Critics Fear EPA Appeals Shakeup Sidelines Environmental Justice

When the EPA issued critical permits for offshore oil exploration in the Arctic more than a decade ago, two Indigenous groups fought back—not in the courtroom, but in an obscure office planted deep within the bureaucracy of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope took their complaints to the Environmental Appeals Board, where they argued that agency officials ignored environmental justice concerns when they approved air permits for Royal Dutch Shell Plc subsidiaries to hunt for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

A trio of agency judges agreed in ...