The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Lake Charles Division, on August 22, 2024 issued an injunction barring the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) from enforcing regulations based on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 200d, et seq., in the State of Louisiana (the “State”). The ruling in State of Louisiana v. US Environmental Protection Agency, et al., No. 2:23-CV-00692, 2024 WL 3904868, at *1 (W.D. La. Aug. 22, 2024), effectively prohibits these federal agencies from implementing regulations that implicate Title VI’s disparate impact prohibition.  

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits intentional discrimination as well as actions that have a disparate impact on a community on the basis of race, color, or national origin by programs that receive federal funding. In an environmental context, Title VI seeks to protect minority and low-income communities from permitting decisions that disproportionately subject these communities to adverse environmental impacts. The Clinton Administration in 1994 further issued Executive Order 12898, which calls on federal agencies to achieve environmental justice by identifying communities subject to a disproportionate impact and address this concern to the extent permitted by law.

The August 2024 ruling stems from EPA’s review of Clean Air Act (CAA) permits for the Denka Performance Elastomer LLC facility and the FG LA LLC facility, both located in St. John Parish in New Orleans, a minority community historically impacted by heavy industry. When the permits were granted, environmental groups filed suit in 2022 asking EPA to evaluate whether State agencies had violated Title VI by making permitting decisions that have a disparate impact on minority neighborhoods. This prompted EPA to undertake a Title VI investigation into the State’s air permitting program, as a program that receives federal funds, to determine whether the State was making CAA permitting decisions that violate federal environmental justice policies. In October 2022, EPA issued a letter summarizing its initial fact finding, which indicated that predominantly Black communities in St. John Parish were experiencing disproportionately elevated health risks from exposure to air pollutants and recommended that the State undertake cumulative-impact analyses that could be used in the permitting process.

When negotiations with EPA proved unproductive, the State filed suit in 2023 seeking a preliminary injunction barring EPA from imposing disparate impact and cumulative impact requirements on the State or any State agency. The State argued that EPA’s enforcement of Title VI unconstitutionally delegated EPA’s authority to private special interest groups, while giving the agency powers that Congress never granted to it. The preliminary injunction was granted in January 2024 and the subject permanent injunction was granted on August 22, 2024.

Judge James D. Cain Jr. in his August ruling enjoined the EPA and DOJ, among other parties, from imposing or enforcing: (1) Title VI disparate impact requirements against any entity in the State, or mandating compliance with title VI as a condition of “past, existing, or future awards of financial assistance” to any entity in the State; and (2) Title VI-based requirements that have not been ratified by the President and are not contained within EPA’s Title VI regulations. The State successfully argued that EPA’s enforcement of Title VI regulations counterintuitively requires State agencies to combat racial discrimination by mandating that it undertake a regulatory process expressly informed by the racial makeup of the community in which a facility is, or is planned to be, cited. Judge Cain highlighted that the State constitution bans discrimination based on race and affords everyone within the State the equal protection of the laws. Notably, the permanent injunction applies not only to State agency action, but to any entity in the State, including private parties and political subdivisions.

Judge Cain’s ruling represents a significant barrier to enforcement of environmental justice initiatives at a time when the federal government is seeking to enhance Title VI protections. Judge Cain’s decision was handed down in the same week that EPA promulgated Title VI guidance regarding best practices for improving civil rights compliance. It remains to be seen whether other states will find Louisiana’s ruling persuasive and seek to follow its lead in limiting the federal government’s Title VI authority.

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