Echoing arguments similar to those used by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court striking down affirmative action, Republican attorneys general from 23 states petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week to stop taking race into account when regulating pollution.

The petition, authored by the office of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, was filed Tuesday with the EPA. It is only a request, but it highlights stiff opposition from conservative states to the Biden administration’s signature environmental justice policies, which include hundreds of millions of dollars for environmental justice projects.

The push could lead to a change in EPA policy if Donald Trump — whose administration was poised to gut the civil-rights law in the final days of his presidency — retakes power in January.

In the United States, deadly pollution is disproportionately concentrated in poor and minority neighborhoods. The petition asks the agency to stop taking the “disparate impact” of this pollution into account when regulating it, altering how the agency enforces Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of........

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