Insights Search

In his Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, released on January 27, 2021, President Biden directed the White House Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) to “create a geospatial Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool and [to] annually publish interactive maps highlighting disadvantaged communities” in support of the Justice40 Initiative.

The concept of “environmental justice” (“EJ”) is not new—the federal government has been working to define and address environmental justice and related human health and environmental effects since the Clinton administration. The reality that communities consisting of minority, low-income, and vulnerable populations have been disproportionately impacted by adverse human health or environmental effects, sometimes for decades, is also generally accepted.