WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, co-founder of the Senate’s first-ever Environmental Justice Caucus, wrote to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler this week about the agency’s non-enforcement policy that encourages companies to operate without regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could severely impact environmental justice communities. This letter is a follow up to Duckworth’s questioning of Wheeler during a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) hearing last month. Her letter also expresses concern that EPA offices are not following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidelines for re-opening.
In part, Duckworth wrote: “I am concerned that EPA has not required companies to provide an explanation for why they are unable to fulfil their compliance obligations at this time, which I believe could lead to unnecessary public health harm in the communities in which they operate.”
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She continued: “Environmental justice communities are at a higher risk of hospitalizations and death due to COVID-19, in part because of underlying conditions like asthma caused by the pollution in their neighborhoods. To allow pollution to worsen during a respiratory pandemic in these vulnerable communities is unacceptable and that is why your clarification and swift action is critically important.”
