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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Visible Spectrum, Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D
The Visible Spectrum, Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Today, the national environmental movement is entering a new phase, led by new players, just as the still young environmental protection movement is becoming more politically influential at the local level. The political power of the environmental justice and equity movement and its links with racial and social justice organizations makes its potential impact reach far beyond “NIMBY” (not-in-my-backyard) protests. NIMBY was the first wave of quasi-organized local environmental protests, usually rooted in a single issue. Environmental justice is the next wave, drawing in a broader range of concerns. The focus of this analysis is on how environmental issues are …
Achieving Environmental Justice: The Role Of Occupational Health, George Friedman-Jiménez, M.D.
Achieving Environmental Justice: The Role Of Occupational Health, George Friedman-Jiménez, M.D.
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The current rapidly growing interest in environmental justice is both timely and important. Occupational health is an integral part of assuring environmental justice. Concrete examples of environmental inequity leading directly to unequal health status can be found in occupational health literature and among the patients of occupational health clinics which serve populations that include low wage workers and workers of color. The toxic properties and health effects of many environmental contaminants were originally discovered in workplace settings where workers were repeatedly exposed to high doses of such contaminants. In the future, clinical occupational medicine, occupational epidemiology, occupational toxicology, and occupational …
Race, Gender, Age, And Disproportionate Impact: What Can We Do About The Failure To Protect The Most Vulnerable?, Samara F. Swanston
Race, Gender, Age, And Disproportionate Impact: What Can We Do About The Failure To Protect The Most Vulnerable?, Samara F. Swanston
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Hard economic times and social conditions are driving a reordering of environmental protection priorities that threatens to sacrifice the most vulnerable groups. Environmental regulatory agencies acknowledge that vulnerable populations face the greatest risk of harm from environmental insult and that these groups are not adequately protected. Although a risk-based prioritization of resources benefits the greatest number of people, such allocation would disadvantage minority communities, which contain disproportionate numbers of sensitive subgroups. Our regulatory bodies must therefore develop new strategies to adequately protect sensitive subgroups identified in minority communities. Part II of this Article looks at some of the considerations that …
Environmental Justice Litigation: Another Stone In David’S Sling, Luke W. Cole
Environmental Justice Litigation: Another Stone In David’S Sling, Luke W. Cole
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Article attempts to synthesize some of the lessons environmental justice lawyers have learned, in order to offer a practitioner’s perspective on environmental justice cases. The author’s ambition in setting out these lessons is to allow community groups and attorneys entering the struggle to learn from mistakes, emulate successes, and avoid re-inventing the wheel. Without addressing the strategic and tactical drawbacks of litigation, this Article assumes that a community group has decided to pursue litigation. This Article will only discuss siting cases, as siting disputes have been the primary context for environmental justice litigation thus far. The Article proposes a …
Issues Of Classification In Environmental Equity: How We Manage Is How We Measure, Rae Zimmerman
Issues Of Classification In Environmental Equity: How We Manage Is How We Measure, Rae Zimmerman
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Article addresses how concepts of race and ethnicity have been operationalized as a basis for defining and locating subpopulations (either explicitly or implicitly) for the purpose of analyzing environmental equity issues, and recommends some future directions. Part II focuses on how subpopulations are currently defined and on some problems encountered to date. The implications of these inconsistencies on the accuracy of health and environmental risk measures for a given subpopulation are addressed. Part III focuses on how spatial areas have been defined to aggregate these subpopulations within confined geographic boundaries.
Protecting Endangered Communities, Clarice E. Gaylord, Geraldine W. Twitty
Protecting Endangered Communities, Clarice E. Gaylord, Geraldine W. Twitty
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Nontraditional environmentalists are struggling to protect and preserve communities, both urban and rural, that have become threatened by constant, multiple exposures to toxic air, contaminated water, and pesticide-ridden and chemical-laden soils. Numerous reports, including a 1992 study by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, have suggested that people of color and low income communities have been, for decades, the unwilling recipients of numerous hazardous waste sites, incinerators, chemical factories, and sewage treatment plants. Historically, these communities often lacked the essential resources necessary to oppose sitings of potentially hazardous facilities: money, organization, and political voice. Land in these communities is usually …
The Meaning Of Urban Environmental Justice, Michel Gelobter, Ph.D.
The Meaning Of Urban Environmental Justice, Michel Gelobter, Ph.D.
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Environmental justice is redress for the structures and situations arising from environmental discrimination and, particularly, environmental racism. Environmental discrimination is actions and practices, arising from both individual ideologies and social structures that preserve and reinforce domination of subordinate groups with respect to the environment, while such discrimination with respect to race is environmental racism. Part I of this Essay discusses how environmental injustice is a three-dimensional nexus of economic injustice, social injustice and an unjust incidence of environmental quality, all of which overwhelmingly assures the continued oppression of communities of color and low-income communities on environmental matters. Part II of …
Notes From The Front Line, Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D
Notes From The Front Line, Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D
Fordham Urban Law Journal
In the last five years, local thinking about environmental protection started to take shape. It is indisputable that cities are not neutral or homogenous geographies in terms of distributing benefits and burdens by class and race. This fact is applicable to local environmental politics. Environmental justice and fair share advocates – and in some instances the courts – are finding that cities like New York are extremely heterogeneous in terms of environmental conditions and the impact of implementing environmental laws. This Essay describes the Environmental Benefits Program, which the New York City Department of Environmental Protection has undertaken in order …
Compensated Siting Proposals: Is It Time To Pay Attention?, Vicki Been
Compensated Siting Proposals: Is It Time To Pay Attention?, Vicki Been
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Many proposals to overcome the difficulty of siting locally undesirable land uses (“LULUs”) fairly and efficiently suggest that the problem could be resolved if victims of the siting were adequately compensated for the burdens the LULU imposes. This Article seeks to spur greater attention to the difficult moral and political issues compensation proposals raise by showing that compensation programs are widespread in actual siting practice. It argues that the success of compensation programs, while limited, has been sufficient to ensure that such proposals will continue to be a significant feature of siting programs. It urges those interested in environmental justice …
Environmental Justice And Sustainability: Is There A Critical Nexus In The Case Of Waste Disposal Or Treatment Facility Siting?, Kent E. Portney
Environmental Justice And Sustainability: Is There A Critical Nexus In The Case Of Waste Disposal Or Treatment Facility Siting?, Kent E. Portney
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Over the past ten years, two environmental "movements," have evolved and gained rapidly in both stature and import. One of these, the environmental justice or equity movement, has sensitized Americans to its contention that minority populations and people of lower socio-economic status have disproportionately borne the risks of environmentally impacting events. The other movement, advocating sustainability, focuses on fostering behavior and policies that contribute to economic growth in environmentally responsible ways. In actuality, as will be elaborated later, sustainability has several meaning, which can be categorized in at least three distinct and sometimes even contradictory ways. Any connection between the …
The Question Of Risk: Incorporating Community Perceptions Into Environmental Risk Assessments, James S. Freeman, Rachel D. Godsil
The Question Of Risk: Incorporating Community Perceptions Into Environmental Risk Assessments, James S. Freeman, Rachel D. Godsil
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The environmental justice movement has seen some successes. After years of neglect, the federal government and several states are directing legislative and executive efforts towards reforming siting processes and remedying discriminatory enforcement of environmental regulations. Community opposition in general has proved to be quite powerful in some instances. Since the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, there has been only one new siting of a hazardous waste landfill and few new sitings of hazardous waste incinerators. To a lesser extent, municipal solid waste and medical waste incinerators have also been successfully blocked or delayed. However, certain …
Foreword, Bruce A. Green
Foreword, Bruce A. Green
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The "Urban Environmental Justice" symposium took place at Fordham University School of Law, and explored how low-income communities and communities of color in our nation’s cities may have been disproportionately burdened by various environmental harms. It considered what should be done about this problem, from the perspectives of civic and citizens’ groups, the government at the federal, state, and city levels, public interest lawyers, corporations, and others. The participants in the March 3rd program represented a variety of backgrounds and experiences. The keynote speaker, Gerald Torres, Counsel to the United States Attorney General, had only weeks earlier been designated to …
Environmental Burdens And Democratic Justice, Gerald Torres
Environmental Burdens And Democratic Justice, Gerald Torres
Fordham Urban Law Journal
To date, however, there has been relatively little academic discussion about how EPA and other federal agencies can achieve environmental justice. In addition, most legal academic literature has focused either on simply identifying the legal issues associated with race and environmental law or on developing a litigation strategy for remedying “environmental racism.” None of the legal academic literature has focused on the benefits of using an administrative framework to define or develop sustainable solutions to the distributional inequities of environmental laws. The purpose of this Article is to explain the benefits of pursuing an administrative model for change. Unlike other …