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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

EPA southeast regional administrator defends agency's concern for environmental justice

The Southeast regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency defended her concern for environmental justice at the annual Governor's Energy and Environment Conference in Kentucky on Monday.

Gwen Keyes Fleming said she was striving to find mutual respect and understanding between industries and the communities where they operate in order to find the best way to craft a solution for those communities, by combining environmental stewardship with economic good sense. "With all of these challenges, it's important for us to turn to each other and not on each other," she said. "It's important for us to listen and to include the community and their views in those discussions about energy and extraction."

EPA has come under attack from officials and political candidates in the region and beyond for such actions as tighter controls on mountaintop-removal strip mining of coal. Recently Fleming took a tour of Eastern Kentucky with opponents of the practice.

Fleming said one of her main goals as Region 4 administrator is environmental justice, reaching out to communities that are unserved and underserved. "People ask: Why is the EPA delving into this? First and foremost, it's the morally right thing to do. If you look at the statutes, it is a constitutional right that they apply to everybody equally. It doesn't say clean water for some or clean air for others."

She added that environmental justice is also important for economic development, saying that as long as certain communities were dealing with undue burdens of pollution, sustainable businesses that could strengthen the economy would not want to locate in those areas. (Read more)

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