Institutionalizing Environmental Extortion: Why Jobs Projections Don’t Belong in Environmental Permitting Applications
By Kathryn LaMontagne
In the foundational environmental justice text From the Ground Up Luke Cole and Shiela Foster define Environmental Extortion as communities making the “tradeoff between jobs and health.”[1] In the text they discuss harmful industry’s targeting of communities of color by promising increased employment opportunities.[2] What plays out in this scenario is not a good faith negotiation, it is extortion, and the jobs do not follow.[3]
When industry saturates a community few if any jobs are created, and fewer go to the affected community members.[4] Despite this, agencies still consider the amount of jobs an industry is projected to bring to the community, when reviewing a permit application.[5] These jobs projections are generally unreliable and in Environmental Justice contexts they have an additional history of being used to prey on communities.[6] Agencies acceptance of jobs projections in Environmental Assessments (EA) and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) legitimize and institutionalize these speculative and predatory reports.
When harmful industry players apply for permits to operate, they often present jobs projections in their application.[7] These projections are considered “socioeconomic benefits” for the community. [8] The alleged benefits are weighed against environmental harms a community will face by hosting the industrial facility. [9] In an area of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley” petrochemical companies also receive massive tax breaks for their alleged “job creation.”[10]
In Cancer Alley the state subsidized petrochemical industry does not deliver on promised “socioeconomic benefits” to residents of the majority Black area.[11] According to a recent report by Tulane University’s Environmental Law Clinic about hiring practices in the petrochemical industry; “[p]eople of Color were consistently underrepresented among the highest-paying jobs and overrepresented among the lowest-paying jobs in both subsectors.”[12] Petrochemical industry players claim their unequal hiring practices are a result of educational disparity, yet there is almost no racial educational gap in the Cancer Alley area.[13] This data supports what Cancer Alley community members have long spoken out against, that they are left with all the harm and none of the benefit of harmful industry in their backyard.[14]
Across the country, pollution remains in targeted communities while even the promised socioeconomic benefits are extracted.[15] The extraction of promised benefits through racially unequal hiring practices is also not unique to the petrochemical industry in Louisiana, it is repeated across the country.[16] In the top thirty petrochemical producing states, people of color were “underrepresented in all of the highest paying jobs,” and were largely overrepresented in the lower paying jobs.[17]
The recent Tulane report seems to echo the famous United Church of Christ’s 1987 report which stated race as the number one predictor of where hazardous waste facilities will be located, regardless the community’s socioeconomic status.[18] According to the Tulane report race is a strong a predictor in exposure to common pollutants and toxic chemicals, with people of color being more likely to be exposed than whites.[19] All the while more harmful industry is trying to enter already overburdened communities like Cancer Alley. Polluters continue to request permits touting alleged “job projections” as a socioeconomic benefit to their presence.[20]
The Tulane study confirms that industry player’s job projections are not predictive of actual benefit to the communities.[21] Even outside of instances of environmental racism, job predictions are not reliable. [22] Job predictions are often inflated political tools that produce little benefit to people in need of jobs.[23] Despite the clear evidence that harmful industry does not provide jobs to the community members who their industry burdens, job projections continue to be considered by agencies and courts reviewing permit applications.[24]
The Bureau of Land Management has gone so far as to publish an online guide that gives instructions on how to include jobs projections in an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement.[25] The guide states that a regional impacts analysis can be measured by either jobs or economic output.[26] The guide recommends applicants “emphasize cause-effect relationships,” the example they provide is: “mineral leasing can generate revenue and provide local employment opportunities.”[27] While the guide does make a point to distinguish the “value” that certain jobs may bring over others, there is no requirement that applicants ensure any projected jobs go to members of affected communities.[28]
Communities who seek justice in the courts by resisting permitting applications bolstered by speculative jobs reports will find little relief. In a recent Supreme Court case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County., the Court held that when reviewing a NEPA case, courts should give substantial deference to a federal agency’s decision.[29] It goes on to summarize the NEPA review process as agencies making a series of “fact-dependent, context-specific, and policy-laden choices.”[30] These choices include speculative jobs reports, which are presented as facts and not mere speculation.[31] Agencies already give deference to private enterprises applying for permits.[32] Because the Court gives deference to agencies who enshrine speculative jobs reports as fact, Environmental Extortion has become just another procedural aspect of project approval.
Agency consideration of speculative jobs projections has validated and institutionalized the practice of Environmental Extortion. Job projections are both predatory and unreliable and should not be included in Environmental Assessments or Environmental Impact Statements.[33] Agencies should not consider speculative jobs projections against the known harms of pollution.[34]
[1] Luke C. Cole & Shiela R. Foster, From the Ground Up 77 (2001).
[2] Id.
[3] Id. at 78.
[4] Id.
[5] BLM Socioeconomics Program, Desk Guide: Socioeconomic Aspects of Planning and NEPA 13–15 (Aug. 2024); NEPA and Project Development, U.S. Dep’t. of Transp. Fed. Highway Admin. (Feb. 21, 2018), https://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov/nepa/Travel_LandUse/forecasting_reviewer_guidance.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1.
[6] Cole & Foster, supra note 1; James Hohman, Front Page Failures: State Subsidy Deals Only Created 1 out of 11 Jobs Promised in Headlines (2024) https://www.mackinac.org/archives/2024/s2024-14.pdf.
[7] Cole & Foster, supra note 1; BLM supra note 5.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.; BLM supra note 5.
[10] Tristan Baurick, In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ Black Communities Get All of the Pollution, Few of the Jobs, Grist (Apr. 17, 2025) https://grist.org/equity/in-louisianas-cancer-alley-where-black-communities-get-all-of-the-pollution-few-of-the-jobs/.
[11] Kimberley Terrell, Gianna St. Julien, & Michael Ash, Pervasive Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the U.S. Petrochemical Workforce, 235 Ecological Econ. 2 (2025).
[12] Id. (emphasis in original).
[13] Id.
[14] Jarvis DeBerry, The Tax Breaks For Jobs Scheme Isn’t Working Out For Louisiana, La. Illuminator (Jun. 18, 2021), https://lailluminator.com/2021/06/18/the-tax-breaks-for-jobs-scheme-isnt-working-out-for-louisiana-jarvis-deberry/.
[15] Terrell, supra note 11.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Bunyan Bryant & Paul Mohai, Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards 163 (1992).
[19] Terrell, supra note 11.
[20] Formosa Selects St. James Parish for $9.4 Billion Louisiana Project, Greater New Orleans Reg’l Econ. Dev. Inc. (Apr. 23, 2018), https://gnoinc.org/news/formosa-selects-st-james-parish-for-9-4-billion-louisiana-project/; Nate Perez & Ryal Kellman, Over-Polluted Communities Vow to Fight Despite EPA’s Rollback on Environmental Justice, NPR (June 2, 2025) https://www.npr.org/2025/05/23/nx-s1-5366617/over-polluted-communities-fight-despite-epa-rollback-environmental-justice.
[21] Terrell, supra note 11.
[22] Hohman, supra note 6.
[23] Id.
[24] Navigation and Navigable Waters, 33 U.S.C. §320.4(q); Seven Cnty. Infrastructure Coal. v. Eagle Cnty., 608 U.S. 168, 173 (2025).
[25] BLM supra note 5.
[26] Id. at 13.
[27] Id. at 7.
[28] Id. at 15.
[29] Seven County, 608 U.S. at 180.
[30] Id. at 1513.
[31] BLM supra note 5.
[32] 33 U.S.C. §320.4(q)
[33] Hohman, supra note 6; Cole & Foster, supra note 1.
[34] Hohman, supra note 6.