Reed Walker on Gap in Pollution Exposure

Coming Clean

December 2020

Haas Newsroom

Reed Walker, Faculty Affiliate at the Energy Institute, is cited in the Haas Newsroom examining racial disparities in pollution exposure. More research is being put into environmental inequality, finding that the gap in average pollution exposure between Black and White Americans is shrinking.

“’The existing research on air pollution has been hampered by a sparse Environmental Protection Agency monitoring network, but satellite-based measurements of air quality have greatly expanded the ability of policymakers and researchers to fill in the huge gaps in exposure measurement throughout the U.S.,’ says Walker. ‘We’ve used this new data to show how the Clean Air Act has led to a narrowing of the gap in pollution exposure between Black and white communities.’”

Photo: haas.berkeley.edu