December 15, 2025
Contact: Ashley Sullivan, ashley.sullivan@weact.org, (917) 837-1183
New Research Confirms Environmental Justice Experiences: Policies That Directly Address Disparities Result in Cleaner Air, Generalized Efforts Don’t
WASHINGTON – New research “Eliminating air pollution disparities requires more than emission reduction” published in The Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences demonstrates that to eliminate the disproportionate levels of air pollution experienced by people of color in the United States, policies seeking to improve general air quality are not enough but rather must explicitly aim to decrease disparities. The study discusses which types of policies target disparities, and who has the regulatory authority to enact them. The paper, authored by Libby H. Koolik at University of California Berkeley, alongside environmental justice thought leaders such as Dr. Robert Bullard, founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice and distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, as well as Manuel Salgado, Federal Research Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, offers a range of approaches to air pollution policy that go beyond traditional emission reductions and provides strategies that should be at the center of the future environmental policy.
Manuel Salgado, Federal Research Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice shared,
“People of color across the U.S. have been overwhelmingly and disproportionately exposed to all forms of pollution, especially dangerous air pollution, for generations. As reported by the American Lung Association this year, people of color continue to be more exposed to air pollution, with communities of color being twice as likely as white individuals to live in a neighborhood with unhealthy levels of soot and ozone pollution. This is also what people on the ground living with these harms have been saying for years, working to advocate for their own health, lives, families, and futures. When policies and data are scrubbed of intentionality that addresses the reality of these disparate impacts, injustice continues. In order to significantly reduce polluting emissions while also rectifying the outsized burden to people of color and lower income communities, we need to center data that accurately shows this disparity and provide policies that get to the source of the problem. We need to create and advance policies that disrupt a continuation of racially discriminatory actions built on the history of redlining, so that we stop placing emission sources in overburdened communities and better regulate and/or remove those that already exist in the backyards of people facing ongoing pollution exposure along with related health, economic, and social impacts.”
Libby H. Koolik, doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley shared,
“In the many decades since the Clean Air Act, academics and engineers have become really talented at developing new technology that reduces emissions (e.g., electric cars, diesel particulate filters, scrubbers). In this article, we demonstrate how those emissions-reductions are insufficient to mitigate disparities unless coupled with intentional, targeted changes in where emissions are occurring. We need to reduce emissions for overall human and environmental health, but we also need to meaningfully invest in infrastructure changes that remove these harmful pollution sources from overburdened communities across the United States. The policies we’ve pointed to — much like this study — benefit from the continued partnership of interdisciplinary experts from academia and environmental justice organizations, including WE ACT. ”
Co-authors on the paper included Professors Josh Apte at UC Berkeley and Julian Marshall at University of Washington, alongside Esther Min, Director for Environmental Health Research Partnerships at Front and Centered, Rachel Morello-Frosch, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Regan Patterson, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UCLA , and Nico Wedekind, Associate Attorney at Earthjustice.
# # #
WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan membership-based organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram.