02/07/2025

Trump Agencies Begin Dismantling Environmental Justice Efforts

BNA Environment & Energy Report | Stephen Lee | Feb. 6, 2025

Trump Agencies Begin Dismantling Environmental Justice Efforts

The Department of Justice is rolling back Biden-era environmental justice enforcement policies, according to a Wednesday memo reviewed by Bloomberg Law. 

The memo gives US Attorneys’ offices until Friday to rescind any memoranda, guidance, and other directives connected to a 2022 letter on environmental justice by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Garland memo laid the groundwork for a comprehensive environmental justice strategy and established DOJ’s first-ever environmental justice section. 

“Going forward, the Department will evenhandedly enforce all federal civil and criminal laws, including environmental laws,” said the memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The move comes amid reports that the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR) will be shut down and staff placed on leave as soon as Thursday. In a staff meeting on Wednesday, OEJECR employees were told that about 100 of the division’s 170 employees would be placed on administrative leave, according to two people familiar with the agency who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the activities. 

As of 9:30 Thursday morning, no OEJECR employees had been placed on administrative leave, an EPA spokeswoman said. The EPA didn’t respond directly to questions about whether the office was still open.

The EPA’s biggest union said Friday it expected the Trump administration to put hundreds of employees on administrative leave because of their work on environmental justice issues.

President Donald Trump on his first day in office signed an executive order directing the government to terminate diversity and environmental justice offices and positions.

Under former President Joe Biden, the OEJECR was a bustling department that housed a conflict prevention and resolution center, an office of resource management, a community support branch, an office of policy and program development, and a section dedicated to external civil rights compliance.

Biden’s environmental justice effort sought to prioritize considerations of disadvantaged communities that long suffered from pollution. Each of the EPA’s 10 regions have their own environmental justice office, which work on local issues that can vary widely from state to state.

That level of activity reflected Biden’s emphasis throughout the federal government. He signed an executive order early in his presidency, steered record levels of funding toward disadvantaged communities, and set a goal for 40% of the benefits of federal investments to go toward environmental justice neighborhoods.

The Biden White House also created several government-wide working groups, staffed with veteran environmental justice experts from across the country, and vigorously enforced environmental laws in communities.

If the EPA shutters its environmental justice office, advocates will likely pivot to efforts at the local and state levels. Many states, like New York, California, and Washington, still have programs that focus on those communities, make grants, and convene working groups.

Advocacy groups and individual activists are also highly organized, having spent decades painstakingly building alliances because the federal government was offering little or no help.

“Protecting our air and water and holding deadly polluters accountable helps American families,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a statement Thursday. “By shuttering these offices, Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors. Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe.”

“The Trump Administration’s chaotic attack on EPA and the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights will expose Americans across the country to more deadly pollution,” Jen Duggan, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement Thursday.

The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Law is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.