On Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order (Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions) rescinding President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which established the Justice40 Initiative and required CEQ to create a Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) identifying communities with sigificant environmental, social, and/or economic burdens as “disadvantaged communities” that would receive targeted investment of federal “benefits” from certain climate, energy, and environmental programs. As of Jan. 22, 2025, CEQ’s CEJST is no longer available online.
Download the data from CEJST 2.0, including technical support documents.
Background on CEJST
President Biden’s Executive Order 14008 (the Climate Crisis Executive Order) directed the CEQ Chair to create a “geospatial Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool” and publish annual interactive maps highlighting “disadvantaged communities.” The Screening Tool was developed by the United States Digital Service, and defined “disadvantaged communities” for purposes of implementing the Justice40 Initiative, also established under Order 14008. The tool expanded on EJSCREEN, EPA’s environmental justice mapping tool, and considered several “burden” indicators, including energy burdens, air quality, higher education enrollment, formerly redlined census tracts, expected agricultural loss, and traffic proximity. However, unlike California’s screening tool CalEnviroScreen, the CEJSTdid not consider the cumulative effects of these indicators. Notably, CEJST did not use race and ethnicity data to define “disadvantaged communities.” However, CEJST did consider formerly redlined census tracts.
CEJST Development Timeline:
Dec. 2024 CEQ released Version 2.0 of CJEST.
Jan. 27, 2023 OMB, CEQ, and the White House Climate Office directed federal agencies to begin using the CEJST to identify geographically defined “disadvantaged communities” for all Justice40-covered programs and for programs where a statute directs resources toward disadvantaged communities, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. Agencies were required to transition to using the CEJST by Oct. 2023.
Nov. 22, 2022 CEQ released Version 1.0 of the Screening Tool, including new qualifying criteria based on public comment. Version 1.0 included an additional 3,781 communities as compared to the beta version, including all Tribal Nations, and new burden indicators, such as redlining data, transportation barriers, and projected climate risks. While Version 1.0 did not include race explicitly as a qualifying “burden”, the tool now displays race and age demographics for census tracts.
Feb. 18, 2022 CEQ announced the beta release of the Screening Tool.
May 13, 2021 The WHEJAC submited interim final recommendations to CEQ regarding CJEST, including recommendations that the Tool integrate local community knowledge; acknowledge data gaps and uncertainties; and enable timely data sharing across relevant federal agencies. The WHEJAC released its final report and cover letter on May 21, 2021.