Jackson, Mississippi, a predominately Black city, is seeing racial bias as a major cause of the water crisis, advocates say.
, although it is unclear what projects those dollars were intended to support. A department spokeswoman could not confirm the history of funding for the Jackson system, saying drinking water staff were too busy responding to the current crisis to provide details in a timely fashion.
For instance, a complaint filed by community groups over plans to relocate a metal-scrapping plant from Chicago’s wealthy north side to a community on the south side that’s home to lower-income residents of color resulted in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development threatening in July to withhold federal funding from the city if it allowed the plans to move forward.
The Biden administration has called for 40 percent of those investments to benefit low-income and minority communities that have historically been overlooked by federal investments, and EPA in Marchlaying out how states can comply with the initiative. While governors and state legislatures determine where the money gets spent, those plans have to be submitted to EPA for review.
Legal experts, however, say it’s unclear how much authority EPA has to push back on states’ plans, and Republicans on Capitol Hill defend states’ authority to distribute dollars as they see fit.
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