On August 22, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana permanently blocked the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice from implement Civil Rights Act Title VI “disparate impact” regulations within the state of Louisiana. Disparate impact assessments are typically undertaken by the federal government when determining harms to communities significantly impacted – typically lower-income communities and communities of color – by large governmental projects and industrial or commercial permitting changes. Disparate impact assessments have been prioritized by the Biden-Harris administration in its consistent efforts to promote environmental justice, as regularly covered by ELM.

Roughly two and a half years ago, in January 2022, an environmental group filed a complaint on behalf of residents of St. John the Baptist Parish – a Black community with abnormally high cancer rates – requesting that the EPA investigate whether Louisiana agencies violated Title VI by failing to protect Black communities from disparate environmental harms. The following spring, in 2023, the Louisiana Attorney General sued the EPA, as previously covered by ELM, in order to prevent the federal government from pursuing civil rights investigations premised on disparate harms, claiming that the EPA was considering non-environmental factors such as education and traffic. The next month, the EPA ended its St. John the Baptist investigation. Regardless, oral arguments before the Western District of Louisiana went forward in the Attorney General’s lawsuit in January 2024. Only a few weeks later, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction, preventing Louisiana agencies from conducting disparate impact assessments under Title VI.

In the instant circumstances, the Louisiana District Court rendered the preliminary junction issued earlier this year permanent.

This ruling came down just as the EPA has rolled out new Title VI guidance to guide state and local governments receiving federal funds as to how to protect certain communities from discrimination. Here, civil rights discrimination safeguards still apply in Louisiana, but not to disparate and cumulative impacts’ analyses, despite other states’ applications of it. Critics therefore believe this ruling will set an example and inspire other states to pursue similar exceptions under the Civil Rights Act in an effort to roll back environmental justice initiatives across the nation, beyond Louisiana.