Pa.’s new environmental justice policy sees support and criticism at hearing

The new policy also applies in different places.

The state’s old definition of an environmental justice area was based on just two factors: race and income. The new definition uses more than 30 criteria — including asthma and cancer rates, proximity to oil and gas wells, exposure to toxic air pollution, race, and income — to produce a score reflecting both exposure and sensitivity to pollution. The new environmental justice policy applies in communities with the top 20% of scores. Officials say this new definition of environmental justice areas captures more of Pennsylvania’s rural areas than the old one.

But what the new policy does not do is direct DEP to deny or modify permit applications for new polluting facilities based on the pollution a community already faces from existing facilities nearby.

“The policy does not at all address the substantive basis of decision making,” said Mathy Stanislaus, vice provost and the director of Drexel University’s Environmental Collaboratory. “There’s been a lot of cumulative burden analysis. It is not translated into modifying a permit based on that.”

The new policy is also not binding or enforceable.

“The community has to have a determining voice,” said David Clowney, a retired philosophy professor who taught environmental ethics. “This policy doesn’t do that.”

DEP officials acknowledge these limitations, but say the policy revision is still meaningful.

“We’re not changing regulations. We’re not imposing any new requirements on the [permit] applicants,” Fernando Treviño, Pennsylvania’s special deputy secretary for environmental justice, told WHYY after the hearing. “First, we want to target our internal proceedings. …This policy actually informs … DEP staff on how to consider [environmental justice] in our decision-making process and our day-to-day.”

Treviño said the administration supports a bill pending before a Pennsylvania House committee that would explicitly allow the Department of Environmental Protection to deny permits in environmental justice areas based on the cumulative impacts of existing facilities in those communities.

“So we’ll let the legislative process follow the legislative process,” he said.