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CCEJ President Named to NACEPT

Dr. Mark Mitchell of Hartford was appointed by US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson to EPA’s National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) in July.

A stakeholder group with members from academia, business and industry, NACEPT is charged with identifying innovative technologies that can be used to protect the public health of the nation’s most vulnerable populations. Members also review EPA’s five-year strategic plan to make recommendations about its findings as well as increasing diversity within the agency.

“My goal as part of NACEPT is to make sure low-income communities and communities of color have the tools they need to identify local environmental threats and to bring focus on eliminating threats to public health, said Mitchell.

Mitchell is currently the only environmental justice leader appointed to NACEPT.

Dr. Mitchell, President of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, played a key role in helping Connecticut’s groundbreaking environmental justice bill to pass overwhelmingly in 2008. “The bill set up a process to enhance public involvement with the siting of polluting facilities in low-income communities,” said Mitchell.

Under Jackson, the EPA has identified Environmental Justice as one of its top priorities. The agency now is working to advance the priority by identifying and remediating environmental quality issues that put low-income communities at greater risk of disease such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and obesity.