Testimony on
environmental justice
before the L.A. City
Planning Commission

Good morning. My name is Alexander Volokh, and I am an assistant policy analyst at the Reason Foundation specializing in environmental policy. The Reason Foundation applauds the proposed new wording to section 3.1.9 of the proposed General Plan Framework.

The original language of section 3.1.9 refers to "environmental justice" without defining the term. "Environmental justice" is a relatively new term. It tends to be loosely used and has different meanings for different people. Using the term in a general plan, without knowing what it will mean once interpreted by court decisions, federal legislation, and EPA action, is inadvisable.

Moreover, there is little solid statistical evidence that discrimination is responsible for the siting of industrial facilities in minority communities. The studies claiming that environmental racism is responsible for siting decisions have had well-analyzed methodological problems. Findings can vary greatly depending on the definition of "minority community" and depending on the size of the community under consideration. "Minority communities" are generally defined as communities which contain a greater percentage of nonwhite residents than the national average. By this definition, though, Staten Island, N.Y., home of the largest landfill in the country, could be considered a minority community, even though it is 80 percent white (and the "whitest" of New York City's five boroughs). Another study ranked communities by their percentage of white residents, and labeled the top 25 percent "white communities" and the bottom 25 percent "minority communities." The problem with this system was that the "whitest" minority communities were 84 percent white -- which is a higher percentage of white residents than the United States as a whole, which is 83 percent white.

By dwelling on percentages and not on absolute numbers, the studies draw potentially misleading conclusions from the demographic data. Which is "worse for minorities," a landfill in an 85-percent-white community or a landfill in an 85-percent-minority community? It depends. If the white community has 10,000 residents, then 1,500 minority residents will be affected. But if the minority community has 1,000 residents, then 850 minority residents will be affected. In other words, siting the landfill in the white community would be "worse for minorities" than siting it in the minority community -- though the studies don't take that into account.

In addition, the studies generally don't consider demographic conditions at the time that the facilities were sited. Many of the industrial facilities considered in the studies were sited in areas that are minority communities today but weren't at the time. Obviously, racism can't have been a consideration in these siting decisions, but the studies don't distinguish between facilities sited in minority communities and facilities sited in white communities that later became minority communities.

And finally, the studies generally don't examine the actual health risks posed by the industrial facility -- assuming, in effect, that all industrial facilities are equally dangerous and all have substantial effects on public health.

No one endorses discriminating against minorities in the siting of industrial facilities. The proper way to guard against such discrimination is to ensure that race is not used as a criterion in siting decisions. Instead, siting decisions should be made based on traditional planning criteria such as relationship with the service area, costs, suitability with surrounding uses, and environmental impacts, as the proposed wording suggests.

The proposed new wording for section 3.1.9 is preferable to the original wording because it avoids the vague term "environmental justice" and because it explicitly defines the criteria that constitute "fair treatment," using concepts well-understood and widely used in the planning community.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Alexander Volokh is an assistant policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank based in Los Angeles. He has written numerous environmental policy studies, include "Environmental Enforcement: In Search of Both Effectiveness and Fairness" and "Punitive Damages and Environmental Law: Rethinking the Issues." He has also authored a policy series on Recycling and Deregulation: Opportunities for Market Development, which includes the policy studies "The FDA vs. Recycling: Has Food Packaging Law Gone Too Far?", "Recycling Hazardous Waste: How RCRA Has Recyclers Running Around in CERCLAs," and "How Government Building Codes and Construction Standards Discourage Recycling."

Section 3.1.9 (proposed deletions are italicized, proposed additions are underlined):

Assure that the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, incomes and education levels with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies, including affirmative efforts to inform and involve environmental groups committed to fair treatment, especially environmental justice groups, in early planning stages through notification and two-way communication. Fair treatment in regards to the siting of public facilities requires that siting decisions be based solely on criteria that are relevant to the facility such as: relationship to the service area, costs, suitability with surrounding uses, and environmental impacts. (P1, P18)