As EPA shutters environmental justice offices, rural Americans at risk
By Julia Tilton / The Daily Yonder
Environmental justice efforts at the 10 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional offices have stopped and employees have been placed on administrative leave, per an announcement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this month. Former EPA employees involved with environmental justice work across the country say rural communities will suffer as a result.
Before being shuttered in early March, the EPA’s environmental justice arm was aimed at making sure communities were being treated fairly and receiving their due protection under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Zealan Hoover, former senior advisor to the EPA administrator under the Biden administration, told the Daily Yonder that this work had big implications for rural places since there are pollution concerns in rural areas across the country.
“EPA was very focused on making sure that not just on the regulatory side, but also on the investment side, we were pushing resources into rural communities,” said Hoover.
According to Hoover, most of the pollution challenges the US faces are not new. He said that the employees—now on leave—who staffed the EPA’s regional environmental justice offices were deeply knowledgeable on the issues affecting communities in their regions; issues which can go on for decades. Hoover said he worries about recent changes to the agency under the Trump administration, which also include a series of deregulatory actions and a proposed 65% budget cut.
“I trust that the great folks at EPA who remain will still try valiantly to fill those gaps, but the reality is that this administration is pushing to cut EPA’s budget, pushing employees to leave, and that’s going to restrict EPA’s ability to help rural communities tackle their most significant pollution challenges,” Hoover said.