About 45 minutes from New Orleans, cities founded by formerly enslaved people make up St. John the Baptist Parish. As the regional economy has shifted from chains and plantation slavery to smokestacks and petrochemical plants, their descendants still make up most of the people who live there. Those original deadly threats have not disappeared.
Today, parts of the parish are exposed to the nation’s highest risk of developing cancer because of pollution exposure. It is located in Cancer Alley, where the largest concentration of petrochemical plants in North America is located.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is far-reaching, and the federal government, particularly under the Biden administration, has said citizens should use it as a remedy to limit the disproportionate amount of pollution in their communities. It allows citizens to petition the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate whether state programs, like pollution regulation boards or environmental quality agencies, that receive federal money are discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.
The provision was established with communities like Jo Banner’s hometown, Wallace, Louisiana, in mind. Two years ago, feeling that racism has caused the area’s Black residents to face the harmful health impacts of air pollution, she and other residents brought a civil rights complaint to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Read More: Biden’s EPA is Slow to Resolve Civil Rights Complaints
What they didn’t know, however, is that their pursuit of justice would further entrench the state into environmental racism. Last month, after a yearslong battle waged by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled the federal government can no longer use the civil rights law to prevent Louisiana from expanding or building new polluting facilities. This carries significance for the state’s Black communities, where most of these plants are found. The decision also means that the state cannot be held responsible for its permitting decisions, which lead to most of these facilities being located in Black communities.
On a panel following the announcement, Banner said the ruling showed that “Louisiana has been abandoned.
“We can no longer rely on our state or even our country,” she added.
While the ruling only applies to Louisiana, activists and lawyers believe it will have national implications. Earlier this year, Republican attorneys general from 23 states petitioned the EPA to stop considering elements of racial justice when regulating pollution, an element echoed in Project 2025. The conservative agenda has been aided by two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, which make it harder for the federal government to regulate states and private companies. The Biden administration has attempted to work around the courts by creating new, more aggressive pollution regulations, but the SCOTUS rulings open the door for states and companies to appeal.
Patrice Simms, vice president for healthy communities at Earthjustice, the law firm that helped bring the original civil rights complaint, said, the ruling gives “industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations.”
Read More: SCOTUS Allows ‘Big Business’ to Have Greater Say in Federal Regulations
As the state’s attorney general, Landry started the battle with the federal EPA in 2022, and James Cain, a U.S. district judge of the Western District of Louisiana, concurred, ruling that the federal government was overstepping its power by attempting to regulate the state’s permitting process. The ruling says the federal government can no longer investigate these complaints based on “disparate impacts” — the idea that a regulation or industry’s impacts disproportionately harm one group of people over another.
In a statement, Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice at the NAACP, said the group “firmly believes that every government agency and federal funds recipient must advance transparency to ensure equity for our frontline communities. We will continue to shed light on this as an area that needs strengthening.”
In response to the ruling, the EPA said the agency and the U.S. Department of Justice remain committed to enforcing civil rights law elsewhere across the country. Soon, the agency said it would determine its “next steps to ensure nondiscrimination in the programs and activities our agencies fund.”
The original complaint focused on the state’s permit renewal process for a neoprene production facility owned by Denka Performance Elastomer LLC. Neoprene is the synthetic rubber used in things like yoga mats and wetsuits. The facility emits chloroprene, a cancer-causing chemical, at levels 14 times higher than federal standards, but well below state standards. That is because the state’s outdated standards allow facilities to emit 857 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter of air, while federal standards allow for just 0.8 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter of air.
Banner said the ruling adds to a long history of letdowns and should cause people to question the relationship between industry and elected officials.
“These industry people can walk in a room of politicians with their heads held high. They walk in there bold and proud as ever. And you wonder, how in the world are we letting this happen? How do we let companies that are poisoning people — how do we revere these people? How are they able to show their faces?” Banner said.
“I don’t have the answer to that, but I think it’s time we start figuring out why.”
