'A Disgrace': Trump Admin Targets Multiple Environmental Justice Offices

The Trump administration plans to place over 100 workers who are employed with the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on administrative leave, according to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources.

Other outlets have since reported on the development, including The Washington Post, which wrote Thursday that Trump appointees at the EPA told staff that they plan to close the office.

This move targeting the EPA, one the latest efforts by the Trump administration to drastically reshape federal agencies, was panned by multiple environmental organizations, who accused the White House of turning its back on vulnerable communities.

"The EPA's environmental justice office was created to challenge the historic pattern of pollution disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color," said Chitra Kumar, managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kumar was also formerly an official with the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.

"Once again, the Trump administration is sidelining both science and the nation's most overburdened people," she added.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly working to "remake" the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, which defends the U.S. government's environmental actions in court and brings cases against individuals who violate federal environmental law. The Washington Post reported that Trump appointees at the Department of Justice said they plan to fire roughly 20 workers at the division, "among other actions that have sent morale there plummeting."

The Office of Environmental Justice within the division has already "been eliminated," and the five people working in that office have already been put on administrative leave, according to the outlet.

And in one of her first acts as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi undid a Biden-era directive ordering the Department of Justice to emphasize enforcement of environmental laws in disadvantaged and low-income communities.

Trump administration attacks on what the White House deems "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" (DEIA) initiatives were expected. On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the end of all federal DEI programs, goals, mandates, and plans. The order also specifically called for the termination, "to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and 'environmental justice' offices and positions."

"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," said Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous in a Thursday statement. "Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe."

Like Kumar at the Union of Concerned Scientists, senior VP of environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council Matthew Tejada (also an alum of the EPA's environmental justice office) said that the country's most vulnerable communities would lose out.

"Shuttering the environmental justice office [at the EPA] will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past," said Tejada. "Trump EPA is turning its back on those who need a cleaner environment more than anyone. This is a disgrace."