For decades, Democrats have talked about using a “whole-government approach” to reduce the environmental hazards that so many minority communities face. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order to address environmental justice and ensure that low-income citizens and minorities do not suffer a disproportionate burden of industrial pollution. Federal action could also have mitigated the risks for disease in places like Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.”Instead, minority communities throughout the United States have continued to suffer disproportionately. This time around, ‌there will also be ‌an Environmental Justice Scorecard, designed to ‌concretely measure what each federal agency is doing — so the departments can be held to certain benchmarks. The White House is seizing on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as a chance to fund environmental justice projects.

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Persons: Bill Clinton, Jackson, Biden Organizations: Environmental, White, Law Locations: Alabama, Flint, Mich, Miss, United States, ‌, Detroit, Jackson