Privacy & Policy
President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898 in 1994. The executive order on environmental justice:
1. created an interagency federal working group on environmental justice managed by the EPA
2. required federal agencies to develop environmental justice strategies
3. required research on human health or the environment to include poor and minority communities
4. required guidelines for subsistence consumption of fish and wildlife
5. required opportunities for public participation and access to information
Federal agencies responded with environmental justice strategies and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) was created to bring community, industry and government groups together to develop solutions to environmental justice problems.
Efforts to support environmental justice through law have not been easy because environmental justice does not fit neatly within either civil rights law or environmental law. The lawsuits legal groups have developed in partnership with environmental justice groups have experienced successes and failures.