In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Ann Wolverton, a senior research economist at the US Environmental Protection Agency, about how the agency incorporates environmental justice in its rulemaking and its analysis of agency regulations. Wolverton discusses the history of accounting for environmental justice at federal agencies, how the availability and granularity of data affect this ability to evaluate environmental justice outcomes, and how formally considering environmental justice can inform federal regulations.

References and recommendations:

“Environmental Justice Analysis for EPA Rulemakings: Opportunities and Challenges” by Ann Wolverton; https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/724721

“EPA Draft Revision of Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis” public comment period; https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/epa-draft-revision-technical-guidance-assessing-environmental-justice

“Toms River” by Dan Fagin; https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/dan-fagin