Likewise, congressional legislation and Treasury’s implementing rules require that jurisdictions eligible to receive and invest federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits prepare allocation plans-a requirement flexible enough that the city of Chicago completely reimagined what its plan could address, using racial equity impact assessment to structure its housing agency’s goal-setting and strategies, in the process creating a new and replicable model for the field.

In this piece, we share several defining features and lessons of the Biden administration’s implementation approach so far, both because the federal government directly touches our lives and communities every day and because it does so indirectly as well in profoundly important ways, as the case studies in our new report underscore.įor example, Congress and the Treasury Department provided the American Rescue Plan Act’s recovery funding and policy guidance that helped shape Los Angeles County’s use of the funds to support an equity-driven agenda tailored to that large and diverse jurisdiction. In general, we agree with the view expressed by PolicyLink and other critical observers that the president’s second executive order builds effectively on the first and reflects a clear and strong appreciation of the fact that equity must be more than a commitment to serve all-it requires the specific governing practices that give life to that commitment. We will take a closer look at the federal picture and its lessons in a future report. But it is significant that the president has called out and explained equitable development as a national priority for which federal policies and practices matter greatly.īased on the second phase of our research on equity impact assessment, we have just released Measuring What Matters for Racial Progress, which focuses on exemplary, lesson-rich cases of local and state leadership and innovation. This is because law and custom assign them-rather than the federal government-many of the most consequential decisions (for example those regarding capital projects, labor and environmental standards, and land use) that drive the outcomes. The new order reported on progress over the past two years, updated the charge to executive agencies and White House offices (for example, on routine annual planning, budgeting, procurement, and other functions to advance equity), underlined the importance of adequately resourcing equity teams at every agency, emphasized strong and modern approaches to protecting civil rights amid technological change and other evolving threats, and defined some specific new whole-of-government goals, such as promoting “equitable development” as once-in-a-generation investments in physical infrastructure and climate action begin to land in communities.īut let’s be clear: National progress in equitable development also depends greatly on the cooperation and commitment of state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to advance equity. That not only sent a powerful signal to the country about presidential priorities, but also represented a practical boon for the implementation effort, in terms of keeping thousands of public officials in dozens of federal agencies focused on the work of implementing the executive order while tackling many other demands.Īnd in February of this year, the president issued his second executive order on advancing equity.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden not only issued the first-ever executive order on “advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government” ( EO 13985), but made it his first executive order, on day one of his presidency. We also found that the federal government-at least in the executive branch-has made notable progress, thanks mainly to the Biden administration’s innovative and wide-ranging actions. In the report, we observed that local governments are currently leading in this practice, blazing the trail for a new generation of equity analysis in government decisionmaking. Last fall, Brookings’s Valuing Black Assets Initiative, in collaboration with the New School’s Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, released a report and accompanying op-ed arguing that if we as a nation are serious about our promises to practice justice for all, we should start “keeping score”-in part by strengthening and spreading the practice of racial equity impact assessment by government.

Executive order example