Social Justice Activism

Regulations or Formalized EJ Guidelines
In 1997 the USDA promulgated a departmental regulation providing "direction to [sub-
]agencies for integrating environmental justice considerations into USDA programs and
activities" (DR 5600-002). Issuance of this regulation was a primary goal of USDA's
1995 EJ strategy document. DR 5600-002 includes guidelines for consideration of EJ in
the NEPA process, but also stated that "efforts to address environmental justice are not
limited to NEPA compliance." It requires evaluation of activities for potential
disproportionate EJ impacts, outreach, and performance-metric based evaluation and
reporting on sub-agencies' implementation of EJ goals. DR 5600-002 is a forwardlooking,
permanent directive that applies to all USDA programs and activities. It was not
published in the Federal Register as a formal rulemaking and does not create a private
right of action or enforcement tool. A Strategic Plan goal is to update this regulation, as
well as other departmental regulations and policies on EJ. According to USDA, the EJ
definition in DR 5600-002 will be modified in 2012—EJ to include measures to avoid
disproportionate negative impacts as well as quality-of-life improvements that the
agency believes can benefit impacted communities.
The Strategic Plan also has established a performance standard requiring that existing
and new USDA regulations are evaluated for EJ impacts or benefits. Sub-agencies are
required to develop a process for this evaluation by April 15, 2012. This performance
standard reflects a requirement in DR 5600-002 that required the USDA departmental
regulation on rulemaking, DR 1521-1, to be revised to require an EJ evaluation in the
Page 103 of 161