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1996 U. Ill. L. Rev. 103 (1996)
The Environmental Justice Implications of Quantitative Risk Assessment

handle is hein.journals/unilllr1996 and id is 113 raw text is: THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS OF QUANTITATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT Robert R. Kuehn* The controversial use of quantitative risk assessment by federal environmental agencies has spawned considerable de- bate among environmentalists, industry, and politicians. One unresolved issue is the environmental justice implications of risk assessment-that is, whether the use of quantitative risk assessment causes greater environmental impacts on people of color and low-income communities than on other population groups. In this article, Professor Robert R. Kuehn argues that quantitative risk assessment, as currently employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, does violence to the con- cept of environmental justice because risk assessment dispro- portionately places the burden of pollution and environmental hazards on racial minorities and low-income groups. This is so, Professor Kuehn posits, because of methodological flaws in the assessment process. Moreover, risk assessment unduly restricts certain groups from participating in the process in any meaningful way, thus calling into question the fairness of risk assessment. Professor Kuehn attempts to resolve this conflict between risk assessment and environmental justice by sug- gesting that several reforms be made to both the process and use of risk assessment. I. INTRODUCTION Ready or not, risk assessment is about to take the leading role in environmental decision making. After a little more than a decade of risk assessment's use, life and death decisions about public health and the environment will depend on, and must await, the results of a deci- sion tool characterized by one of its chief proponents as having the reliability of a tortured spy.' * Clinical Professor of Law, Tulane Law School, and Director, Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. B.A. 1974, Duke University; J.D. 1981, George Washington University; LL.M. 1983, Columbia University; M.P.H. 1995, Harvard University. 1. See William D. Ruckelshaus, Risk in a Free Society, 14 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. L. Inst.) 10,190, 10,190 (May 1984) (We should remember that risk assessment data can be like a cap- tured spy: if you torture it long enough, it will tell you anything you want to know.).

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