09
Apr
Historical Programs To Address Environmental Justice Being Undone by Trump Administration
(Beyond Pesticides, April 9, 2025) On March 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency would be shutting down the Environmental Justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices and staff at ten of the regional offices and the headquarters in Washington, D.C. Administrator Zeldin declared that this move implemented President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.â€
In response to this decision, ten Democratic U.S. Senators—led by Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) and including Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR)—co-sponsored the Empowering and Enforcing Environmental Justice Act of 2025 to Congress that would codify funding for environmental justice offices in the Department of Justice. (See Sen. Padilla’s press release here.) Senators Duckworth and Booker—founding co-chairs of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus—also issued the following statement:
“Underserved communities in rural, urban and tribal areas already shoulder the brunt of the climate crisis and environmental injustice. These cuts and reversals will make it even harder for these communities to address some of our nation’s toughest challenges, including removing lead pipes, cleaning up dangerous toxins, addressing legacy pollution that has led to higher cancer, asthma and death rates, and tackling the climate crisis that threatens our health and collective planetary future….With so much at stake, we urge them to immediately reverse course and prioritize public health before billionaires’ wealth. Making it harder for Americans to breathe safe air and drink clean water is not making America great or healthy again.â€
Communities across the nation continue to contend with the whiplash of the Trump administration, as government programs are threatened generally, and those that mention climate change or environmental justice are specifically targeted. See a recent Daily News, Earthjustice Lawsuit Seeks to Defend Organic Farmers as Federal Funds Are Cut and Programs Eliminated, to learn how organic and conventional farmers are adversely affected by federal funding cuts and the culling of publicly available climate science.
Biden EPA Legacy Under Threat
Community leaders, public and environmental health advocates, and the broader public view executive orders like this as flying in the face of over three decades of efforts across various presidential administrations going back to the Clinton Administration to address environmental injustice. In 1994, three executive orders “provided direction to federal agencies [including EPA] to incorporate environmental justice considerations in their policies and programs, within the bounds of existing statutes[,]†according to Congressional Research Service (CRS) records. “By themselves, these [Executive Orders] do not establish federal law, but are presidential directives that instruct the implementation of existing law,†CRS said.
There is a long history of incorporating the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) into budgetary analysis, regulatory actions, and federally funded projects. In EPA’s 2023 Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, the agency finds: “National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine reports provide evidence of how the impacts of climate change create potential environmental justice concerns (NRC 2011, National Academies 2017). For a recent detailed discussion of climate change impacts in the U.S. and their intersection with environmental justice concerns, see the 2021 Climate Change and Social Vulnerability report (EPA 2021e).†Harvard Law School’s Environmental & Energy Law Program houses a regulatory tracker, which contains a history of the Biden Administration’s track record through 2023, as well as the history of GHG pricing beginning in the Obama Administration.
In January 2024, the World Resources Institute conducted a climate action progress tracker, finding the Biden Administration to have made several pivotal achievements, including the following:
- “Set target to cut emissions by at least 50% by 2030;
- Pass a major climate-smart stimulus package [Inflation Reduction Act] after COVID-19; [and]
- Tackle super pollutants.â€
On the subject of scientific integrity, advocates see that little has changed in ensuring sound science in EPA decision-making on pesticide and chemical regulations. There was a public comment period that closed in early 2024 (see the Action of the Week) following the Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking. EPA published an updated version of the agency’s Scientific Integrity Policy in January 2025, just days before the administration transition. (See Action of the Week here for an archive of the Beyond Pesticides’ actions.) The policy had not been updated since 2012.
According to the EPA website, “Scientific integrity is the adherence to professional practices, ethical behavior, and the principles of honesty and objectivity when conducting, managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities. Inclusivity, transparency, and protection from inappropriate influence are hallmarks of scientific integrity.â€
Advocates continue to be skeptical of the implementation of this new policy given various investigations resulting in shocking discoveries about regulatory misconduct, including a 2021 report for The Intercept, “The Department of Yes: How Pesticide Companies Corrupted the EPA and Poisoned America,†highlighting scandalous behavior for a regulatory agency, including but not limited to:
- Burying an EPA report warning about glyphosate linkages to cancer;
- Neglecting evidence that links exposure to a neonicotinoid insecticide and neurological damage;
- Dismissing widely acknowledged science linking malathion exposure to cancer; and
- Normalizing the waiving of significant numbers of toxicity tests “at the request of industry.â€
Environmental Justice through Justice40 Initiative
Another Executive Order signed on January 27, 2021, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,†put into place commitments to put teeth into these Executive Orders (EOs), leading to the creation of the Justice40 Initiative. The goal of Justice40 was transformational in that it aimed to dedicate “40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.â€
An independent analysis by Resources for the Future, “an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, D.C,†of 445 Justice40 covered programs released by the White House in April 2023 finds the implementation of EJ commitments was at different stages with a significant amount of funding already distributed.
For example, 30 percent of the programs (133 programs) reviewed are “not making information about their activities available to the public.†However, 98 of the programs are considered to fall under the category of “full implementation and achievement of the 40 percent goal,†representing the second highest category. It remains to be seen what the full impact of Justice40 has been in moving forward. According to data provided by the Biden Administration, over 500 programs received more than $30 billion in funding under Justice40 as of the end of 2022.
An additional action the Biden Administration took through this EO was the establishment of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) with the goal of “bring[ing] greater visibility to EJ issues across the federal government, but will provide EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) with an excellent partner for providing horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations to our government’s leadership.†For many communities across the nation, the move to suspend these councils comes alongside the fact that the current Trump Administration’s Cabinet makeup consists of over one dozen billionaires. See the analysis by Public Citizen (January 2025) on this subject, which has raised ongoing concerns about corporate accountability.                                                                              Â
Call to Action
As environmental justice and climate funding are under threat and communities face the brunt of environmental, public health, and biodiversity crises, advocates are dedicated to holding elected officials accountable for protecting institutions designed to serve people with specific attention to those at disproportionate risk.
Congress should respond to President Trump’s firing of federal watchdog offices across the government by ensuring the integrity of federal agencies through the reappointment of independent Inspectors’ General. (See Daily News here.)
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources: Environmental Protection Agency
