Biography of monique hardening

Air Date: Week of September 15, 2023

Members of environmental justice advocacy group RISE St. James march from Freedom Plaza to White House in October 2022 (Photo: Frypie, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

In 2022 the US EPA opened a civil rights investigation into whether the State of Louisiana overburdens Black communities along “Cancer Alley” with toxic industries.

But EPA and the Department of Justice abruptly closed the inquiry when the Louisiana attorney general filed a suit charging reverse discrimination. Monique Harden of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the role of industry in the suit and the progress towards environmental justice that could have been made.

Transcript

DOERING: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts, Boston this is Living on Earth.

I’m Jenni Doering.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

With the Black people of Louisiana effectively blocked