Standard Research Grant: Explaining Variations and Social Outcomes of Cumulative Impact Assessment for Environmental Justice by Government Agencies in Environmental Permit Review

标准研究补助金：政府机构在环境许可审查中对环境正义累积影响评估的变化和社会结果的解释摘要美国各地的种族边缘化、土著和工人阶级社区不成比例地受到环境问题的影响，如污染的饮用水、工业废气排放和危险的工作场所。弱势群体往往同时遭受多重此类伤害。这些分层的环境不平等导致了疾病、生活质量和预期寿命的严重不平等。本研究将探讨政府机构使用累积影响评估的环境正义（CIAEJ），以提高生活质量，在这些负担过重，脆弱，服务不足的社区。本研究旨在加强政府机构的能力，以减少环境不平等和促进环境正义（EJ），确定机构的做法，是最有效的实现这一目标和促进他们的条件。除了为研究生提供大量的经验数据收集和分析方法的培训外，项目的研究结果还将通过学术出版物、特邀演讲、公开听证会上的正式评论以及PI参与机构EJ咨询委员会的方式与科学家、政府机构、EJ倡导者和更广泛的公众分享。实证研究将探讨三个环境管理机构目前如何将CIAEJ技术应用于环境许可证审查。数据将从机构文件、公众对这些举措的评论、与机构工作人员和外部利益相关者的保密访谈以及对机构会议的观察中收集。该项目将通过确定在监管决策中塑造CIAEJ使用的社会因素，推进STS，政治生态学和EJ研究的科学知识，分析将集中在官僚如何确定什么是风险，以及不同的背景和创造性的官僚做法如何通过监管机构的实践促进社会正义改革。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得的通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来提供支持。

Standard Research Grant: Explaining Variations and Social Outcomes of Cumulative Impact Assessment for Environmental Justice by Government Agencies in Environmental Permit ReviewABSTRACTRacially marginalized, Indigenous, and working-class communities across the U.S. are disproportionately subjected to environmental problems such as contaminated drinking water, industrial air emissions, and dangerous workplaces. Vulnerable communities often endure multiple such harms simultaneously. These layered environmental inequalities lead to serious inequalities in illness, quality of life, and life expectancy. This study will examine government agencies’ use of cumulative impact assessment for environmental justice (CIAEJ) to improve quality of life in these overburdened, vulnerable, and underserved communities. This study aims to strengthen government agencies’ abilities to reduce environmental inequalities and foster environmental justice (EJ) by identifying agency practices that are most effective toward this end and the conditions that foster them. In addition to providing substantial graduate student training in methods of empirical data collection and analysis, the project findings will be shared to scientists, government agencies, EJ advocates, and the broader public through academic publications, invited presentations, formal comments at public hearings, and the PI’s participation in agency EJ advisory councils.This three-year, empirical study will examine the ways three environmental regulatory agencies are currently applying CIAEJ techniques into environmental permit review. Data will be gathered from agency documents, public comments on these initiatives, confidential interviews with agency staff and external stakeholders, and observation of agency meetings. This project will advance scientific knowledge in STS, political ecology, and EJ studies by identifying social factors shaping the use of CIAEJ within regulatory decision-making, and analyses will focus on how bureaucrats determine what counts as risk, and how different contexts and creative bureaucratic practices may foster social justice reforms through regulatory agency practice.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.