In searching for legislative solutions to the problem of disproportionate siting of facilities such as waste dumps, we must confront some fundamental ambiguities about the meaning of “environmental justice.” The solutions that have been proposed to address the siting of various Locally Undesirable Land Uses (LULUs) reflect very different theories both about why disproportionate siting is wrong and about what would constitute “fair” siting. A hard look at those various theories reveals that they raise different kinds of philosophical challenges and practical problems. Only by focusing on what fairness means in the context of siting, and addressing head on the problems different conceptions of faimess pose, can we begin to critically evaluate how well different proposed solutions will work to achieve environmental justice.
