Louisiana v. EPA

Docket number: No. 23-cv-00692-JDC (W.D. La.)

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute fought back against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to enforce its Title VI regulation as a catch-all, all-purpose disparate-impact regulation in the face of legal precedent foreclosing EPA’s novel interpretation. HLLI joined the American Civil Rights Project in filing an amicus brief opposing EPA’s attempt to prevent the State of Louisiana from challenging its regulatory overreach.

In the underlying lawsuit EPA argues that its Title VI regulation from the early 1970s has always been a catch-all, all-purpose disparate impact regulation forbidding EPA’s funding recipients from making decisions that have unjustified, racially disparate impacts, and that Louisiana should not be permitted to challenge the EPA’s otherwise systematic national application of its current interpretation of the Regulation.

HLLI and the ACR Project explain that the EPA misstates the content of the Regulation and the state of the substantive law that foreclose EPA’s interpretation. EPA is acting in strategic bad faith, as shown by its decades-old position that policing the disparate impacts of nondiscriminatory environmental decisions would run contrary to its statutory mandate, which is to improve the environmental quality of America, not to reallocate environmental risks among Americans. Now, driven by the current administration’s concerted “whole of government” pursuit of so-called “equity,” EPA is acting well outside the bounds of its authority to compel race-based decisions producing racially balanced results, and attempting to avoid judicial review of the legality of its actions.

On January 23, 2024, the district court enjoined EPA and DOJ from imposing or enforcing any disparate impact based requirements against the State of Louisiana or any of its agencies under Title VI, and imposing or enforcing any Title VI based requirements upon the State or any of its agencies that are not both (a) ratified by the President, as required by 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, and (b) based upon requirements found within the four corners or EPA’s disparate impact regulations, 40 C.F.R. § 7.35(b),(c).

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