Diminishing or Increasing Returns? State Policy Responses to Environmental Inequality and Environmental Justice Mobilization

Environmental inequality is inequality that intersects the social, political, and environmental. It relates to the differences across social groups in the quality of the environment in the places where we live, work, learn, and play, as well as in the places from which our food is grown and our water flows. Environmental disparities in the US can be observed across race and class with poor communities of color having the least access to environmental benefits and resources as well as the most exposure to environmental hazards. In the 1980s, a movement for environmental justice began in response to growing awareness of race- and class-based neighborhood disparities in the quality of their environment. Environmental justice seeks the equal protection of all communities regardless of race, ethnicity, or class from our environmental and public health laws and the equitable distribution of environmental amenities and benefits. The mobilization of affected communities, alongside scholarly work documenting the disproportionate exposures of predominantly Black communities, led government policymakers to respond. Policy responses range from intergovernmental partnerships to statutory reforms to seek to promote environmental justice. This research examines how the patterned exposure of affected communities has been affected by movement mobilization and associated policy processes and whether those processes have moderated levels of environmental inequality over time.Doctor of Philosoph