Abstract
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast Region more than 15 years ago, activists and scholars advocated for environmental justice to be incorporated into disaster policy reform. This research examines the federal investigations and disaster policy after Hurricane Katrina to determine what changes have been implemented to address environmental justice concerns in disaster management and recovery policies after Hurricane Katrina. The results indicate that despite early advocacy after the hurricane, an analysis of the post-event investigations and reform proposals reveals a failure to adopt substantive federal policy change after the disaster. The Gulf Coast region has continued to experience large-scale disasters since Hurricane Katrina, yet federal disaster policy lags behind state and local policies that incorporate environmental justice considerations into policymaking and planning. This study contributes to our understanding of the nexus between disaster policy and environmental justice. Given the increasing severity and frequency of disaster events and disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, environmental justice considerations continue to have significant implications for disaster research and environmental justice scholarship.
Introduction and Background
More than 15
In the years since Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Coast has continued to experience frequent disasters, including a catastrophic oil spill from BP's Deepwater Horizon well in 2010, and several strong hurricanes and significant flood events. Given the ongoing vulnerabilities in the geography, climate, and the communities, it is important to understand the policies that have been adopted and implemented and assess to what extent they mitigate and decrease these vulnerabilities. Important questions remain about current environmental justice policies in place for the next disaster, and to what extent policies have incorporated equity considerations to ensure that vulnerable and traditionally marginalized populations are supported and prepared for future disasters, which remains an omnipresent threat for the region.
Scholars from nearly every academic discipline have studied various aspects related to Hurricane Katrina, and this disaster forever changed the way we understand and study disasters. Although researchers understood for many years that disaster effects were unequally distributed, this disaster provided a societal and scholarly catalyst to grapple with the realities of our societal shortcomings. Particularly noteworthy in the disaster and social science research was the shift in attention from disaster relief and logistics management, to questions of justice for marginalized and under-represented groups, and new attention to the effects of pre-existing inequalities across race, class, and gender dimensions on effective disaster management and recovery.
The environmental justice framework is especially relevant when applied to the experiences of many communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. Scholarship using an environmental justice lens has revealed a litany of governmental failures to protect minority and poorer communities across the Gulf Coast region and beyond, as well as the ways in which the legacy of racism has contributed to the inequities in health and safety for these communities. 2 Hurricane Katrina exacerbated these injustices, presenting additional challenges in the response and recovery phases after the disaster. Environmental justice concerns continue to plague the response to disasters, 3 yet there is limited research situated at the nexus of these two areas. Recently, scholars have begun to connect the environmental justice and disaster vulnerability research, proposing the integration of the two areas of scholarship. 4 This study contributes to this nascent literature, investigating the following research question: What federal level disaster policy changes have been implemented to address environmental justice concerns in disasters after Hurricane Katrina?
Environmental justice policy before Hurricane Katrina
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), originally enacted in 1970 and signed into law by President Nixon, is the cornerstone legislation that provided the primary guidance for environmental policy and was a precursor for environmental justice considerations in federal policy. NEPA established the Council on Environmental Quality within the Executive Branch to oversee implementation of the legislation. 5 The environmental justice movement was first incorporated into federal policy by the Executive Order signed by President Clinton (EO12898) on February 11, 1994. 6 This order directed Federal Agencies to “make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.” 7 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for environmental justice implementation. The EPA is advised by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, established in 1993 to provide “independent advice and recommendations to the EPA Administrator. The Council's efforts include the evaluation of a broad range of strategic, scientific, technological, regulatory, community engagement, and economic issues related to environmental justice.” 8 Despite this advisory council, implementation of federal environmental laws related to environmental justice has been plagued by problems, resulting in a lack of enforcement from the EPA. 9 The environmental justice movement was well established by the time that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, and the principles were written into federal policy, although there were no specific provisions relating to disaster preparedness, response, or recovery.
The failures associated with Hurricane Katrina prompted a multitude of investigations, including by ad hoc congressional and executive branch task forces, as well as by Congress and policy think tanks. These investigations occurred during the first year after the hurricane, and assessed what went wrong in the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina, as well as the challenges during the recovery efforts.
Post-Katrina investigations and recommendations
Both the White House and the Congress convened task forces to conduct investigations into the failures in the disaster preparedness for and response to Hurricane Katrina, and both offered reports with analysis and recommendations. The White House review was led by Frances Townsend, concluding with the report issued February 23, 2006. A content analysis of the report reveals that environmental hazards in the aftermath of the hurricane, as well as debris removal, were noted as critical challenges. However, there is no mention of environmental justice concerns in the report, which is 228 pages. 10 The U.S. House of Representatives likewise formed an ad hoc committee, the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, to investigate the preparedness and response to the disaster. They submitted a 582 page report based on an investigation of “(1) the development, coordination, and execution by local, State, and Federal authorities of emergency response plans and other activities in preparation for Hurricane Katrina; and (2) the local, State, and Federal government response to Hurricane Katrina.” 11 This committee report included extensive interviews, hearings, and investigations, but did not discuss or include any environmental justice considerations in the report.
In addition to the investigations by the White House and the congressional committee, Congress held 49 hearings in the first 6 months after Hurricane Katrina. These hearings were unique in that for the first time, postdisaster hearings considered factors beyond distributive politics (i.e., federal relief funding). The hearings engaged witnesses in discussions of inequalities rooted in the legacy of race, class, and environmental injustice. During the investigations, environmental justice advocates and scholars were invited to offer congressional testimony and propose policy reforms. In a discussion of environmental justice issues, the witnesses raised concerns about rebuilding housing in ways that consider the history of racial discrimination in housing locations based on geography, and environmental contamination from the petrochemical industry. Environmental justice advocates such as Dr. Beverly Wright, Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, as well as representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Black Environmental Justice Network, discussed the history of environmental racism and classism, and disproportionate toxic exposures and risks affecting low income, predominantly African American communities in the Gulf Coast region. They proposed the disaster recovery as an opportunity to remedy these environmental injustices through transparent toxic cleanup, rebuilding practices that consider environmental justice, and equitable zoning policies. 12
In addition to the policy recommendations offered in congressional testimony, federal environmental justice recommendations were delineated in a report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute. According to this report, the most important recommendation for integrating environmental justice considerations into disaster prevention and recovery policy would be to revise the Civil Rights Act to include a provision that allows a private right to action to enforce environmental justice cases under the disparate impact consideration. The report also recommended that Congress create a percentage allocation for disaster funding relief for low to moderate income residents affected by disasters. Finally, they recommended a cost–benefit analysis that weighs the cost of environmental racism against benefits of including environmental justice in government decisions about land use, transportation, and public works projects. 13 These changes would have offered additional protections to communities affected by disasters.
Disaster policy changes resulting from Hurricane Katrina investigations
Environmental justice concerns received attention from congressional policymakers after Hurricane Katrina, as well as from scholars in policy think tanks, even if the ad hoc task forces from the White House and Congress failed to consider them. However, attention to a problem is not in itself sufficient to ensure policy changes will occur. Often times, policy proposals are never adopted or implemented; the attention to these problems can be symbolic rather than substantive. 14
The most significant legislative change made to disaster management in the United States after Hurricane Katrina, was the passage of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. This legislation reformed many aspects of disaster management, such as allowing evacuees to bring pets with them to shelters, but there was no mention of environmental justice in this legislation. None of the legislative changes and implementation of these changes within Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) incorporated equity and environmental justice concerns. Furthermore, none of the reforms addressed environmental justice concerns or issues of race and the legacy of racism that were raised in the hearings. 15
Leading environmental scholars have found that the federal agencies responsible for environmental justice considerations in disasters, particularly the EPA and FEMA, failed to adequately address environmental justice issues during the response and recovery after Hurricane Katrina. 16 Likewise, despite specific federal level environmental justice policy recommendations, none of the recommendations delineated in the report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute were adopted.
Although Congress and the Executive Branch failed to enact new legislation and policies that addressed environmental justice during the early recovery phase after Hurricane Katrina, scholars and activists have continued their work and their commitment to increasing environmental justice considerations in policy and practice. 17 Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina and several intervening disasters since then, including the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill, it is important to consider where the environmental justice policy concerns and equity based policies stand now.
Federal environmental justice and disaster policy: evolution and current status
To assess the current status of federal level policy, a content analysis of relevant legislation, agency websites, and government documents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FEMA, the EPA agency, and the Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group (EJIWG) documents was conducted. These are the relevant federal agencies, as they are tasked with disaster management and environmental protections, and are the federal agencies called upon to assist states and localities after a large-scale disaster. The EPA is the primary agency that leads environmental justice initiatives and co-ordinates efforts with other federal agencies through the interagency working group, and was designated as the lead agency for environmental justice coordination efforts with other agencies in the 1994 executive order. FEMA is the federal level agency responsible for co-ordinating disaster management with other agencies. They co-ordinate with other agencies such as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to administer assistance in disasters, but FEMA's policies establish the protocols for disaster management. If FEMA includes or requires attention to environmental justice concerns, the agencies working with them will as well. After identifying relevant agencies and legislation for document analysis, documents and websites that reference environmental justice were identified. Search terms include environmental justice, along with disaster, emergency management, EPA, NEPA, FEMA, legislation, Hurricane Katrina, and hazards. Documents and websites that were analyzed based on search results are listed in Appendix A1.
There have been several updates to NEPA over time, with the most recent updates issued in July 2020. These updates focused primarily on rulemaking processes and there was no mention of environmental justice on the website. 18 An examination of the NEPA legislation and updates reveals there is no attention to ensuring that environmental justice is included in environmental protection provisions. Environmental protection concerns have not been successfully addressed through federal legislation.
FEMA had no plans or references for incorporating environmental justice into their disaster policies or grant awards. They referenced environmental justice on their website, but the link only discussed historical preservation and environmental planning. In fact, the word “justice” does not appear anywhere. The FEMA strategic plan for 2018–2022 does not contain a single reference to environmental justice. 19 DHS, which FEMA falls under, adopted an environmental justice strategy in 2012, which noted a commitment to: “Ensuring resilience to disasters requires DHS to have robust programs for emergency preparedness, mitigation, and response and disaster recovery. Meaningful communication with potentially affected communities, including minority populations and low income populations, is critical to ensuring that those impacted by disaster receive fair and equitable treatment in both planning, preparedness and mitigation activities as well as response and recovery actions.” 20
The EPA is the primary agency responsible for the administration of environmental justice policies. Historically, the EPA has had limited success in addressing concerns related to equity, particularly evident after Hurricane Katrina, and in many other cases. Implementation of federal environmental laws has been plagued by problems, resulting in a lack of enforcement from the EPA. 21 These findings are consistent with prior research that found that implementation of the federal register rules resulting from this Executive Order was uneven. 22 Indicating a shift in priorities, in 2019, the EPA made environmental justice and disasters a top priority as part of their annual plan. The agency offered grant funding for disaster resilience and emergency preparedness, and provided Disaster Debris Management Training for several tribal nations in Region 5 (which includes Louisiana), and committed to developing additional initiatives related to disasters and environmental justice. 23
An important related group is the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice, which is a group that includes all of the relevant federal agencies formed to coordinate plans for developing and implementing environmental justice strategies. This group is led by the EPA, and currently includes 17 federal agencies and White House offices. The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the working group do more to implement environmental justice plans. 24 In the most recent report from the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (2019), the working group committed to connecting stakeholders with federal and local resources related to disaster resilience, in areas of preparedness, response, and recovery. They established a subcommittee as part of the working group's efforts to support vulnerable populations in disasters. The working group has identified this as a need, and has engaged in several initiatives, such as helping facilitate the delivery of diabetes supplies to Puerto Rico after the recent hurricanes. The initiative is still in its infancy, but has the potential to address environmental justice and disasters. It is of significance that the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice is focused on disaster planning as a key initiative for the future.
Discussion and Conclusion
Given the attention from the public and scholars that Hurricane Katrina brought to the inequities and environmental injustice in the Gulf Coast region, we might expect that substantive policy changes would have been adopted and implemented after the storm. Prior research indicates that a window of opportunity for policy change can open after a disaster occurs. 25 The failed policies and social inequities revealed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina provided an opportunity for advocacy and policy change. Initially, there was some indication that there might be substantive policy change enacted after the disaster. There were multiple governmental investigations, policy proposals, and scholars and activists called for environmental justice to be addressed in disaster recovery and future disaster planning efforts.
There is both limited progress in federal implementation of environmental justice practices broadly, and a lack of co-ordinated effort to integrate environmental justice policies into disaster management. Despite the foundation in place from NEPA legislation, an Executive Order with related federal rules, major federal agencies to implement environmental justice policies (EPA), and a multiagency Federal Working Group on Environmental Justice, there is still inadequate implementation of the environmental justice principles that advocates and scholars have worked to enact. Furthermore, these principles have not been integrated into federal disaster management planning by FEMA or DHS, the lead agencies in disaster management.
Hurricane Katrina did not directly result in legislative or agency change in addressing environmental justice in disaster policy, but an evolution over time is evident. This disaster created the opportunity for policy advocacy and attention to the importance of thinking about these issues in disaster policy. Discussions with policymakers that began after Hurricane Katrina laid the groundwork for and developed knowledge about the ways in which environmental justice considerations should be taken into account in disaster management and recovery. During the 15 years after Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Coast region has experienced many additional large-scale disasters, which could have resulted in substantive policy changes where there was an integration of environmental justice concerns and disaster management. This analysis reveals that for the most part, this has not been the case, but that there might be changes beginning to take place.
Renewed attention to justice concerns are evident in the most recent EPA environmental justice reports, as well as in the new priorities for the EJIWG Subcommittee on Environmental Justice and Natural Disasters in 2019. This group is tasked with developing and implementing equity considerations for vulnerable populations in disasters. Depending on how much funding and support this subcommittee's efforts receive, this may become an effective pathway to increasing attention and action to environmental justice and disasters.
Disaster policy scholars hope to identify best practices for equity and inclusion in all aspects of disaster management, including environmental justice. They seek to understand policy processes by which disasters can be mitigated, effectively responded to, and inclusive with attention to equitable recovery processes. At a minimum, a disaster failure of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina should be a catalyst to ensure that we increase our understanding and implementation of disaster equity and environmental justice concerns. From a normative perspective, we aim to improve society by addressing injustices elucidated from disasters, but that were present long before the disaster events occurred. When policy change that would advance equity and environmental justice related to disasters is not substantively incorporated, but rather, is given symbolic attention only, trust in government and in the political system is further eroded, particularly from communities who already have little historical reason to trust these processes.
This study contributes to our understanding of the nexus of disaster scholarship and environmental justice, which is a crucial nexus moving into the future. These two areas of research need to incorporate the knowledge from each discipline, as they are inextricably linked. Disasters are exacerbated by inequities, particularly those that the environmental justice research has elucidated. Likewise, environmental justice concerns will continue to figure prominently in disaster management.
On the heels of the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and at the end of the 2020 hurricane season, there have been 30 named storms, including six major hurricanes, with major flooding and damage in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The current COVID-19 transboundary catastrophe demonstrates the importance of applying an environmental justice framework in understanding and addressing the inequalities that persist in the Gulf Coast region. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected low-income and minority communities in every aspect of life, including economically and in health disparities, as well as in death rates. 26 These disasters again are exacerbating pre-existing injustices and vulnerabilities. Hurricanes and other disasters will continue to plague the Gulf Coast region because of geography and social vulnerabilities, increasing in frequency, scope, and severity as the climate crisis looms large. Environmental justice policy considerations continue to be crucially important in addressing long-standing inequalities and injustices in the region, especially as we begin to experience climate change effects.
This analysis reveals areas in which the environmental justice movement has successfully affected changes in disaster policy, and where there remains room for more change. Most significantly, this study illustrates that the federal legislation has not incorporated the environmental justice recommendations from the testimony after Hurricane Katrina. We see more mixed progress at the agency level, and some optimism for progress in the future through the EJIWG subcommittee on Environmental Justice and Natural Disasters. There has been more success at the local level in environmental justice policy after Hurricane Katrina than at the federal level, and this is an important area for future research. Notwithstanding state and local level changes, it is essential to incorporate environmental justice into federal disaster policy and practice if changes are to become systematic and permanent.
Footnotes
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
No funding was awarded to conduct this research.