Does Regulatory Disclosure Improve Environmental Justice Outcomes? Evidence from EJScreen

We study how enhanced information transparency, particularly in visual formats, shapes regulatory oversight, public scrutiny, and firm behavior in the context of environmental justice (EJ). Our setting is the sequential private and public releases of EJScreen, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s mapping tool that consolidates dispersed demographic and environmental data into accessible, intuitive maps. Using difference-indifferences analyses, we show that the tool's internal launch increased EPA monitoring of facilities in vulnerable communities identified by the map, followed by reductions in targeted pollutants, while its public release spurred nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) campaigns and broader civic attention. Importantly, we also document spillover effects following the tool's public launch: reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are not directly targeted by EJScreen but are of broader concern. The effects on GHG are stronger in areas with greater media presence and public engagement, and are robust to complementary analyses using a comparable California screening tool. Overall, our findings highlight how intuitive, visual disclosure can empower scrutiny by both regulators and the public to advance EJ initiatives.