Senator Markey, Reps. Bush and Grijalva Urge Biden Admin. to Strengthen Environmental Justice Scorecard

Letter Text (PDF)

Washington (May 1, 2024) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01) and Raúl Grijalva (AZ-07) led 10 of their colleaguesin a letter to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and United States Digital Service, requesting updates to the Environmental Justice (EJ) Scorecard to ensure that the tool for assessing federal agency progress on EJ is robust, transparent, and comprehensive.

As directed by President Biden's Executive Order (EO) 14008, the first phase of the EJ Scorecard was released in June 2023, and provides information on agency actions pursuant to the Justice40 Initiative, including lists of covered programs, levels of funding, and efforts to provide technical assistance. In November 2023, CEQ issued a Request for Information (RFI), which collected public comment to inform the second phase of the EJ Scorecard.

The lawmakers call for improvements in the second phase of the Scorecard, including: the reporting of racial demographics of communities with federal EJ investments; meaningful consideration of recommendations made by the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC); more comprehensive and detailed agency performance metrics; guidance for agencies to address cumulative impacts and improve state and local technical assistance efforts; reporting on interagency coordination and collaboration pursuant to EJ; convening of the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council to develop assessment metrics and implementation guidance; and improvements to the accessibility of federal resources on EJ and Justice40.

Cosigners in the Senate include Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Wash.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

Cosigners in the House include Representatives Jared Huffman (CA-02), Jennifer McClellan (VA-4), and Jan Schakowsky (IL-09).

The lawmakers wrote, "We urge CEQ and OMB to strengthen this tool through improved data collection and analysis, increased public transparency, more effective coordination between relevant federal offices and agencies, and greater focus on specific populations that federal investments have historically neglected. Once the Scorecard is truly comprehensive, it will serve as a powerful tool for measuring our progress in addressing pervasive environmental injustices and delivering tangible environmental, social, and economic benefits to communities with EJ concerns."

The letter received support from the Center for Earth, Energy, and Democracy, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Senator Markey is at the forefront of efforts to urge the Biden administration to uphold environmental justice commitments, including:

• In January 2023, on the two-year anniversary of President Biden's first executive order on environmental justice, Senator Markey and Congresswoman Bush led their colleagues in a letter to CEQ providing recommendations for the initial release of the EJ Scorecard.
• In November 2022, CEQ released its enhanced Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which incorporated key recommendations made by Senator Markey and his colleagues in an April letter to CEQ,including adopting more metrics that indicate the interrelation between race and climate vulnerability, transit, clean energy, energy efficiency, and housing; developing a plan for public engagement and Tribal nation consultation that includes a way to factor community feedback into the tool; and developing a methodology for cumulative environmental justice scores that look at the aggregated hardships within a community.
• In September 2022, Senator Markey and Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), and Cori Bush (MO-01) led their colleagues in a letter to CEQ and its White House counterparts urging them to strengthen the Biden administration's implementation of the Justice40 Initiative and to make clear that the plan's 40 percent target "is a funding floor, not a ceiling."
• In August 2022, Senate Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $32.5 million infunding Senator Markey and Rep. Bush fought to secure for the development and dissemination of an environmental justice mapping and screening tool at CEQ.

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