EPA Released a Cumulative Impacts Framework. Where Do We Go From Here?

   

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This fall, I was pleased to see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally release its long-awaited interim Cumulative Impacts Framework, a document intended to guide the agency toward more comprehensive and effective protections for public health. It’s an important step for the agency and for community advocates and scientists across the country who have been calling on EPA to more fully incorporate cumulative impacts into its work.

Even as we’re looking ahead to a new administration that may disregard this important document, it’s worth understanding what the Cumulative Impacts Framework is and why it matters.

Like others in the field, I’ve been watching and waiting for over a year to see this framework’s release. The road to get here has been long.

In 2021, the Biden Administration issued Executive Order 13985, ‘Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government’, requiring all federal agencies to ‘assess whether underserved communities and their members face systemic barriers in accessing benefits and opportunities available pursuant to EPA’s policies and programs’, and then directing agencies to develop equity action plans to overcome these barriers.  EPA’s answer to this EO was their 2022 Equity Action Plan, where they set out an ambitious goal to release a Cumulative Impacts Framework document by September 23, 2023. Throughout this time, cumulative impacts remained a focus for the Biden administration. In April 2023,  Executive Order 14096, ‘Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All’ included the phrase ‘cumulative impact’ nine times. EPA alluded to a framework in their 2023 Equity Action Plan, but didn’t include a release date. It took until this December for the agency to finally roll the interim framework out to the public, with a public comment period open until February 19, 2025.

Why does it matter? After all, a framework document is not a rule or law, and it may seem broad and abstract. But a close reading of this document can tell you how an agency or an organization envisions a concept, which in turn tells you a lot about how they will implement it.

Cumulative impacts analysis, as I’ve written about before, is a holistic—and more realistic—way of looking at human health and potential threats to it. Nobody breathes in one pollutant at a time from the atmosphere—we’re all exposed to multiple pollutants, from multiple sources, which can compound each other’s effects and interact with other stressors. Looking at any one chemical or pollutant in isolation fails to take this into account. This kind of analysis is especially important for Black, Brown, and low-income communities who are exposed to higher levels of pollution.

The new interim framework lays out the basic principles of cumulative impacts (as EPA sees them), provides some examples of what EPA agrees are cumulative impacts assessments, defines cumulative impacts and related words and phrases, and describes the reason and motivation that EPA—as the agency tasked with protecting the environment and human health—is working on cumulative impacts.

I have written a lot about why the concept of cumulative impacts: its importance, how it is science-based policy, how it makes the Herculean task of regulating over 80,000 chemicals possible, and its potential to more effectively protect people and reduce disparities in environmental exposures. Cumulative impacts approaches to environmental protection match regulations with peoples’ actual lived experience, since we aren’t all an average person exposed in a veritable vacuum. This concept is long overdue, but is still considered ‘a new approach’ by many state and federal policymakers. The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) wrote about this concept in 2004, and the state of California was doing this work in 2008. It’s gratifying that EPA has finally produced their Cumulative Impacts Framework document on it, after years of pressure from grassroots activists and public health experts.

But let’s be real. The incoming administration is, to put it generously, highly unlikely to move this work forward. In fact, one of the Project 2025 priorities is to limit the science that EPA does to be that which is explicitly mandated by Congress. There are far fewer scientists in Congress, of course, than at agencies like EPA which are tasked with protecting public health.

There is a 90-day public comment for this framework document, but the public comment period ends during the incoming administration. We can assume that this framework will not be implemented and the scientific research that this framework calls for will slow down or halt entirely.

So, why even bother thinking about this framework? Because even if federal progress stalls, we can still work to advance these important policies in the long term. We can support states, local, and Sovereign Nation governments who want to adopt cumulative impacts analysis, and we can support the community advocacy to this end. We can do work that can inform a future EPA that isn’t so hostile to science and environmental enforcement. And, critically, we can put good information and evidence into the public record. Tribal, state, and local governments have been leading the way in cumulative impacts policies and method developments. That’s why I and many others will still provide public comments on this document, and I urge you to do so as well. I think it is worth it to tell EPA, on the public record, that this approach is going to keep people safer and healthier, regardless of the political constraints. It’s worth letting allies and opponents alike know that we’re paying attention.

So what’s in the framework document itself? After the disclaimers (pg. 3) as to what the framework does not do, there is a quick introduction setting up the cumulative impacts concept and providing an example of the Houston Shipping Lanes (pg. 6), where there are disparate exposures between low income people and people of color compared to their white or higher income counterparts, and combined exposures to extreme heat and air pollution. This isn’t just an abstract concept—it reflects people’s real lives and the real dangers they’re facing right now.

The framework acknowledges that the current environmental protection system does not protect everyone, and why a cumulative impacts approach will make it work better (pg. 10). It illustrates that cumulative impacts analysis is science-based (pg. 23) and could support EPA’s mission (pg. 28). Check out the Key Goals section, starting on page 9, for a quick overview. In the framework, EPA lays out the basic principles of cumulative impacts analysis in this way:

1. Centering on health improvement
2. Focusing on disproportionate impacts
3. Aligning cumulative impact assessments with the decision being made
4. Engaging communities and including their lived experience in assessments
5. Using available data and information to take action and make decisions (no analysis paralysis)
6. Operationalizing these principles.

The EPA also describes a basic process (pg. 13) for how they would decide to do a cumulative impact analysis:

1. Initiation: what triggers the analysis – for example, this could be a disease cluster, evidence of high and disparate pollution levels, or a public request
2. Scoping: collaborators decide what data to use and what to exclude
3. Assessment: estimating and comparing the levels of multiple pollutants or contaminants affecting a community
4. Informing decisions: how the analysis gets turned into concrete policy, like a new air quality standard, or a determination to remediate soil to a certain level, or a requirement for a facility to limit the amount of effluent it produces

These process steps are each described in a bit more detail, so if you can’t read the entire framework, maybe you are more interested in how EPA would decide to do a cumulative impact assessment or how they would decide on what data to include.

Next, EPA goes through what they have already done to implement and operationalize cumulative impacts (pg. 23)—research, examples of existing methods that are in use in states and communities, and community action plans. The section entitled ‘Moving Forward’ (pg. 28) details what’s in the works and hasn’t been released yet, what hasn’t yet been started but is planned, and how the work will be evaluated in a continuous improvement cycle. They include short, intermediate, and long-term goals with cumulative impacts science, learning, and implementation. The glossary and references may be useful to dig in to, and at the very end there are a few examples of cumulative impact assessments that provide some on-the-ground understanding of existing methods.

Want to learn more? Here’s the framework document. Here’s the link to comment. Here’s an overview and some background. And here’s the Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts, created by a coalition of partners including UCS. Comments are due on February 19, 2025.

Even as we’re staring down a hostile administration, I think it’s worth it to weigh in on this framework and tell the federal government it’s important. Let’s all tell EPA that we support their cumulative impacts work and provide some suggestions for improvements. In doing so, we will also be putting information into the public record that will be available for states, local governments, communities, and Sovereign Nations. And that can make a real difference in real people’s lives.

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