President Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency sought to mix radical environmentalism with woke social justice in Louisiana but came across an obstacle in the form of a federal judge.

On Thursday, the judge made permanent an injunction first issued in January that blocks the EPA from enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in terms of the alleged racially disparate impact of environmental harms in Louisiana, according to The Hill.

U.S. District Judge James Cain first imposed a preliminary injunction in January when he ruled in favor of the state's argument that Title VI only authorizes the EPA to investigate and enforce instances of intentional discrimination based on race.

Judge said, "Pollution does not discriminate"

Bloomberg Law reported in January that Judge Cain ruled that the EPA could not impose or enforce Title VI-related disparate impact requirements in the state of Louisiana, unless those requirements were ratified by the president and the EPA's existing regulations that block federal funds for states and state agencies engaged in actions that were "intentionally discriminatory or have a discriminatory effect."

At issue was a Louisiana lawsuit to block an EPA civil rights investigation into the alleged racially discriminatory environmental harm and pollution in a heavily industrialized and predominately minority-populated region of the state known as "cancer alley" because of its higher than average rate of health issues among residents.

The EPA dropped its investigation after the state filed suit and asked for the case to be dismissed, but the judge determined that the state was "entitled to unambiguous clarity concerning Defendants’ power to regulate beyond the plain text of Title VI."

Judge Cain, who observed at one point that "pollution does not discriminate," sided with Louisiana's argument that the EPA purposefully "constructed Title VI to allow it to regulate beyond the Statute’s plain text and by doing go, invade the purview of the State’s domain."

"The public interest here is that governmental agencies abide by its laws, and treat all of its citizens equally, without considering race," he wrote. "To be sure, if a decision maker has to consider race, to decide, it has indeed participated in racism."

Preliminary injunction made permanent

Fast-forward several months and, after additional briefings and arguments ahead of a final judgment, Judge Cain issued a seven-page order in which he considered Louisiana's request to either vacate the Title VI statute the EPA relied upon or make the preliminary injunction permanent to block enforcement of that particular statute in the state.

The judge ultimately ruled that a permanent injunction narrowly applied to just Louisiana, rather than vacatuer of the statute, was the appropriate remedy to settle the legal dispute.

As such, the EPA is now permanently barred from enforcing Title VI disparate impact requirements against the state or any state agencies, nor can it make compliance with those requirements a condition for any "past, present, or future" awards of financial assistance to the state or any of its agencies, again with the previous exceptions for instances of intentional discrimination.

Activist group says ruling perpetuates "environmental injustice" in Louisiana

Needless to say, radically woke environmentalist groups like Earthjustice, which spurred the initial EPA investigation with a filed complaint in 2022, were furious with Judge Cain for blocking the EPA's attempted actions against alleged racially disparate and discriminatory "environmental injustice" in Louisiana.

"Louisiana has given industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations, only to now have one court give it a permanent free pass to abandon its responsibilities," Patrice Simms, the vice president for health communities at Earthjustice, said in a statement. "Louisiana’s residents, its environmental justice communities, deserve the same Title VI protections as the rest of the nation."

Ironically enough, the ruling came the same week as an EPA announcement on new guidance to crack down on state compliance with environmental discrimination regulations, and though the agency insisted the guidance included Louisiana it acknowledged that it didn't apply to alleged instances of "disparate and cumulative impacts" in the state.