CEED has been participating in feedback sessions and recently submitted comments (here) to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Environmental Justice Framework draft. This framework will influence the way MPCA will work toward justice in our communities through all of their program areas. Strong and specific environmental justice priorities are urgently needed to reduce our state’s wide disparities in health, exposure to pollutants and access to green spaces where we live, work and play. Given the deep historical and persisting disparities in Minnesota, our comments are an effort to strengthen the EJ Framework and MPCA’s ongoing leadership and commitment to achieving environmental justice in our state.
Our suggestions stem from the breadth of work done nationally by environmental justice policy experts over the past 20 years on how to integrate environmental justice into rule-making and environmental regulatory agency programs. Our comments are marked in red to highlight specific areas of improvement to the original framework language, and span MPCA program areas including regulation, assessment and cumulative impact analyses, prevention and assistance, rule making. Strategies include EJ screening methods, meaningful public involvement, agency training, intergovernmental coordination and ongoing measuring and improvements to EJ implementation.
You can read our comments here: (pdf)
Read more at the MPCA website: (link)