4-year environmental justice implementation plan, EPA's program and regional offices are assuming principal responsibility for integrating the agency's efforts by carrying out nine implementation plans to put Plan EJ 2014 into practice. An important aspect of Plan EJ 2014 is to obtain input on major agency environmental justice initiatives from key stakeholders, including the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice, impacted communities, and states. In developing its environmental justice framework, which consists of agency initiatives, including Plan EJ 2014 and the implementation plans, EPA generally followed most of the six leading federal strategic planning practices that we selected for review. For example, EPA has generally defined a mission and goals for its environmental justice efforts, ensured leadership involvement and accountability for these efforts, and coordinated with other federal agencies--all consistent with leading practices in federal strategic planning. However, EPA has not yet fully (1) established a clear strategy for how it will define key environmental justice terms or identified the resources it may need to carry out its environmental justice implementation plans, (2) articulated clearly states' roles in ongoing planning and environmental justice integration efforts, or (3) developed performance measures for eight of its nine implementation plans to track agency progress on its environmental justice goals. Without additional progress on these practices, EPA cannot assure itself, its stakeholders, and the public that it has established a framework to effectively guide and assess its efforts to integrate environmental justice across the agency.