First there was social justice. Now, there is environmental justice:

Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism and Working for Environmental Justice encourages EPA to identify better ways to address the issues facing many minority, low-income, and indigenous people with environmental justice burdens and concerns. To help meet this challenge, EPA has identified three goals in Plan EJ 2014 to shape work on environmental justice:

• Protect the environment and health in overburdened communities,
• Empower communities to take action to improve their health and environment, and
• Establish partnerships with local, state, tribal and federal governments and organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable communities.

EPA will work to achieve these goals by using a combination of initiatives and efforts and will focus on and seek to be responsive to community concerns. Integrating environmental justice into EPA’s day-to-day business is a big challenge. EPA’s efforts consistently aim to protect human health and the environment, reduce pollution, enforce environmental regulations and permits, and bring new science and technology to assist and inform decision-making. As we move forward, EPA is committed to enhancing outreach efforts, working more closely with communities, diversifying activities, and utilizing multi-media strategies to bring about change in our nation’s overburdened communities.

Going forward, the federal government is planning to use the regulatory power of the EPA to achieve economic redistribution in the name of Environmental Justice. The EPA is planning to use zoning laws, permits, psudo-science (global warming), regulations and through the creation of a phalanx of intergovernmental agencies that will place an emphasis on “environmental justice:”

In addition, EPA has a number of federal partnerships established and initiatives underway that support a holistic approach to addressing the environmental, social, and economic burdens that impact communities. For example, EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Transportation joined together to form the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an unprecedented agreement to coordinate federal housing, transportation, and environmental investments; protect public health and the environment; promote equitable development; and help address the challenges of climate change. Other partnerships that benefit overburdened communities, include the Brownfields Federal Interagency Partnership, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership and America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.

In the short term, EPA will focus on bridging relationships among different agencies and begin developing joint initiatives. Every federal agency should be responsible for integrating EJ as part their missions and ensuring that their programs address disproportionately high and adverse effects of their programs actions on minority, low–income, and indigenous populations. For example, all federal agencies are responsible for considering environmental justice issues in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental impact assessments and enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

This is “mission creep” on an unprecedented level.

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