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：在环境许可证审查中解释政府机构对环境正义的累积影响评估的变化和社会结果摘要美国各地被边缘化的土著和工人阶级社区受到受污染的饮用水、工业空气排放和危险工作场所等环境问题的不成比例的影响。易受伤害的社区往往同时遭受多种此类伤害。这些分层的环境不平等导致疾病、生活质量和预期寿命方面的严重不平等。这项研究将考察政府机构使用环境正义累积影响评估(CIAEJ)来改善这些负担过重、脆弱和服务不足的社区的生活质量。本研究旨在加强政府机构减少环境不平等和促进环境正义(EJ)的能力，确定实现这一目标最有效的机构做法和促进这些做法的条件。除了在实证数据收集和分析方法方面提供大量的研究生培训外，项目结果还将通过学术出版物、应邀演讲、公开听证会上的正式评论以及PI参与机构EJ咨询委员会的方式分享给科学家、政府机构、EJ倡导者和更广泛的公众。这项为期三年的实证研究将审查三个环境监管机构目前将CIAEJ技术应用于环境许可证审查的方式。将从机构文件、对这些举措的公开评论、与机构工作人员和外部利益攸关方的秘密访谈以及对机构会议的观察中收集数据。这个项目将通过确定在监管决策中使用CIAEJ的社会因素来促进STS、政治生态和EJ研究的科学知识，分析将集中在官僚机构如何确定什么被视为风险，以及不同的背景和创造性的官僚做法如何通过监管机构实践促进社会正义改革。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.