Story at a glance
- The University of Maryland’s School of Public Health recently published a scorecard measuring state agencies’ efforts to protect the environment and those most likely to suffer environmental racism.
- The schools graded nine agencies using five different criteria.
- Maryland’s Department of Environment and the Department of Natural Resource earned passing grades.
Most of Maryland’s state agencies have earned failing grades on a new environmental scorecard.
The Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health at The University of Maryland’s School of Public Health recently published an environmental justice “scorecard” grading nine state agencies on their work to protect the environment.
The “scorecard” also analyzed the agencies’ efforts to prioritize communities most harmed by environmental racism when determining department grades.
There were five categories that scorecard crafters used to determine agency grades, including whether there is an environmental justice office, commitment to protect the environment in the future and from past policies along with proactive environmental justice work.
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The two remaining metrics were whether the agency prioritized those affected by environmental racism and existing resources for building environmental literacy.
Out of the nine agencies examined, six received an F letter grade on the scorecard for their policies and practices in 2019. The scorecard offers three sets of grades for the agencies, one each for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
That year the agencies with the top grades, both earning Cs, were the Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Department of Environment.
The Maryland Public Service Commission was close to getting a passing grade that year but earned a D on the scorecard.
Both of those agencies improved by a letter grade, reaching B status, in 2020. Meanwhile, the remaining agencies earned the same mark as the year prior.
Last year three of the agencies showed some slight improvement. Maryland’s Department of Planning, Department of Transportation and Department of Health went from earning F to D letter grades.
The department of environment, the department of natural resources and public service commission earned the same grades last year as they did the year before.
Scorecard crafters looked at publicly available data, later reaching out to the agencies about their scores and receiving additional materials and, in some cases, revised the scores accordingly.
A spokesperson from Maryland’s Public Service Commission told Changing America that the agency was unaware it was being examined for the scorecard until last year.
Once the agency learned about the scorecard, members of PSC met with Sacoby Wilson, a professor of applied environmental health a the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health, and his assistant to try to discuss environmental justice considerations in the agency.
A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) told Changing America that the agency has partnered with the university for the past two years to conduct outreach with low-income communities and communities of color that are most negatively impacted by climate change.
“MDE’s EJ Policy and Implementation Plan uses MDE’s new EJ screening tool to support compliance, permitting and outreach/engagement,” said the MDE spokesperson. “ The agency will review the University of Maryland scorecard for new ideas to improve equity and justice as we execute our mission with oversight and engagement with federal partners and the Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities.”
Published on Oct 15,2022