EPA-190-B-10-004
FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan
Cross-Cutting Fundamental Strategy: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
Work to reduce and prevent harmful exposures and health risks to children and underserved,
disproportionately impacted low-income, minority, and tribal communities, and support
community efforts to build healthy, sustainable green neighborhoods.
Advancing environmental justice and protecting children's health must be driving forces in our decisions
across all EPA programs. The underlying principles for this commitment are reducing exposures for
those at greatest risk and ensuring that environmental justice and children's health protection are
integral to all Agency activities. Minority, low-income, and tribal/indigenous populations that are
vulnerable to environmental pollution are at risk of having poor health outcomes. These vulnerabilities
may arise because of higher exposures to pollution in places where they work, live, and play, and/or
diminished abilities to withstand, cope with, or recover from exposure to environmental pollution.1
Children are often most sensitive to environmental stressors. Research has demonstrated that prenatal
and early life exposures to environmental hazards can cause lifelong diseases, medical conditions, and
disabilities.2
Environmental justice and children's health protection will be achieved when all Americans, regardless
of age, race, economic status, or ethnicity, have access to clean water, clean air, and healthy
communities. To accomplish this, EPA will use a variety of approaches, including regulation,
enforcement, research, outreach, community-based programs, and partnerships to protect children and
disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations from environmental and human health hazards.
Our success in advancing environmental justice and children's health protection will result from fully
incorporating these priorities into all of our activities across each of the strategic goals of the Agency.
We anticipate that our leadership in advancing environmental justice and children's health protection
will inspire and engage a broad spectrum of partners in the public and private sector to do the same.
To achieve this goal, EPA will:
1. In our regulatory capacity, implement the nation's environmental laws using the best science and
environmental monitoring data to address the potential for adverse health effects from
environmental factors in disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations and vulnerable age
groups. EPA programs will incorporate environmental justice and children's health considerations
at each stage of the Agency's regulation development process and in implementation and
enforcement of environmental regulations.
2. Develop and use environmental and public health indicators to measure improvements in
environmental conditions and health in disproportionately impacted communities and among
vulnerable age groups.
3. In our work on safe management of pesticides and industrial chemicals, take into account
disproportionately impacted, overburdened populations and vulnerable age groups and encourage
the use of "green chemistry" to spur the development of safer chemicals and production processes.
4. Apply best appropriate scientific methods to assess the potential for disproportionate exposures
and health impacts resulting from environmental hazards on minority, low income and tribal
populations, women of child-bearing age, infants, children, and adolescents to support EPA
decision-making, and develop the tools to assess the risk from multiple stressors.
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5. Fully engage communities in our work to protect human health and the environment. EPA will align
multiple community-based programs to provide funding and technical assistance to communities to
build capacity to address critical issues affecting children's health and disproportionately impacted,
overburdened populations.
6. Work with other federal agencies to engage communities and coordinate funding and technical
support for efforts to build healthy, sustainable, and green neighborhoods, and work with residents
to promote equitable development.
FY 2011 Action Plan: Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health
This Action Plan lists the specific actions that EPA will carry out in FY 2011 to carry out the principles in
the Strategy for Working for Environmental Justice and Children's Health (CH) described above. Annual
action plans will be developed for both areas for each year of the strategic plan.
For Children's Health
1. Implement Action Development Process Guidance for considering CH when developing
regulations related to the protection of human health (Supports Principle 1).
• Train appropriate managers and staff on implementing CH guidance documents, identify
additional training needs, and develop a roadmap for future years to ensure sustained
implementation, including specific follow-up steps and measures to ensure that the training
was used and useful by the programs (by September 2011).
2 Each National Program Manager (NPM) will identify at least one existing strategic plan measure
that can be used as is or enhanced so that it describes the measurable human health and
environmental outcomes resulting from programmatic actions that benefit children's health.
Program measures will also be examined and selected for their potential to support the
development of baselines in FY 2012 to track and report progress to improve conditions and health
among vulnerable age groups over time (Supports Principle 2).
• Each NPM will identify, enhance or develop at least one annual performance measure that
can be used to incorporate children's health progress (by March 2011) in the FY 2013 OMB
Budget Submission (by September 2011).
• Final FY 2012 NPM Guidance will include regional performance expectations for the
implementation of children's health programs, including annual commitments and baselines
(if applicable) (by April 2011).
• EPA will update and expand America's Children and the Environment - Third Edition, which
presents trends in environmental factors related to the health and well-being of children in
the United States and submit to EPA's Science Advisory Board for review (by September
2011).
3 Use children's health protection as a factor for prioritizing/targeting Agency work related to safe
chemicals management (Supports Principle 3).
• Using children's health indicators and the latest children's health research findings, EPA will
identify 5-10 priority chemical hazards for children's health for EPA to target through all
Agency mechanisms, including regulations, enforcement, research, and voluntary programs
(by April 2011).
• EPA will consult with the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee on children's
health criteria to contribute to identification of priority chemicals for assessment and
appropriate action under TSCA (by September 2011).
• EPA will advance the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in settings where children
are present with a focus on schools, and with the long-term goal that every school in
America is managed under a verifiable IPM program. In FY 2011, EPA will begin to shift the
current emphasis of IPM grants from demonstration to implementation or adoption.
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4 Ensure consistent implementation of existing Agency policies and processes to account for specific
exposure pathways and dose-response characteristics of children in risk assessments and standard
setting practices (Supports Principle 4).
• Issue Request for Proposals (RFPs) on observational research on childhood exposures to
environmental contaminants in child care environments and the relationship between school
facilities, children's health, and student performance (by March 2011).
5 Use children's health indicators to target community-based efforts and support priority community-
based projects across EPA (Supports Principles 2 and 5).
• Incorporate a focus on children's environmental health, including training as a ranking factor,
in grant solicitations under Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE),
Environmental Justice, Brownfields, Environmental Education, and Tribal grant programs (by
September 2011).
6. Increase interagency efforts to address the environmental, social, and economic burdens that
impact children's health (Supports Principle 6).
• Issue final voluntary guidelines for where to site school facilities (Energy Independence and
Security Act (EISA) Sec. 502) and draft voluntary guidelines for state school environmental
health programs (EISA Sec. 504) (by September 2011).
• Publish the inter-agency healthy homes strategy (by January 2011).
• Launch healthy homes training for housing intervention training programs, including
weatherization and lead related renovation and repair (by September 2011).
For Environmental Justice - Plan EJ 2014
The following actions align with the FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan and are supported by Plan EJ
2014, a transformational four-year plan that challenges the Agency to work in bold and innovative ways
to advance environmental justice.
1. Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking: Develop and implement guidance to support
continuing consideration of environmental justice (EJ) in rulemakings (Supports Principle 1).
• Draft a framework for technical guidance on how to incorporate EJ in rulemakings (August
2011).
2. Ensure Environmental Justice Concerns in EPA's Permitting Process: Identify and develop tools to
support the consideration of environmental justice during implementation of permitting programs
and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews (Supports Principle 1).
• Convene a cross-agency workgroup on the consideration of EJ in federal EPA permits and
review at a minimum three federal permits with EJ considerations (by September 2011).
3. Accelerating Compliance and Enforcement Initiatives: Target specific compliance strategies and
enforcement actions to address problems that affect overburdened communities and seek remedies
in enforcement actions that benefit overburdened communities affected by the non-compliance
(Supports Principle 1).
• Develop guidance on how to consider EJ in targeting, case development and prosecution,
including addressing overburdened communities in fashioning remedies, mitigating the
environmental and public health impacts caused by the noncompliance, and encouraging
community-centered projects that benefit the overburdened communities.
• Report to the public on the distribution and benefits of enforcement actions with respect to
EJ concerns (by September 2011).
4. Supporting Community-Based Action Programs: Focus on environmental issues that matter to
communities by empowering citizens and community groups to take action to improve their health
and environment, by providing targeted technical assistance and resources, and by piloting tool
development efforts in these project areas (Supports Principles 3 and 5).
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• EPA will deliver a pollution prevention strategy which will include the consideration of
concerns of overburdened communities (May 2011).
• For Showcase Communities, document and report out on successes and lessons learned to
help guide the design and implementation of environmental justice projects and help EPA
increase its ability to address local environmental challenges in more effective, efficient, and
sustainable ways (by September 2011).
5. Fostering Administration-Wide Action on Environmental Justice: Increase Administration-wide
action on Environmental Justice to address the environmental, social, and economic burdens that
impact communities and to protect children's health (Supports Principle 6).
• Convene White House Forum on environmental justice and conduct at least one listening
session with community stakeholders in each of ten EPA regions.
6. Tools Development - Science: Develop methods to characterize and assess cumulative impacts
building upon work from the Science of Disproportionate Impacts Analysis Symposium (March 17-
19, 2010) and the Environmental Justice Regulatory Analysis Technical Workshop (Supports
Principle 4).
• Publish peer reviewed papers on factors that can be used to identify and address
disproportionate impacts (by September 2011).
7. Tools Development - Law: Work with the Office of General Counsel and the regions to identify
opportunities to utilize EPA's statutory authorities to advance Environmental Justice (Supports
Principle 1).
8. Tools Development - Information: Develop a common mapping platform and tools to enhance EJ
analysis and decision-making (Supports Principle 4).
9. Tools Development - Resources: Coordinate multiple Agency grant programs for simple access to
grant resources by the community (Supports Principle 5).
10. Program Initiatives: Each NPM will identify at least one existing strategic plan measure that can be
used as is or enhanced so that it describes the measurable human health and environmental
outcomes resulting from programmatic actions that benefit overburdened communities (Supports
Principle 2).
• Each National Program Manager will identify and/or enhance or develop at least one annual
performance measure to reflect environmental justice progress (by March 2011) that can be
used in the FY 2013 OMB Budget Submission (by September 2011).
• Final FY 2012 National Program Manager Guidance will include regional performance
expectations surrounding the implementation of environmental justice programs, including
annual commitments and baselines (if applicable) (by April 2011).
1 WHO (2006). Principles for Evaluating Health Risks in Children. Environmental Health Criteria 237
EPA (2003). Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment. Risk Assessment Forum, US Environmental Protection
Agency. EPA/630/P-02/001F
NEJAC (2004). Ensuring Risk Reduction in Communities with Multiple Stressors: Environmental Justice and
Cumulative Risks/Impacts. National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
2 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2008). Linking Early Environmental Exposures to Adult
Diseases. National Institute of Health. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Research Triangle
Park, NC. http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/docs/linking-exposures.pdf.
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