Trump EPA Guts Environmental Justice – CleanTechnica

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From the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website (likely to be removed before long):

“Environmental justice” means the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people:

• are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens, and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers; and

• have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship, and engage in cultural and subsistence practices

I began learning about environmental justice nearly 25 years ago. Once the country started realizing that pollution and certain toxic chemicals were causing drastic harm to humans, it created the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and got serious about regulating various cancer-causing and health-harming substances and emissions. However, systemic prejudice meant that minorities and the poor were protected less than others.

“Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit.^[1][2] The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.^[3],” Wikipedia writes. “Environmental justice scholars have produced a large interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes contributions to political ecology, environmental law, and theories on justice and sustainability.^[2][7][8]”

Of course, none of this is Donald Trump’s cup of tea, or Elon Musk’s for that matter. Unsurprisingly, the Trump EPA announced a gutting of its environmental justice arm today, but more focused on the smaller DEI arm, which was also gutted.

“Over the last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began implementing President Trump’s Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing Executive Order and subsequent implementation memos. As a result, EPA has placed 171 employees in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility and Environmental Justice on administrative leave, 11 and 160, respectively,” the EPA writes.

“Under President Trump, the EPA will be focused on our core mission to protect human health and the environment, while Powering the Great American Comeback. The previous Administration used DEI and Environmental Justice to advance ideological priorities, distributing billions of dollars to organizations in the name of climate equity. This ends now. We will be good stewards of tax dollars and do everything in our power to deliver clean air, land, and water to every American, regardless of race, religion, background, and creed,” said Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Well, by gutting Environmental Justice, it’s extremely unlikely now that the US “will be good stewards of tax dollars and do everything in our power to deliver clean air, land, and water to every American, regardless of race, religion, background, and creed.”