EPA Places 171 DEIA and Environmental Justice Employees on Administrative Leave

WASHINGTON — Over the past week, the Environmental Protection Agency or 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.

For his part, administrator Lee Zeldin said “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.”

Despite Zeldin’s overly optimistic pronouncement and his attempt to cast Biden administration policies in a nefarious light, the climate equity dollars were intended to help sacrifice zones.

These zones are populated areas with high levels of pollution and environmental hazards, thanks to nearby toxic or polluting industrial facilities, such as the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — namely, the Harbor area. 

During his term in office, Biden signed the largest environmental funding laws, including an executive order directing every federal agency to work toward “environmental justice for all,” marking a decisive step in improving the lives of communities disproportionately affected by toxic pollution and climate change.

This executive action established a new Office of Environmental Justice, launching a whole-of-government approach to address environmental injustice and coordinate efforts across federal agencies. The administration’s efforts include more than 500 federal programs covered by the Justice40 Initiative, aiming to deliver at least 40% of the benefits from climate, clean energy, and clean water investments to disadvantaged communities​​; the historic creation of a comprehensive Ocean Justice Strategy; and the passage of legislation providing billions of dollars in new funding for clean air and water, healthy communities, and other environmental justice priorities.

For more information on how folks residing in sacrifice zones are doing the work to save their own communities read RLn’s story Winning the Long Game here: https://wp.me/p3AltZ-hMp