In Chicago, a test case for Bidens EPA
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How the fight in Chicago over a proposed scrap metal facility became a test case for the Biden administration\\u2019s approach to environmental justice.
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General Iron Industries is a Chicago-based scrap metal recycling company with a bad track record of pollution. When the company announced its intention to move from a wealthy, White neighborhood on Chicago\\u2019s North Side to a working-class, Latino neighborhood on the city\\u2019s Southeast Side last year, the plan set off alarm bells.
This proposal \\u2014 and its apparent approval from city officials and state environmental regulators \\u2014 sparked a massive backlash from Southeast Side residents. They claimed discrimination and argued that their neighborhood was already overburdened by pollution. After a series of protests, a federal civil rights complaint and even a month-long hunger strike, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intervened in May.
The opening of the facility has been temporarily paused, but more than seven months later, the conflict over whether the company will operate in that neighborhood is still unresolved.
Environmental justice reporter Darryl Fears and senior producer Robin Amer delve into the high-stakes fight between residents and the company, and what the outcome might reveal about the lengths the Biden administration is willing to go to to protect communities of color that disproportionately bear the cost of pollution \\u2014 something it has explicitly promised to do.
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