EPA’s national office to aid long forgotten neighborhoods saddled with pollution, created with much fanfare during the previous administration, is in trouble.
The bulk of its staff have been placed on administrative leave. Its foundational executive order has been rescinded. And front-facing media for the program, including its online tool spotlighting environmental dangers in disadvantaged communities, have been ripped off the Internet.
Supporters of EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights now expect it to fade away under the Trump administration to a shell of its former self, at best.
“They deserved better. They did nothing wrong,” Vernice Miller-Travis, executive vice president at Metropolitan Group and a longtime environmental justice advocate, said about the EPA employees placed on paid leave. “They went and above beyond each and every day, though they were still understaffed for the task at the hand.”
