EPA Broke Law by Failing to Investigate Civil Rights Complaints: Court

"A court ruled today that the Environmental Protection Agency violated its duty to respond to civil rights complaints in a timely way. The case involved five organizations that had waited years for the EPA to respond to complaints filed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color.

The law requires the EPA to respond to parties that file civil rights complaints within 20 days, letting them know whether the agency plans to conduct an investigation. After opening an investigation, the EPA has 180 days to either dismiss a complaint or issue preliminary findings and recommendations based on what it finds in the investigation. But in each of the five cases, the groups waited years — in some cases, decades — for responses from the agency.

Among the groups suing Scott Pruitt and the EPA were Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, a nonprofit in Albuquerque, which filed a complaint in 2002 over a hazardous waste facility in a mostly poor, Hispanic area of southeastern New Mexico; and Californians for Renewable Energy, which in 2000 challenged state permitting decisions that allowed two gas-fired power plants to be located in a mostly nonwhite, low-income community in Pittsburg, California."

Sharon Lerner reports for the Intercept April 3, 2018.