Vito Fossella: “I rise tonight to bring to the attention of the American people what I think is a great injustice that is occurring in…”

“I rise tonight to bring to the attention of the American people what I think is a great injustice that is occurring in our country. It is injustice that seeks to pit community against community, color against color and the American people against one another. It is an injustice that we are witnessing in my district in Staten Island, but it is injustice that I have little doubt we will be battling throughout the Nation before long. The controversy centers around the seemingly innocuous-sounding policy advanced by the Environmental Protection Agency known as ``environmental justice''. In theory, this legal doctrine is supposed to reflect the notion that all communities, regardless of race or ethnicity, should share equally in the burdens and risks of environmental protection policies. It sounds reasonable, except, of course, until the theory is applied. Over the years, the policy has been twisted like a pretzel, so that today, lawyers and activists now believe that different people deserve different treatment or, more precisely, that some people are more equal than others.”