Environmental justice advocates are hoping lawmakers will move to address pollution in communities surrounded by major industries.

Redlining, racial covenants and other discriminatory mortgage and land-use processes shaped some of the environmental health disparities experienced by some pollution-overburdened communities today — flanked by highways, with limited tree canopy to protect from extreme heat, and downwind of industrial centers.

The Cumulative Risk Burden Pollution Act, or CURB, would require permitting agencies to produce an environmental justice review for all projects. For neighborhoods already exposed to high levels of toxic pollution, it would require a review of the cumulative impacts. It would make permitting agencies require businesses that would add unacceptable levels of pollution in these communities to mitigate the impacts, or the proposed project could be denied.

The bill, as drafted, would deny businesses the ability to claim economics as a public benefit of a potentially toxic project….