Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Gail Heriot to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' Report on Environmental Justice: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency's Compliance and Enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 12,898

Abstract

On September 30, 2016, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report entitled "Environmental Justice: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency's Compliance and Enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 12,898." This Dissenting Statement, written by Commissioner Gail Heriot, was part of that report, but was critical of the main body of the report. It discusses the Commission's lack of expertise in the area and how the Commission staff's independent research tends to undermine the Commission's conclusions. It also discusses how the incendiary allegations of some Commission members and some witnesses of "environmental racism" are inappropriate, and how (contrary to the Commission's apparent assumption) Title VI has already been held not to be a disparate impact statute by the Supreme Court.