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Louisiana Judge Blocks EPA From Enforcing Civil Rights Mandates [1]
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Date: 2024-01
Louisiana successfully convinced a federal judge in the state to block the EPA and the Department of Justice from imposing disparate impact requirements under the Civil Rights Act.
Judge James D. Cain Jr.'s decision Tuesday prevents the Environmental Protection Agency and DOJ from imposing or enforcing such requirements against the state or any state agency under Title VI of the act.
Cain, of the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, also blocked the EPA and DOJ from enforcing any Title VI requirements unless they are both ratified by the president and based on requirements within the EPA’s disparate impact regulations. The agency’s regulations essentially block EPA-funded agencies from taking actions that “are intentionally discriminatory or have a discriminatory effect.”
Louisiana’s case stems from the federal government’s investigations into complaints that certain state agencies violated Title VI by discriminating against Black residents through the agencies’ oversight of an area known as “Cancer Alley.”
The federal government asked the judge in August to toss Louisiana’s case after the EPA dropped its investigations. But Cain found Tuesday that the regulations still in place impose increased costs on the state, and that the state is “entitled to unambiguous clarity concerning Defendants’ power to regulate beyond the plain text of Title VI.”
The judge sided with the state’s argument that the requirements amounted to government overreach, writing that the defendants “constructed Title VI to allow it to regulate beyond the Statute’s plain text and by doing go, invade the purview of the State’s domain.”
“The public interest here is that governmental agencies abide by its laws, and treat all of its citizens equally, without considering race,” Cain wrote. “To be sure, if a decision maker has to consider race, to decide, it has indeed participated in racism.”
“Pollution does not discriminate,” the judge wrote.
The case is Louisiana v. EPA, W.D. La., No. 2:23-cv-00692, 1/23/24.
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[1] Url:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/louisiana-judge-blocks-epa-from-enforcing-civil-rights-mandates
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