E.P.A. Plans to Close All Environmental Justice Offices

The Trump administration intends to eliminate Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution facing poor communities, according to a memo from Lee Zeldin, the agency administrator.

In the internal memo, viewed by The New York Times, Mr. Zeldin informed agency leaders that he was directing “the reorganization and elimination” of the offices of environmental justice at all 10 E.P.A. regional offices as well as the one in Washington.

Mr. Zeldin’s move effectively ends three decades of work at the E.P.A. to try to ease the pollution that burdens poor and minority communities, which are frequently located near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities. Studies have shown that people who live in those communities have higher rates of asthma, heart disease and other health problems, compared with the national average.

“If anybody needed a clearer sign that this administration gives not a single damn for the people of the United States, this is it,” said Matthew Tejada, a former E.P.A. official who is now a senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit organization.

Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, described the moves as “organizational improvements” that align with President Trump’s orders to end wasteful spending and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

In a statement, Mr. Zeldin suggested that environmental justice — which the agency defined as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income” with respect to environmental laws — was tantamount to discrimination.

“President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people,” Mr. Zeldin said. “Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.”

Asked to explain in what way Mr. Zeldin believes environmental justice is “forced discrimination,” Ms. Vaseliou claimed that such programs “prescribe race-conscious decision-making.”

“As Administrator Zeldin has repeatedly said, ‘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,’” she said.

Mr. Zeldin’s order prompted an immediate backlash from Democratic lawmakers. In a letter Wednesday, 17 lawmakers led by Senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Cory Booker of New Jersey, urged Mr. Zeldin to reinstate the offices.

“In the United States, communities across the country lack access to safe and reliable drinking water and sewer systems, and remain exposed to pollution that causes cancer and respiratory illnesses,” the lawmakers wrote. “Many of these areas were deliberately targeted due to their demographics for the siting of polluting activities.”

The decision comes after Mr. Zeldin canceled hundreds of grants this week, many of them designated for environmental justice.

Last month, Mr. Zeldin placed 168 employees who work on environmental justice on leave, but this week a federal judge forced him to rehire dozens of them after finding that the action had no legal basis. Several E.P.A. employees said they were bracing for many of those people to again be eliminated, as the agency and others prepared for widespread reductions in force.

Last week, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department dropped a lawsuit against a petrochemical plant that had been filed by the Biden administration. The lawsuit claimed that the plant increased the cancer risk in a predominantly Black community in Louisiana. It was one of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s most visible efforts to try to improve conditions in an area that is known as “Cancer Alley” because of its history with toxic pollution.

The E.P.A. withdrew its referral of the case for prosecution “to align with Administrator Lee Zeldin’s pledge to end the use of ‘environmental justice’ as a tool for advancing ideological priorities,” the Justice Department said in a news release.

The environmental justice movement is widely considered to have started in the 1980s when civil rights activists stopped the state of North Carolina from dumping 120 million pounds of soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogen commonly known as PCBs, in Warren County, a predominantly Black community.

In 1987, a landmark study from the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice documented how race was the most significant factor in predicting where such waste sites would be located. Recent studies, including from the E.P.A., have shown that Black Americans have a higher exposure to air pollution than non-Hispanic whites or Asians, regardless of income levels.

As president, Mr. Biden made it a priority to address that unequal burden. He created the White House Office of Environmental Justice and directed federal agencies to deliver 40 percent of the benefits of environmental programs to marginalized communities that face a disproportionate amount of pollution. The E.P.A.’s Office of Environmental Justice, which was created by the Clinton administration, significantly expanded under Mr. Biden.

The Trump administration has now erased all of that.

“This doesn’t make America healthier or greater,” Mr. Tejada said. “It makes us sicker, smaller and uglier than we have been in at least a generation.”