Existing Laws Offer Environmental Justice Tools, Official Says

The Justice Department has plenty of options under existing environmental laws to help local communities long suffering from air or water pollution even without an environmental justice statute, the head of a new federal environmental justice litigation team said Tuesday.

“Sure, it might be helpful to have a statute or regulation at some point that addresses how environmental justice is dealt with across the government,” Matt Silverman, chief of environmental litigation in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, said during a webinar on enforcement held by Bracewell LLP.

But there are ample enforcement tools to ...