Executive Order 12898

Overview

In 1994, President William Clinton issued Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. Executive Order 12898 draws attention to environmental and human health effects of federal actions on minority and low-income populations. It calls on federal agencies to make environmental justice part of their mission, assessing and addressing it under each major program, policy, and activity. Executive Order 12898 does not create a process for judicial review to measure compliance:

In 2011, President Barack Obama issued a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898. The MOU signified renewed attention to formalizing the commitment of federal agencies to environmental justice. It called upon major federal agencies [Page 544]to each draft an environmental justice strategy, including goals for partnering with other federal agencies to address environmental justice issues. The MOU added areas of focus not explicitly outlined in its predecessor, Executive Order 12898, such as climate change adaptation and commercial transportation. Notably, the MOU highlighted the role of the National Environmental Policy Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as policies that concurrently seek environmental justice.

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of Executive Order 12898, as the nation's lead environmental agency, the EPA put forth Plan EJ 2014 in July 2010. As the EPA emphasized, Plan EJ 2014 is not a rule or regulation but a strategy for integrating Executive Order 12898 into the agency's daily activities through cross-agency focus areas, tool development, and program initiatives. Plan EJ 2014 attempts to strategize around five cross-agency focus areas: incorporating environmental justice into rulemaking, considering environmental justice in permitting, advancing environmental justice through compliance and enforcement, supporting community-based action programs on environmental justice, and fostering administration-wide action on environmental justice.

Two key groups have guided overall execution of Executive Order 12898 and the MOU on Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898: the Federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Environmental Justice and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The IWG met for many years in the early mid-1990s, and heads of 17 agencies and the White House offices signed on to the 2011 MOU to renew this group. The administrator of the EPA convenes the IWG, a group comprising representatives from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, and Veteran's Affairs, as well as the General Services Administration, Small Business Administration, and the White House offices.

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