EPA Civil Rights Office Avoids Overhaul, but Must Be Timely

• Plaintiffs say complaints linger for years, despite 180-day deadlines • Judge finds that EPA must respond within that time frame

Environmentalists have long criticized the EPA’s civil rights office as a black hole where complaints get submitted and then disappear.

But while a federal judge won’t force the agency to fundamentally change the way this office does business, she ruled that the office must respond to civil rights complaints within 180 days. Critics have contended that the office allowed some complaints to linger since the 1990s.

Saundra Brown Armstrong, a judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District ...