By Carolina Gittrich
Environmental Justice (EJ) communities across the United States bear a disproportionate burden of industrial facility siting, yet federal law does not equip them with meaningful opportunities to challenge these decisions. Existing permitting frameworks under primary environmental laws provide affected stakeholders only with formal notice and comment. There is no requirement for permitting authorities to incorporate this gathered information into the final decision. This Note argues that state-level cumulative impact legislation provides a path towards procedural justice that can overcome these federal failures. Drawing on a procedural justice framework, this Note contends that true community participation requires that community input actually shape permitting outcomes. Using New Jersey’s landmark EJ law as a case study, this Note identifies structural gaps within these existing frameworks and proposes the integration of Community Advisory Groups (CAGs) as an enforceable mechanism for promoting procedural justice.
Part I develops the procedural justice framework and surveys the federal legal architecture governing environmental permitting. Part II examines how this federal regime leaves EJ communities with participation rights that are both procedurally fragile and substantively weak, using New Jersey’s cumulative impact law to illustrate the promise and persistent limitations of existing reform efforts. Part III proposes integrating the CAG model into state cumulative impact legislation and addresses the practical and legal challenges of doing so.