For four years, the Environmental Protection Agency made environmental justice one of its biggest priorities, working to improve health conditions in heavily-polluted communities often made up largely of Black, Latino and low-income Americans. Now that short-lived era is over.
President Donald Trump in his first week eliminated a team of White House advisors whose job it was to ensure the entire federal government helped communities located near heavy industry, ports and roadways. Trump eliminated the “Justice40” initiative the Biden administraton had created. It required 40% of the benefits from certain environmental programs go to hard-hit communities.
When the government reviews new facilities now, experts say officials are likely to ignore how any pollution they create may exacerbate what communities already experience. Trump's actions will likely halt funds from Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, for climate programs and environmental justice.
In making the decision this week, Trump eliminated federal policy dating back to the Clinton-era, which had established a government priority of addressing environmental health problems for low-income and minority groups. He also withdrew the nation from the Paris Agreement aimed at combatting climate change.
The new administration's moves combine two goals: clawing back what Trump officials say are onerous environmental policies that constrain development and fighting diversity, equity and inclusion, according to Joe Luppino-Esposito, federal policy chief with the free-market law firm Pacific Legal Foundation.
“We've had this discussion at the Supreme Court and otherwise for many years, past discrimination is not an excuse for future discrimination," he said, adding that Trump's executive orders allow the law to be enforced “without a specific racial tinge to it."
Many experts say Biden accomplished more than any previous administration in this area.
An EPA-funded study found, for example, that Black people at all income levels are more likely to breathe pollution that causes heart and lung problems. Under Biden, regulators wrote public health rules, tighter air pollution standards and proposed mandates for harmful lead pipes. The EPA issued the largest-ever fine under the federal Clean Air Act and said it slashed more than 225 million pounds of pollution in overburdened communities. Federal grants went to communities to clean up Superfund sites or buy low-emissions school buses. The EPA set up an office to facilitate its substantial environmental justice work.
“What I’m grappling right now with is both the grief of these losses, and the fact that we were on an upward swing, if you will, just weeks ago,” said Jade Begay, an Indigenous rights and climate organizer in New Mexico.
For years, government support for grassroots environmental justice efforts rose and fell depending who occupied the White House. Scrappy, local groups found ways, sometimes with help from foundations, to get their work done regardless. The Biden administration spent time, attention and resources on the issue, making it higher profile — and a bigger target, according to Christophe Courchesne, a law professor and interim director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.
Environmental justice got swept up into "this pitched battle over diversity, equity and inclusion,” Courchesne said. “This developed over time into a target of conservative activism.”
Daniel Gall, an EPA spokesman, said the agency under Trump will work for clean air, land and water.
“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s executive orders,” he said.
The policy changes diverge from the last time Trump was president. Scott Pruitt, who headed the EPA for part of Trump’s first term, once called environmental justice conversations “critical to improving environmental and public health outcomes.” Trump’s new orders are more sweeping; moves that Rena Payan, chief program officer at the Oakland, California nonprofit Justice Outside, called “rolling back decades of progress in addressing environmental discrimination.”
The Trump administration is not only ditching long-standing policies, it is directing agencies to eliminate jobs dedicated to environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion issues, according to a recent memo.
They are not limited to the public sphere. The new administration is also looking to remove diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the private sector — a step that goes further than some anticipated, according to Julius Redd, an environmental attorney at Beveridge & Diamond P.C.
Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which helps communities in the heart of the petrochemical industry, echoed other advocates and said the Biden administration did some great things, but didn't do nearly enough to enforce the law, allowing polluters too much free reign in heavily industrialized Louisiana.
Now it'll get worse and an already industry-friendly state is likely to let polluters build even more quickly. "We just have to buckle up and get ready," she said.
That change feels disheartening to Ash LaMont, national campaigns director for Honor The Earth, a non-profit focused on raising awareness and support for environmental issues in Native American communities.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time really figuring out what is our next step, what are the things that we can do that will last, despite the administration, and what are the very apparent needs of our community members,” she said.
Trump's decision to cut off support will hurt, but many of these local organizations will return to operating without federal support, said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice in New York.
Advocacy will shift to the state and local level. That might work in some places, but it'll be an uphill battle in Republican-controlled states like Louisiana and Texas where there's little receptivity to that advocacy, she said.
“They were finally beginning to get support at the EPA and at the White House," she said, “and this is a big step back for the communities who are front line to some of these issues.”
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St. John reported from Detroit.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed reporting from Washington.
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Michael Phillis And Alexa St. John, The Associated Press
