{"id":38175,"date":"2025-04-09T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T04:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=38175"},"modified":"2025-04-08T15:08:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:08:05","slug":"historical-programs-to-address-environmental-justice-being-undone-by-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2025\/04\/historical-programs-to-address-environmental-justice-being-undone-by-trump-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Programs To Address Environmental Justice Being Undone by Trump Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides, April 9, 2025) <\/em>On March 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced<\/a> 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\u2019s Executive Order, \u201cEnding Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to this decision, ten Democratic U.S. Senators\u2014led 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)\u2014co-sponsored the Empowering and Enforcing Environmental Justice Act of 2025 <\/em><\/a>to Congress that would codify funding for environmental justice offices in the Department of Justice. (See Sen. Padilla’s press release here<\/a>.) Senators Duckworth and Booker\u2014founding co-chairs of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus\u2014also issued the following statement<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderserved 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\u2019s 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\u2019 wealth. Making it harder for Americans to breathe safe air and drink clean water is not making America great or healthy again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, Earthjustice Lawsuit Seeks to Defend Organic Farmers as Federal Funds Are Cut and Programs Eliminated<\/a>, to learn how organic and conventional farmers are adversely affected by federal funding cuts and the culling of publicly available climate science.<\/p>\n

Biden EPA Legacy Under Threat<\/h4>\n

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 \u201cprovided direction to federal agencies [including EPA] to incorporate environmental justice considerations in their policies and programs, within the bounds of existing statutes[,]\u201d according to Congressional Research Service<\/a> (CRS) records. \u201cBy themselves, these [Executive Orders] do not establish federal law, but are presidential directives that instruct the implementation of existing law,\u201d CRS said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 2023 Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases<\/a>, the agency finds: \u201cNational 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).\u201d Harvard Law School\u2019s Environmental & Energy Law Program houses a regulatory tracker<\/a>, which contains a history of the Biden Administration\u2019s track record through 2023, as well as the history of GHG pricing beginning in the Obama Administration.<\/p>\n

In January 2024, the World Resources Institute<\/a> conducted a climate action progress tracker, finding the Biden Administration to have made several pivotal achievements, including the following:<\/p>\n