Environmental justice in the oil refinery industry: A panel analysis across United States counties

Environmental injustice due to economic inequality and its correlates and consequences has been a focus for researchers and policy makers alike over many years, with much of that research focusing on race as the major determinant of inequality. In this paper we extend this literature by focussing on emissions from the oil refinery industry at the community level. In particular, based on the use of panel data, we analyse econometrically how the environmental performance of individual petroleum refineries (emissions of benzene and toluene to the atmosphere) associates with determinants of economic inequality at the micro-level in terms of average per capita income at the level of United States counties as well as average county-level unemployment rates. The paper finds evidence of environmental injustice as a result of unemployment levels in areas around refineries and, to a slightly lesser extent, as a result of income inequality. It discusses these results in a wider context, referring amongst other things to the role of county-level community characteristics and the potential for private firms to substitute for the intervention of public institutions, if these are lacking.