“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 on 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 would 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.
