Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R-FL) announced that has led a 23-state coalition to combat President Joe Biden’s (D) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Title VI regulations relating to “race conscious environmental justice.”
AG Moody believes the federal agency should be taking its orders from the Legislative Branch rather than the race-centered issue.
“The EPA should be focusing on enforcing the environmental laws passed by Congress, not so called ‘environmental justice,’ which is a euphemism for Biden’s extreme agenda,” said AG Moody. “His radical exploitation of Title VI, if followed, would force states to unconstitutionally discriminate against their own citizens. The EPA should grant our Petition and revise its Title VI regulations.”
Furthermore, Moody argues that the EPA has taken “unprecedented steps to use the EPA’s Title VI regulations to advance what it calls ‘environmental justice’… In practice, ‘environmental justice’ asks the States to engage in racial engineering in deciding whether to, for example, issue environmental permits, rather than relying on the effect on the environment and other appropriate factors.”
Moody and the 22 other states invoked the Supreme Court's argument in a Petition for Rulemaking, which indicates the EPA has been unlawfully using Title VI sent to EPA Administrator Michael Reagan.
“Although Sandoval (the Supreme Court case the attorneys general are referencing) did not directly address the validity of Title VI disparate impact regulations, the Court expressed significant skepticism on the validity of those regulations. The Court explained that the regulations were ‘in considerable tension with the rule…that forbids only intentional discrimination,’” the 23 attorneys general wrote. “Other scholars have even suggested that the EPA’s regulations violate the Equal Protection Clause.”
The attorneys general stated in their conclusion that the EPA’s Title VI has strayed from the Constitution of the United States.
“By imposing disparate impact liability where it is not called for by statute, the EPA’s regulations gravely depart from the original understanding of Title VI and compel States to unconstitutionally discriminate against their citizens by incorporating disparate-impact liability. EPA should grant this Petition and revise its Title VI regulations to be consistent with Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause,” wrote the attorneys general.
Attorney General Moody is joined on the petition by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
