A federal judge on Thursday night blocked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from considering the diversity of environmental damages in Louisiana when enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, making permanent a temporary injunction issued in January.
In the ruling, Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, sided with Louisiana in barring the EPA’s Office of Foreign Civil Rights Compliance and the Department of Justice from “enforcing this provision against any entity in Louisiana or requiring compliance with these requirements as a condition of past, present, or future financial assistance to any entity in Louisiana.”
Judge Kane ruled in January that civil rights laws can only be enforced in cases of intentional discrimination.
The ruling came shortly after the EPA announced it was closing its investigation into “Cancer Alley,” a petrochemical production hub in Louisiana and a predominantly black, low-income neighborhood that has disproportionately higher cancer rates than the nation as a whole.
Judge Kane rejected the federal government’s request to dismiss the Louisiana case after the investigation was completed, ruling that the state was still entitled to “clear explanation as to defendants’ authority to regulate beyond the express language of Title VI.”
Environmental group Earthjustice slammed the ruling in a statement on Friday.
“For generations, Louisiana has given industrial polluters free rein to pollute Black and brown communities, and now the court has given them a permanent absolution from responsibility,” Patrice Sims, Earthjustice’s vice president of health communities, said in a statement. “Louisiana residents and environmental justice communities deserve the same protections under Title VI as the rest of the country.”
Friday’s decision came after the Supreme Court ruled this summer to deny so-called “Chevron deference,” which gives federal agencies broader latitude to interpret federal law.
