Investigating Linkages Between Public Policy Decisions and Environmental Equity Concerns

有证据表明，贫困和少数族裔社区暴露在环境危害中的程度不成比例，这动员了公民团体，这些团体向政府官员施压，要求他们采取行动缓解这些问题。环境不平等的未知来源(S)提出了其他问题。政府行为是否对环境污染带来的不公平风险负有直接责任？到目前为止，公共政策对环境不平等的贡献一直被视为一个需要补救的问题，而不是一个有待检验的假设。本研究将评估环境保护政策决策的分配后果。这项研究将确定政策决策是否会产生不平等的风险。如果是这样的话，将考察产生这些政策结果的过程。将提供一个环境政策制定的模型并进行测试。该模型将提供对市场激励对污染控制的影响的洞察，以及政府政策可以增加或减轻环境不平等的方式。

Evidence that poor and minority neighborhoods suffer disproportionate levels of exposure to environmental hazards has mobilized citizen groups, and these groups have pressured governmental officials for action to alleviate the problems. The unknown source(s) of environmental inequities raises additional questions. Are government actions directly responsible for inequitable risks from environmental pollution? To date, the contribution of public policy to environmental inequity has been viewed as a problem to be remedied rather than a hypothesis to be tested. This research will evaluate the distributional consequences of policy decisions in environmental protection. The research will establish whether policy decisions produce unequal risks. If so, the processes that generate these policy outcomes will be examined. A model of environmental policymaking will be offered and tested. The model will provide insight into the consequences of market incentives on pollution control as well as the ways in which government policy can increase or alleviate environmental inequities.