Statistical approaches to assessing charges of environmental racism and classism against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract

Discrimination law has evolved from litigating or prosecuting overt, individual cases of egregious behavior solely by means of anecdotal evidence and eyewitness testimony. Statistical evidence came to bear the imprimatur of the United States Supreme Court in the Seventies as a probative means of discerning guilt or liability, and has been used to shore up patterns of prejudice at a systemic level since. Courtrooms of the Twenty-First Century have struggled to define discrimination through a quantitative lens, nonetheless relying on qualitative evidence to assist the factfinder in rendering a verdict. Some definitions carry more precision and accuracy than others. Consider the inflammatory National Law Journal's indictment of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (‘EPA’) as an example of the latter. In 1992, the National Law Journal ran a Special Investigation of the EPA, claiming that the federal government had fostered a racist imbalance in hazardous site cleanup and its pursuit of polluters. Kudos to the columnists for bringing environmental equity into the spotlight of public debate and for forewarning and encouraging the EPA to conduct its enforcements reflectively, in order to avoid being on the receiving end of a Title VI lawsuit. Nonetheless, the methodology used by the National Law Journal belies a total understanding of the bureaucratic structure that pursued these actions and of the notion of statistical significance. This Article confines itself to Region X's actions between 1995 and 1999, applying linear regression and other statistical tests to determine whether biases, found using the National Law Journal's naive methodology, stand after due consideration of chance. The NLJ approach finds evidence of bias, but the author also conducts more complicated and appropriate analyses, such as those contemplated by the National Guidance. After issuing some provisos, the author dismisses charges of racism or classism. While the National Guidance represents a positive first step in identifying environmental justice communities, those with an above-average proportion of lower-class or non-Caucasian inhabitants, it lacks statistical sophistication and econometric depth. This Article concludes by recommending the use of normalized racial distributions, Gini coefficients, and Social Welfare Functions to the EPA and to other organizations conducting environmental justice analysis.

Citation

Karp, A. (2000), "Statistical approaches to assessing charges of environmental racism and classism against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency", Research in Law and Economics (Research in Law and Economics, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0193-5895(00)19001-3