%0 Generic
%A Balietti, Anca
%A Zeising, Tom
%C Heidelberg
%D 2024
%F heidok:34516
%I Universität
%K Environmental auditing, racial demographic shifts, Environmental justice, Political activism
%R 10.11588/heidok.00034516
%T Racial Disparities in Environmental Auditing
%U https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/34516/
%V 0745
%X This paper investigates the role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in advancing environmental justice through monitoring and enforcement efforts mandated by the Clean Air Act. Our analysis relies on a comprehensive dataset encompassing auditing information from all environmentally relevant plants between 2000 and 2018. Leveraging county-level variation in racial composition and environmental auditing, we find a substantial and persistent reduction in the proportion of inspected plants following increases in the share of non-White population. This decline coincides with a decrease in political activism, particularly among  entities typically advocating for more stringent environmental protection.