22 Apr 2004 Black Activists to Expose Environmental Policies that Harm Minority Advancement at National Press Club Earth Day Press Conference; Policies That Inadvertently Encourage Segregated Housing Among Those Cited as in Need of Reform

Minority activists and environmental experts are joining together on Earth Day 2004 to condemn domestic and international environmental regulations that destroy economic opportunity, encourage neo-segregationist housing policies, endanger public health and generally pit human welfare against regulatory goals.

Members of the African-American leadership network Project 21 will be joined by distinguished environmental scientists and activists in the National Press Club’s First Amendment Room (529 14th Street NW, 13th floor) in Washington, D.C. at noon on Thursday, April 22, Earth Day, to discuss the need for environmental justice policies that assess the economic and social costs of regulations before they are enacted and the need to reassess current policies that are socially, economically and physically destructive. A light lunch will be provided.

“Clean air and water is in everyone’s best interest, but the elitist agenda of the environmental movement hurts the economic well-being of people here in the United States and threatens lives in the Third World,” said Project 21 member John Meredith. “We must rely on logic and science and not emotion when the stakes are so high.”

Project 21 and the John P. McGovern M.D. Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, both programs of The National Center for Public Policy Research, maintain the Center for Environmental Justice web site, which contains reports and essays on the effects of regulations on minorities and the poor. Project 21 also offers an historical overview called “Solidarity and Stewardship: African-Americans and the Environment” that can be found at https://nationalcenter.org/CEJProjects.html.

Project 21 has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992. For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 x106 or [email protected], or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.