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The author’s main argument is two-fold. Acute environmental disasters (e.g., Chernobyl, BP Horizon Spill, Hurricane Katrina) that garnered public attention leave behind legacies of increased support for environmental action and legislation, although the public attention span is often too short for lasting change. At the same time, these disasters have received a disproportionate amount of public attention compared to the many more slow-moving toxicity disasters that affect people in more systematic but often less visible ways. Examples of this disparity include the contrast between the 1984 Bhopal disaster coverage, and the persistent toxicity in the area in the time since then in the form of industrial waste and infrastructure that is not maintained. It is additionally important to note that the cases that don’t receive much attention often affect marginalized groups (by race, socioeconomics) disproportionately.

“Virtually all EJ practice has been con- fined to the procedural justice element, with EJ defined as solely consisting of more community involvement. This is inevitable if there is no understanding of the substantive core of such concerns speaking to the need for a systematic and rigorous way to operationalize the concept of dispro- portionate impacts.” (10209)
“The following is a first cut at a working definition of “disproportionate impacts”32: Disproportionate environmental and/or public health impacts are combinations of demonstrably greater pollu- tion burden and population vulnerability associated with socially and/or economically disadvantaged communities and populations. Disproportionate impacts may often reflect consistent patterns in the distribution of pollution and vulnerability, and are often a function of historical trends and policy decisions.” (10212)

“To be sure, anecdotal descriptions represent very compelling information, as countless community mem- bers testify at public hearings every day to express their concerns about their communities’ well-being. How- ever, we all know from bitter experience how they are often ignored, criticized, or marginalized. Having peer- reviewed, government-sanctioned, and quantitative data changed the terms of the conversation and went a long way toward ensuring that the data are taken seriously. It provided a basis by which we can define and discuss the concept of disproportionate impacts in analytically rigor- ous terms.” (10213)

The primary argument of the text is that an understanding of disproportionate impacts is needed for systemic environmental justice (EJ) changes to take place (particularly, in government programs). The author notes that the EPA has, along with other government agencies, been unable to move past a “procedural justice” version of EJ, in which it is defined only as consisting of further community involvement (10209). EPA’s definition of EJ, which includes tenets of both fair treatment meaningful involvement, is not fully possible without, as the author notes, “an analytical framework rooted in an understanding of disproportionate impacts” (10218): this includes not only the procedural justice listed above, but also the distributive corrective, social, recognitional, and structural justice cited in EJ literature. The author puts this in the context of the national reckoning with systemic racism in summer 2020 (which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic), citing these concurrent events as catalysts for major improvements to programs that affect environmental and human health (10218).