What is Justice40?

During his first week in office, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Section 223 of EO 14008 established the Justice40 Initiative, which directs 40% of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments – including investments in clean energy and energy efficiency; clean transit; affordable and sustainable housing; training and workforce development; the remediation and reduction of legacy pollution; and the development of clean water infrastructure – to flow to disadvantaged communities (DACs).

To learn more, visit the White House Justice40 Initiative website here.

How is DOE Implementing Justice40?

On July 20, 2021, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Interim Implementation Guidance for the Justice40 Initiative, M-21-28 (OMB Interim Guidance), which has guided the Department’s work on Justice40 along with relevant statutory authorities.

Based on stakeholder engagement, priorities identified by White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), and additional research, the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity identified eight policy priorities to guide DOE’s implementation of Justice40:

1. Decrease energy burden in disadvantaged communities (DACs).
2. Decrease environmental exposure and burdens for DACs
3. Increase parity in clean energy technology (e.g., solar, storage) access and adoption in DACs.
4. Increase access to low-cost capital in DACs.
5. Increase clean energy enterprise creation and contracting (MBE/DBE) in DACs.
6. Increase clean energy jobs, job pipeline, and job training for individuals from DACs.
7. Increase energy resiliency in DACs.
8. Increase energy democracy in DACs.

What is a Community Benefits Plan?

The Department of Energy (DOE) requires Community Benefits Plans as part of all BIL and IRA funding opportunity announcements (FOAs).
Community Benefits Plans (CBPs) are based on a set of four core policy priorities: 

1. Engaging communities and labor; 
2. Investing in America’s workforce; 
3. Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and 
4. Implementing the Justice40 Initiative. 

These key principles, when incorporated comprehensively into project proposals and executed upon, will help ensure broadly shared prosperity in the clean energy transition.

Community Benefits Plan are intentionally flexible to generate the best approaches from applicants and their partners. Plans must be specific, actionable, and measurable. In most cases, these plans are scored at 20 percent of the technical merit review of proposals.

When an applicant is selected, their Community Benefits Plan will be part of the contractual obligation of the funding recipient. A summary of the Community Benefits Plan will be publicly posted on DOE’s website for transparency and accountability.

CBP Resources

• CBP FAQs  (Frequently Asked Questions).
• CBP Template to accompany funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) applications.
• CBP 101. Senior DOE officials introduce the purpose and importance of CBPs, and energy justice liaisons present a deep dive into each of the four CBP requirements.

What is a Justice40 covered program?

A “covered program” is a Federal Government program that falls in the scope of the Justice40 initiative because it includes investments that can benefit disadvantaged communities across one or more of the following seven areas: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. Existing and new programs created by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that make investments in any of these categories can also be considered Justice40 covered programs.

All Justice40 covered programs are required to engage in stakeholder consultation and ensure that community stakeholders are meaningfully involved in determining program benefits. Covered programs are also required to report data on the benefits directed to disadvantaged communities.

View DOE's Justice40 covered programs here.

What is a Disadvantaged Community? 

Justice40 directs that 40% of benefits from Covered Programs flow to “disadvantaged communities.” OMB’s Interim Implementation Guidance defines a community as either: (1) Geographic: a group of individuals living in geographic proximity (such as census tract), or (2) Common condition: a geographically dispersed set of individuals (such as migrant workers or Native Americans), where either type of group experiences common conditions. 

For the “geographic” definition of community, pursuant to the Interim Implementation Guidance and OMB guidance M-23-09, DOE recognizes as disadvantaged those census tracts identified by the White House Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), which is located at https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/.  

For the “common condition” definition of community, federally recognized tribal lands and U.S. territories are categorized as disadvantaged in accordance with OMB’s Interim Implementation Guidance. 

Overview of the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)

Nationwide, the CEJST identifies approximately 27,251 census tracts as disadvantaged. The method for identifying these is explained in detail at: Methodology & data - Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (geoplatform.gov). 

Generally, a census tract that meets the threshold for: 1) environmental, climate, or other burdens, and 2) an associated socio-economic burden will be marked as disadvantaged. CEJST considers the following eight categories of burden: 

1. climate change, 
2. energy, 
3. health, 
4. housing, 
5. legacy pollution, 
6. transportation, 
7. water and wastewater, and 
8. workforce development. 

In addition, a census tract that is completely surrounded by disadvantaged communities and is at or above the 50% percentile for low income is also considered disadvantaged.

Figure 1: CEJST Map of United States Explore the map - Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (geoplatform.gov) 

(U.S. territories are included in the definition but are not displayed below)

Within each category of the CEJST tool there may be several indicators using a variety of datasets (See Figure 1 below). For example, within the “climate change” category, there are 5 indicators (expected agricultural loss rate, expected building loss rate, expected population loss rate, projected flood risk, projected wildfire risk) and 1 socioeconomic indicator (low income). Meeting the threshold of 1 indicator in the climate change category in addition to the socioeconomic indicator will cause the census tract to be identified as a DAC. CEJST v1.0 has a total of 37 indicators among eight categories plus socioeconomic indicators (low income).

Figure 2: CEJST List of Indicators

Prioritizing Communities using the DOE Disadvantaged Community Reporter

The CEJST tool was designed to be inclusive of many indicators relevant to multiple federal agencies, and thus identifies a broad number of census tracts across the United States as disadvantaged communities. OMB guidance allows federal agencies to further prioritize CEJST census tracts using indicators specific to the mission of those agencies. 

Accordingly, DOE funding recipients can use the DOE DAC score to better understand the burdens experienced by census tracts identified in the CEJST tool. For example, a funding recipient implementing an energy efficiency program may be interested in understanding what CEJST census tracts in their area experience the highest energy burden. See Section IV.A. for an example of how the DOE DAC score can be used with CEJST for program funding and design. 

Figure 3: DOE DAC score for CEJST census tracts.

DOE calculates the DAC score as follows: For every census tract, DOE considers 36 indicators grouped in four categories as shown in Figure 4. The national percentile rank for each indicator is calculated by census tract. DOE summed percentiles across all indicators to create a score for each census tract. Each indicator was given equal weight. The final scores for each tract could range from 0 to 36, where a total score of 36 would represent the largest disadvantage. 

This score between 0 (least disadvantaged) and up to 36 (most disadvantaged) can be used to prioritize within the set of CEJST defined disadvantaged tracts and identify those tracts with the highest cumulative burdens. The score for each census tract, geospatial data files and an Excel spreadsheet of the underlying DACs can be found at https://energyjustice.egs.anl.gov/.