Analytical Methods for Assessing the Environmental Justice Implications of Environmental Regulations: Seminar Summary Report

摘要

While tools used for conducting an efficiency analysis of environmental regulations are rigorous and well understood among economists, those for carrying out an equity analysis are not as well developed. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has committed to incorporating environmental justice (EJ) analyses into Agency decision making processes. There is thus a strong need to devise appropriate analytical tools to conduct an analysis of the equity, or EJ, implications of regulatory activities. The purpose of this workshop was to gather a small group of economists, regulatory experts, and EJ community leaders to discuss methods for incorporating EJ analyses into EPA's regulatory process. Each session of the workshop consisted of an overview of EJ activities within an EPA program (e.g., Air, Water, Solid Waste, etc.) and a technical presentation on an EJ methodology appropriate to that program, followed by an evaluation of that methodology. Each session concluded with a moderated open discussion of the technical details of the methodology presented, appropriate uses, data needs, analytical requirements, and merits and limitations. The workshop also included a panel discussion with EJ community leaders in which they outlined the types of questions they would like to see addressed by the EJ analyses.