Pollution Inequity in Alaska, Mississippi Get Senate Spotlight

Residents from the flood-stricken Mississippi Delta region to northernmost Alaska told a Senate panel Thursday that the federal government has ignored poorer areas for decades that continue to be threatened by flooding and lingering pollution of land and drinking water.

The subcommittee hearing—the first on environmental justice by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in nearly 15 years, Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) said—threw the spotlight on inequitable impacts of increased flooding along the Mississippi River, including record rainfall in 2019.

Alaskan, Mississippi, and Alabama residents told the Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight that ...