Class and unequal political power also drive where environmental harms land

Evidence

The antitoxics side of the environmental justice movement makes the same argument along class lines: that it is not just race, but poverty that is a central indicator of the presence of environmental bads in a community. In addition, studies have shown that agencies such as the EPA enforce environmental laws in poor communities and communities of color less stringently than they do in wealthy white communities (Lavelle and Coyle 1992). Boyce et al. (1999) argue that states with greater inequalities in power (illustrated by differences in voter participation, tax fairness, Medicaid access, and education) had less stringent environmental policies and greater levels of environmental stress. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 209

Categorization

• XREF: The enforcement and power-inequality findings show distributive injustice is driven by procedural/political deficits — feeds the reader’s three-partty typology application across courses. — connects to: Race is the strongest predictor of hazardous waste facility siting in the US — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 208; Environmental education can alienate resource-dependent rural communities when it condemns local livelihoods. — David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting…, 68; Environmental destruction stems from structural imbalance, not individual villainy — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 617 (+5 more)
• SEED: The Boyce finding that state-level power inequality (voter participation, tax fairness) correlates with weaker environmental policy is a concrete, citable axis for an essay on whether noise/EJ regulation delivers procedural justice.

Broader Connections

• Military bases concentrate environmental harm in poorer non-Western communities #exemplifies (0.85) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 426
• Misrecognition and political exclusion structurally block poor communities’ participation in environmental decisions #exemplifies (0.80) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 248