Trump’s Assault on Environmental Justice Will Harm Disadvantaged Communities
The Trump Administration is waging all-out war against environmental justice efforts across every federal department, undoing initiatives started or extended by the Biden-Harris Administration.
As listed by an Environmental Health News report, Trump and his appointees are doing the following:
- The White House, Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies have removed references to environmental justice from policies, deleted websites and suspended officials working on the issue.
- The DOJ Office of Environmental Justice, created in 2022 to support communities affected by pollution, has been shut down and its staff placed on leave.
- The administration is attempting to claw back $3 billion in environmental justice grants from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Perhaps most importantly, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is closing its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and placing its 168 employees on administrative leave. That office under slightly changing names has existed since it was created by President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Communities Threatened
These Trump anti-justice moves were blasted by senior program officials with the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). “President Trump and Elon Musk are continuing to flout the law and recklessly dismantle the long-standing institutions meant to protect the health and safety of all communities,” said LCV Healthy Communities Program Director Madeleine Foote. “At its core, environmental justice is about the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people — no matter their race, income, zip code, or national origin. Dismantling the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice is being done to benefit Big Polluters and corporate interests, and will cost lives. Environmental justice communities include everyone living next to polluting factories, congested roadways, toxic waste dumps, and other Big Polluters — low-income communities, communities of color, rural communities, elderly communities, people who have disabilities and increased health risks, and so many more.”
“The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice was designed to address pollution disproportionately affecting low-income and communities of color, and the job is not done,” added Chispa Senior Director Estefany Carrasco-González. “Doing away with the office, whose work has operated for decades, sets us back and further increases the need to address environmental injustices. It will put our communities, already dealing with a history of the worst effects of climate change, dirty air, contaminated water, and other toxins, at a greater health risk from polluters.”
Disregard for Communities Across the Nation
Other national environmental advocates agreed. “The Trump EPA is abandoning the communities across our nation that need help the most,” said Matthew Tejada, senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and a former head of the EPA’s environmental justice office. “Shuttering the environmental justice office will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past…This is a disgrace.”
Advocates for environmental justice will continue to fight for these “frontline and fenceline” communities, calling out the Trump retreats, and continuing the work for environmental justice at state and local levels while the environmental voters movement works to restore environmental sanity in Washington.
