IG Reviewing Ability To Investigate Alleged Region IV Equity Complaints
by The InsideEPA.com Environmental NewsStand

11/10/2009--EPA's Office of Inspector General (IG) is gathering information to determine whether it has the authority to grant environmental justice advocates' request for an IG investigation into an alleged decades-long record of decisions by EPA Region IV, which the advocates say have disproportionately impacted minorities.

Acting IG Bill Roderick in a Nov. 9 letter says IG investigative authority is limited under the Inspector General Act to investigations that involve fraud, waste and abuse of an EPA program or operation. "EPA is generally responsible for investigating substantive environmental offenses of pollution control laws under its jurisdiction," according to the letter to Robert Bullard, director of the Atlanta-based Environmental Justice Resource Center.

Nevertheless, Roderick says in the letter that IG representatives met with Bullard and others within the environmental justice community Oct. 27 to hear their complaints and, "at the invitation" of Acting Region IV Administrator Stan Meiburg, "we are gathering information to help us decide whether we have the authority to investigate these issues. I will follow up with you once this determination has been made."

Bullard and other advocates are seeking the IG investigation as 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.

Bullard previously helped craft a letter sent by three dozen activist groups Oct. 8 to civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) urging him to commission an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or EPA's 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."

If the IG grants Bullard's request then that could satisfy the activists' request for an internal agency investigation, though it is unclear whether they would also still want a GAO report.

Bullard, a long-time leader in the environmental justice movement, has repeatedly criticized what he says are the region's discriminatory environmental policies in the region's eight "Deep South" states -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

In a recent online 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.

Region IV approved shipping some of the waste to a landfill located in Perry County, AL, an area with a 69 percent African-American population. Bullard claims that no report has been made public showing that EPA took environmental justice into consideration before making its decision, although agency officials said they discussed the issue with the local community before approving the disposal plan.