The first thing Amanda Cronin did when he offered her a job at the Environmental Protection Agency was to buy a big chocolate cake herself. The 25-year-old New York native came across a post from the EPA’s Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights Bureau program analyst or Washington, D.C.-based OEJECR program analyst and was looking for nine months with little exercise in environmental advocacy work when he joined in May 2023, as the Biden administration was a historic push to advance historic environmental justice.
“I felt like I was part of something big and special,” recalls Cronin.
She quickly plunged into the world of environmental justice work, coordinated partnerships with EPA tribes and local advocacy groups, and helped organize a webinar for federal grants to residents from Arizona to Alabama that they could apply to combat pollution in their backyards. When Donald Trump won the presidential election last November on a platform that promised to block environmental regulations in the country’s industrial corridor, Cronin knew her days at the agency could be counted.
Sure enough, on February 6th, she and 167 other workers in the office. It has been placed During his indefinite leave, he was locked out of his federal email account. A week later, there were still 388 staff members in the first year of their position at the agency. Ended.
During his vacation, Cronin fills his time with scuba diving and yoga classes, “trying to maintain a healthy balance between staying informed, but not falling into the spiral of a scroll of destiny.”
Last Tuesday, Cronin got even worse news. The EPA has quickly begun to eliminate all environmental justice offices and positions, including the OEJECR and the Environmental Justice Offices within the 10 regional sectors of the EPA. In an internal memo, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the move aims to move agency to President Trump’s compliance. Presidential Order of January 20th The title is “End and prioritize radical and useless government DEI programmes.”
Diversity, equity, inclusion, or DEI have traditionally been understood as a principle that guides the principles of employment and admission within businesses and universities, but the Trump administration has repeatedly blended such initiatives with efforts to promote environmental justice that institutions have had since 2020. It is defined As a fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the development and implementation of national environmental laws and policies, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
“Ironically, our work is in line with the priorities that the administration has put in place, which really raises the poor working class community,” Cronin told Grist.
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Contrary to Trump’s politicized message that has linked the notion of environmental justice to Biden and Democrats, the EPA established the OEJECR during President George HW Bush’s administration in 1992, fighting “combatting “disproportionately high human health or environmental impacts” on minority and low-income groups.” Until recently, the office had only a few dozen staff members, but I sat in the agency’s Policy Bureau. Former EPA administrator Michael Regan in 2022 announcement That oejeccr will transform into a national program office on par with the Aviation Bureau or Water Bureau, with its staff growing to 200. Margot Brown, senior vice president of environmental justice and equity at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the decision was “transformative.”
“It has increased the need to ensure that all Americans live clean air, clean water and safe land,” she explained. “It has become a national priority.” EPA administrators meet weekly with heads of national programs at all institutions. She continued. In other words, OEJECR now has direct and routine access to top EPA decision makers.
Another former environmental justice staff we call Tracy joined the EPA during Oejeccr’s employment blitz and was fired after Trump took office. (She asked her name to be withheld, fearing it would affect the agency’s future employment prospects.) Her job was to help manage cooperative agreements, a term for a special kind of grant with government involvement.
“It was a dream job,” she told Grist over the phone. “I gained more experience in my field of expertise.
Tracy described the energetic work environment with people from various backgrounds and skill sets who lived in other parts of the country as part of the Biden administration’s push for environmental justice. A team of grant makers she worked with historically underprivileged communities to implement the Environmental Justice Program.
“We told them we would do something else this time, we would correct our past mistakes,” Tracy said of the office grantee. “We worked really hard to build their trust.”
Tracy scoffed at Trump and Zeldin’s claims, claiming that their office wasted federal dollars on Day’s initiative. “We’re not just giving money and saying we’ll come back in six months and see us,” she said. “We meet them at every stage.”
News of the imminent closure of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Office came a day before Zeldin’s announcement “The biggest deregulation action in US history” It is intended to interfere with federal surveillance of the automotive and oil and gas industries. The EPA plans to eliminate dozens of environmental regulations, including rules governing oil refineries and climate-warming emissions. Also, last week, Zeldin end Biden’s $2 billion candidate subsidy. Many of them were designated underserved communities. Overall, last week’s actions during the Trammel Biden era have put an effort to combat the overpollution of the country’s industrial corridors and put millions of people at risk of being exposed to toxic air and water.
Last Thursday, two federal judges, one in Maryland and the other in California. Found The Trump administration’s shootings were illegal and ordered thousands of federal employees to be revived. On Sunday, Tracy received an email from the EPA to let her know that her termination had been cancelled. She is currently on administrative leave until notification. The news provided some relief, she said, but not so much. She believes her position is next in the chopping block.
“Do you know those brownfields?” asked Tracy, referring to the toxic locations where former industrial facilities once operated. “The oil companies can be dissolved and run somewhere. But what about the community next to those locations? What happens to them?”
