by Christopher Boerner and Thomas Lambert

About the authors: Christopher Boerner and Thomas Lambert are fellows at the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Eliminating “environmental racism” has fast become one of the premier civil rights and environmental issues of the 1990s. Over the past 15 years, what began as a modest grassroots social movement has expanded to become a national issue, combining environmentalism’s sense of urgency with the ethical concerns of the civil rights movement. According to “environmental-justice” advocates, discrimination in the siting and permitting of industrial and waste facilities has forced minorities and the poor to bear disproportionately the ill-effects of pollution compared to more affluent whites. What’s more, advocates contend, the discriminatory application of environmental regulations and remediation procedures...