Comment Log Display

Dear Assistant Secretary Mataka: 

We support guidance and an improved CalEnviroScreen (CES) tool that
properly considers race, color, and national origin, as well as
green access, in order to identify underserved communities and to
distribute cap and trade greenhouse gas reduction funds under SB
535. 

We recommend the following steps to improve CES for the reasons
discussed below.   

(1)	Reinstate race, color, and national origin data as an indicator
in the CES score.

(2)	Include green access as an indicator in addition to pollution
burdens and population characteristics in CES.

(3)	Guidance documents on the distribution of greenhouse gas
reduction funds under SB 535 should incorporate race, color, and
national origin, as well as green access.

(4)	Guidance documents, CES, and other public documents should
refer to “underserved communities,” rather than “disadvantaged
communities.” 

“[W]hen society’s rewards – including the right to breathe clean
air[,] live far away from toxic wastes[, and live near parks and
green space] – are systematically distributed by race, it is better
to know than to remain dangerously ignorant,” as USC Prof. Manuel
Pastor has written.  Good social research needs data on race and
ethnicity. There is no sound social science or technical reason to
exclude such data. Federal law requires collecting, analyzing, and
publishing data based on race, color, or national origin where, as
here, there is evidence of racial and ethnic disparities regarding
pollution burdens, vulnerability, and green access. No law
prohibits it. Claims that Prop 209 or other state laws prohibit or
constrain agencies from collecting, analyzing, and publishing such
data to include in the CES or to distribute greenhouse gas
reduction funds are false, prejudicial, and discriminatory. 

The Environmental Justice Screening Method (EJSM) developed by the
USC Program on Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) includes
race and ethnicity. CES should too.

CalEPA should supplement statewide ranking of census tracts with
regional scoring and ranking of census tracts, strengthen its
hazard proximity analysis, and include EJSM’s land-use methodology
and climate change indicators in CES. See California Environmental
Justice Alliance (CEJA)’s June 2, 2014 letter to the Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). As CEJA states,
“[t]he impacts of climate change will be a critical issue for
communities to contend with in the coming years, and we know that
low-income communities and communities of color will be hit first
and worst and have least resources to adjust to climatic changes.
CalEnviroScreen’s assessment of where the most vulnerable
communities are located could greatly enhance the statewide
conversation on where climate adaptation efforts and investments
should be focused, and we recommend CalEPA to begin to consider the
development of an indicator on climate change in the next year.” 

The City Project joins in (1) the September 15, 2014, letter from
the SB535 Coalition to the Air Resources Board (ARB) re Comments on
Draft Interim Guidance on Investments to Benefit Disadvantaged
Communities; and (2) the September 15, 2014, letter from Los
Angeles-based environmental justice groups to ARB re greenhouse gas
reduction funds and SB 535 standards, to the extent those letters
are not inconsistent with the position described below. 

We write separately here on the need to explicitly address equity
and disparities based on race, color, or national origin, and
compliance in the planning and implementation process with federal
and state civil rights and environmental justice laws and
principles.