Statement on EPA’s Cancellation of Environmental Justice Series

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As reported by POLITICO, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has postponed an internal speaker series on environmental injustices faced by people of color  and low-income communities after Donald Trump issued a governmentwide memo on September 4th banning diversity and anti-discrimination training within federal agencies. 

In March of 2017, the head of the EPA’s environmental justice program, Mustafa Ali, announced his departure after serving the Agency for more than two decades. Ali announced his decision after the Trump Administration’s then budget called for reducing the program’s budget by a quarter and reducing its employees by 20%. Earlier that month, an internal EPA memo had called for the elimination of the environmental justice office.

In Response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune Released the following Statement:

“Leaders around the country and around the world must be actively and intentionally working to end the systemic racism that has plagued marginalized communities for decades. Agencies like the EPA have a responsibility to center Environmental Justice in all of its work, in order to effectively carry out its mission to ‘protect human health and the environment.’ The postponement of an anti-discrimnation series at the behest of Donald Trump’s racist directive is an outrage and proves, yet again, just how hollow Andrew Wheeler’s words are. 

“The only thing ‘anti-american’ at the EPA right now is a self-serving, bigoted  administration that will stop at nothing to add fuel to the climate crisis and abandon the communities that need their air, water, and land protected the most.”

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