Call For GAO, IG Investigation Of Region IV Key To Broad Equity Push
by The InsideEPA.com Environmental NewsStand

10/26/2009 Environmental justice advocates are urging federal watchdogs to investigate EPA Region IV's alleged decades-long record of decisions that have disproportionately impacted minorities, part of a broad equity push that also includes lobbying President Obama to nominate environmental justice officials to head several key agency regions and urging EPA headquarters to establish equity as a mandatory factor in a wide range of policies.

Equity groups appear to be gaining far more traction under EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's tenure than past administrations, given Jackson's commitment to making environmental justice a major factor in agency decisions, although activists note that most of the agency's hard decisions on equity issues remain in the future.

In the latest equity effort, more than three dozen activist groups sent an Oct. 8 letter to civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) urging him to commission an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or EPA Inspector General (IG) into Region IV, claiming that, "A long history of bad decisions in Region IV has turned far too many low-income and people of color communities into the dumping grounds."

Activists hope an IG or GAO investigation, depending on the findings and recommendations, could boost their agenda on a wide range of issues at EPA headquarters and the regions. Lewis serves as chairman of the oversight panel on the House Ways & Means Committee, which means he has the authority to commission either an IG or GAO investigation. His office did not return calls for comment by press time.

The groups behind the letter, which include a large number of local community groups as well as national environmental groups like Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, are scheduled to meet with Region IV Acting Administrator Stan Meiburg and his top lieutenants Oct. 27 to "submit their grievances and documentation in person" to Meiburg, according to their letter.

The letter follows a recent online article by Robert Bullard, a long-time leader in the environmental justice movement, urging President Obama to nominate a Region IV administrator who will address decades of what he says are the region's discriminatory environmental policies in the region's eight "Deep South" states and for an IG inquiry into permitting decisions that have contributed to the discrimination.

In his article, Bullard lists a slew of "bad" regional decisions that harm African American and other communities at the fence-line of polluting facilities. The most recent example is the December spill of millions of gallons of coal combustion waste from a Tennessee Valley Authority facility