The Environmental Protection Agency said it will investigate Michigan’s state environmental regulator after residents of a majority Black neighborhood living near a Jeep assembly plant in Detroit filed a legal complaint alleging discrimination.

The EPA outlined its decision to move forward with the investigation in a March 11 letter obtained by Bloomberg News.

The legal complaint argued that the regulator violated civil rights law by failing to consider the unequal impact of increased air pollution on the neighborhood during the plant’s permitting process.

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy granted an emissions permit for the new Jeep plant, announced in 2019, by requiring the automaker, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, to offset increased emissions of volatile organic compounds at the Detroit plant. The company was then required to reduce emissions at its Warren truck plant seven miles north, which is in an area with a substantial White population.

The Mack Avenue Jeep plant is one of several instances in Michigan where industrial development has proceeded despite the environmental health concerns of local residents. Policy makers are now examining how existing environmental regulations and pollution permits often fail to protect vulnerable populations.

The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, a legal nonprofit representing residents living near the Mack Avenue plant, filed a complaint to the EPA last November. It asked the federal agency to compel EGLE to analyze racial disparities and the “cumulative impact” of decades of pollution in an area during the permitting process, and be prepared to deny a permit based on those grounds.

‘Structural discrimination’

When residents of Flint protested the construction of a new asphalt plant last year, EGLE’s top official sent a letter to the EPA saying the decision highlighted “the limitations” of the law to address their concerns. The EPA under President Joe Biden is also directing changes that could spur stiffer enforcement of pollution violations in disadvantaged communities near highways, factories and refineries.

“These conditions exist because of structural discrimination by government and private industry hidden under the cloak of race-neutral language,” Andrew Bashi, a staff attorney at the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said in an emailed statement. “We’re hopeful that the EPA understands the significance of this complaint and undertakes a full audit of the policies and practices that have allowed the State of Michigan to get away with this for far too long.”

The complaint stopped short of asking EGLE to repeal the Jeep plant permit. Instead, it argued that the agency should investigate whether the decision to issue the permit violated civil rights law, and that the process going forward should change.

“Acceptance of a complaint for investigation in no way amounts to a decision on the merits,” an EPA spokesperson said. “Rather, it means the complaint has met the jurisdictional criteria.”

“Michigan EGLE looks forward to EPA’s review of Michigan permitting decisions and processes to ensure that the state is doing everything within its authority to protect vulnerable communities, and to receive guidance from EPA in doing so most effectively,” the state regulator said in an emailed statement.

Stellantis, which was formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group last year, declined to comment.