Investigating Linkages Between Public Policy Decisions and Environmental Equity Concerns

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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.