The Trump administration is aiming to close another department and cut more of the federal government’s workforce. A memo directed toward “the reorganization and elimination” of the Environmental Protection Agency, including its 10 regional offices and the one in Washington, according to The New York Times.
Why does the Trump administration want to close the EPA?
The news comes as the administration has closed down federal offices and laid off a large portion of its employees to conduct budget cuts. Lee Zeldin, the EPA’s administrator, also said “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income” in regards to environmental laws are discriminatory.
“President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people,” he said, according to The New York Times. “Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.”
Many of the agency’s offices were opened to address pollution in poor and minority communities. These communities are often situated near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities.
The EPA closing will affect all rural communities
Margot Brown, the senior vice president of justice and equity at the Environmental Defense Fund, said shutting down the department will affect rural Americans as a whole.
“They’re dismantling the ecosystem of health protections for rural Americans, and by dismantling them, they’ll make them more susceptible to future hazards,” she said, according to North Carolina Health News. “It will impair health and well-being for generations to come.”
Democrats have called out this move, which they say creates a hazard for communities across the country.
“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,” senators Tammy Duckworth and Cory Booker wrote in a letter, per the New York Times. “Many of these areas were deliberately targeted due to their demographics for the siting of polluting activities.”
“If anybody needed a clearer sign that this administration gives not a single damn for the people of the United States, this is it,” Matthew Tejada, a former official at the EPA added.
Environmental justice has been a target of the Trump administration
Earlier this week, hundreds of grants dedicated to environmental justice were cancelled. A whopping 168 employees working on environmental justice were also put on leave last month, before a federal judge found the move to have no legal basis.
On January 20, inauguration day, President Donald Trump signed an executive order canceling former President Joe Biden’s environmental justice program initiatives. The administration also cut funding to the Mountains and Plains Thriving Communities Collaborative in February, according to CPR News. The center, which is located in Montana State University, served 28 tribal nations and six states.