FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Carlos Enriquez, CEJN, carlos@setaskforce.org, 815-342-5717
Ivan Moreno, NRDC, imoreno@nrdc.org, 773-799-6455

Illinois House Advances Critical Environmental Justice Legislation 

SPRINGFIELD, IL (March 4, 2022) – The Illinois House advanced yesterday the Illinois Environmental Justice Act (HB4093/SB2906) that would reform zoning and permitting processes for industrial facilities in the state. Advocates say that the bill would address systemic issues with zoning and land-use laws that have entrenched environmental racism and segregation. Proponents of the legislation link broken zoning laws with historic ties to systemic racism.

The bill comes after the passage of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that centered environmental justice communities across the state and opened opportunities for the clean energy economy to expand in areas of the state that stand to benefit the most.

According to the Chicago Department of Public Health, “Some communities have rates of poverty, cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that are ten times greater than others.”  The top cause in these health and life expectancy differences is environmental pollution.  Exposure to pollutants such as ozone and PM2.5 is associated with increased risk of lung irritation, respiratory problems, cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer, and early death.

Often, working-class communities of color are home to the highest concentrations of air, water and land pollution. Decades of pollution has caused tangible health impacts such as disproportionate rates of respiratory health issues.

Supporters of this legislation have also taken part in wider efforts around environmental justice, including local fights against industrial polluters such as the General Iron-RMG car-shredding operation, whose final operating permit was recently denied by the City of Chicago citing concerns around emissions and their impact to community health.

The reforms in the bill: 

  • Allow communities to determine their status as environmental justice areas, and recognizes cumulative impacts of industry
  • Expand public and community participation by requiring in person, public hearings for permits
  • Empower grievance procedures that would allow any person or community that has been discriminated against by the IEPA to file a complaint and provide standing to impacted communities to challenge a siting permit in court
  • Make companies go through the same local siting process that landfills use to get sited, giving more local control to municipalities
  • Allow the state to identify long-time bad actors by creating a project bank for fines and fees incurred in environmental justice communities
  • Require environmental justice assessment for cumulative impact for any new pollution source in an environmental justice area
  • Extend deadlines required by the IEPA for permit approval, and the IEPA would be required to deny permits for previous environmental violations given by any body of government

The following is a statement from the Chicago Environmental Justice Network:

“Illinois can’t continue to look the other way while broken zoning laws go on creating sacrifice zones that funnel polluting industries to communities of color. The Illinois Environmental Justice Act is an important step in breaking down racist practices that keep our voices from being heard and our communities from being trapped in a cycle of endless accumulation of toxic industries.

“It will finally allow government agencies to take an honest look at the existing pollution in a community before allowing any more industry to pile on. This bill brings equity to a process that has put communities of color at a disadvantage for decades.”

The following is a statement from the chief sponsor of the bill, Rep. Sonya M. Harper (D): 

“Black, Brown and Indigenous communities across Illinois have disproportionately experienced generations of concentrated, toxic industrial pollution resulting in costly, chronic health impacts.

“The only way to equitably reform zoning policies that have fueled environmental racism is to give residents more say in the process for rewriting and implementing those policies.”

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