Judge Halts EPA Action in ‘Cancer Alley’ Civil Rights Case

A federal judge in Louisiana temporarily blocked federal investigations by the EPA and Department of Justice into whether the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) violated the disparate impact requirements of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act when it issued permits for petrochemical plants near Black communities in St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes. The area is located in what is known as “Cancer Alley,” a region with one of the highest cancer risks in the nation.

“Title VI prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating against state residents based on race and national origin, and allows residents to petition the EPA arguing that state agencies have intentionally discriminated or disparately impacted a particular community,” reports Julia Conley of Common Dreams.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, state attorney at the time, filed a lawsuit against the EPA last June, arguing the investigation exceeded statutory authority. In his ruling, Judge James D. Cain, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, said Title VI requirements constitute “federal overreach” and “pollution does not discriminate.”

The decision is a further blow to advocates and local residents. A few weeks after the lawsuit was filed last summer, the EPA announced it was ending a separate investigation, stating they didn’t find evidence to support claims that the LDEQ intentionally placed disproportionate pollution burdens on Black residents in Cancer Alley.

According to BloombergLaw, allowing disparate impacts in a case—defined as adverse impacts on a protected group resulting from systems, practices, policies, or rules that appear to be neutral—can be easier to prove than intentional discrimination in some environmental justice cases.

"Instead of fixing the discriminatory permitting programs that have created sacrifice zones like Cancer Alley, Louisiana is fighting tooth and nail to keep them in place," Sam Sankar, senior vice president of programs for Earthjustice, said in a statement. "The public health crisis in St. John the Baptist Parish shows us why we need Title VI: EPA needs to be able to use our civil rights laws to stop states from running permitting programs that perpetuate environmental injustice."