Delivering on Environmental Justice? U.S. State Implementation of the Justice40 Initiative

Abstract

President Biden has committed to a “whole of government approach” to address environmental and climate justice, which includes directing resources to historically underserved and overburdened populations. The Justice40 program is one of the signature programs in these efforts, requiring that 40 percent of the benefits of designated programs be targeted to disadvantaged communities. Because many federal spending programs that are part of the Justice40 initiative involve the transfer of funds from federal agencies to state governments, the Biden Administration will need the assistance of state officials if the initiative is to achieve its stated objectives. In this article, we study early state implementation of Justice40 in the area of transportation, focusing on the federal highway program and the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. Our analysis of interviews with state officials and state NEVI plans reveals only modest differences between states in Justice40 implementation based on the partisanship of gubernatorial leadership, despite outspoken resistance to the initiative from many Republican governors. We also find that states that have made previous policy and institutional commitments to allocate resources in a manner similar to Justice40 are generally more receptive to this federal initiative.