Since Executive Order 12898 in 1994, environmental justice analyses
are required in the draft environmental impact statements (DEISs) prepared
under the National Environmental Policy Act. Of a total of 2,062 DEISs
produced from 1994 to 2001, approximately 994 documents had some form of
environmental justice analysis. These 994 DEISs were evaluated to
determine the methodology utilized in the analyses. Most analyses are
conducted by the United States Navy, Department of Energy, Federal Highway
Administration, and Army Corps of Engineers. Only about half (49.3%) of
the analyses focused on low income as the sole variable. Most documents
(93%) concluded that there was no impact to environmental justice
communities. Results show that the analyses included some level of
empirical information in only about half of the analyses (49.3%). A small
percentage (4.4%) of analyses relied upon a qualitative history. Less than
half (46.3%) of the analyses merely stated that there was no impact and
did not contain substantial qualitative or empirical information. Thus,
the findings suggest that there is a potential for environmental justice
concerns to be overlooked due to deficient methodology by the DEIS
preparers and the large number of DEISs claiming that there is no impact
to communities. For instance, a little more than half (57.2%) of the
analyses did not include a geographical unit, necessary to the
identification of environmental justice communities. Recommendations are
made for practitioners and policy makers to rely more on geospatial tools
like geographical information systems and to build more sophisticated
methods for environmental justice analyses, including statistical analyses
using empirical data.