President Donald Trump’s cancellation of a 31-year-old environmental justice directive threatens the health of tens of millions of people in minority or low-income communities, which have often been dumping grounds for pollution, waste sites and heavy industry, said civil rights advocates and experts.
Revoking a 1994 executive order by President Bill Clinton removes a mandate that survived four subsequent presidencies, including Trump’s first term, and required federal agencies to address the “high and adverse” environmental and health effects of their decisions on areas with high rates of poverty or large minority populations.
“It’s turning the clock back on decades of work,” said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, based in New York. “They’re working to eliminate policies and programs that support equity, support environmental and climate justice, and that’s just going to have a harmful effect on the health and well-being of so many people in these disadvantaged communities.”
Clinton’s Executive Order 12898, signed in February 1994, required federal agencies to analyze environmental and public health hazards in minority or low-income communities and to avoid adding to them.
