"Protecting Urban
Environments" 

Copyright © 2000-2009 by
Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice.
All rights reserved.

NEW ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE GROUP PLEDGES STRONGER POLICY FOCUS

August 6th, 2010 – Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice has long fought to secure safer, healthy environments for the state’s urban residents. The organization now has taken a bold, new step to advance its mission by developing a new national policy centered organization.

Together with two other nonprofits, CCEJ established the National Workgroup on Environmental Justice Policy, an organization dedicated to national chemical policy issues. The new workgroup is the product of a national conference this past June that attracted twenty groups focused on environmental issues relevant to low-income communities and communities of color. CT Coalition for Environmental Justice, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Just Transition Alliance are the new workgroup’s co-founders.

“More needs be done so that environmental justice groups understand how of current policies disproportionately harm our communities,” said Dr. Mark Mitchell, CCEJ President, explaining the new organization’s purpose.

Mitchell states the new workgroup will be taking an educational and activist role among grassroots organizations as federal lawmakers debate HR 5820, the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act, a new bill aimed at regulating toxic chemicals and their related public health risks.

Mitchell says the new National Workgroup will bring attention to failures of the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), the 34 year old federal law that regulates toxic substances. “TSCA doesn’t adequately control toxics, but allows higher exposures to toxic chemicals in low-income communities,” Mitchell states. “This causes the higher rates of disease, such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and obesity seen in our communities. In practice, the law actually ties EPA’s hands by making the agency responsible to prove a chemical is harmful before requiring health information about it. A chemical is assumed to be safe until proven otherwise—in effect, a sort of chemical Catch-22. As it is, 1,500 additional chemicals are proposed for use in consumer products each year.

“It’s all part of our goal for the National Workgroup on Environmental Justice Policy,” said Mitchell. “We seek to organize environmental justice communities around toxic reform and to pass laws to benefit the communities being most impacted, which are usually low-income communities and communities of color.”

The new Workgroup will complement work done by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, a group of 11 million people working for chemical policy reform. CCEJ is a founding member of the Safer Chemicals coalition.

“EPA has identified this work among its top priorities and we have the ear of senior leaders in Congress. We see real potential to build consensus and make real progress,” said Mitchell.