Environmental Justice Movement Will Persevere and Challenge Attacks
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 22, 2025
Contact: Ashley Sullivan, ashley.sullivan@weact.org
WASHINGTON — This week, the Trump administration invoked mass rescissions of executive orders – and signed dozens of dangerous new orders – attacking historic progress made on issues impacting people across the country such as environmental and health protections, climate progress, racial and gender equity, LGBTQIA+ as well as immigrant rights. These rescissions and orders ignore the serious needs of people across the U.S., while also fundamentally threatening democracy. These regressive actions by the administration included damaging rescissions of Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” which created the White House Environmental Justice Council and the Justice40 initiative, alongside Executive Order 14096, “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” and of Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” At its core, these plotted moves maliciously target vulnerable communities already facing discrimination and harm. Trump’s measures – including also withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and expanding fossil fuel infrastructure – will further this harm, skyrocket pollution, and threaten clean energy economies. This will most significantly impact people of color and low-income who already have disproportionate rates of sickness, disease, and premature death from pollution and climate crisis impacts. WE ACT for Environmental Justice shares profound disapproval of these extreme, harmful, and irresponsible acts, and resolves to continue our work to safeguard targeted communities, policies, and constitutional rights. WE ACT’s Chief Federal Officer Leslie Fields shared the following:
“As we enter into an era of weaponized phrases and issues, we must remember that environmental justice means that all people should have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment. Trump’s day one acts – including rescissions of nearly 80 vital executive orders while adding dozens of new, anti-democratic orders – roll-back popular policies that promote clean, renewable, and affordable energy. These actions also place vulnerable communities in even greater danger from pollution and the dire, real-time consequences of the climate crisis. In the face of these assaults, we will not stop pursuing justice. We will continue to push for comprehensive laws to codify necessary policies people across the country need and want. We will lead and collaborate on the local level in New York and beyond to advance these efforts. We will not let these attacks remove the rights our communities have to a safe and healthy life and future.”
When used appropriately, executive orders have been a successful way to ensure that important and cross-cutting policies are enacted throughout government. For example, the original environmental justice E.O. 12898 and the more recent 14096 were widely popular and necessary, providing communities with the resources, investments, and opportunities to gain equitable access to healthy environments. According to a 2024 Yale poll, “52 percent of registered voters think global warming should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress.” Additionally, a 2024 Environmental Protection Network post-election poll found that 80 percent of all voters, including 77 percent of Trump voters, were in favor of “increasing federal funding to communities disproportionately harmed by air and water pollution.” The move by the Trump administration to rescind this amount of well-received and impactful executive orders, along with plans to expand fossil-fuels and remove vital environmental protections, ignore the urgent needs of people across the country at a crucial time. These actions in tandem with his newest executive orders are “weakening of democratic principles such as the rule of law and nonpartisan government that prevent authoritarian-inclined leaders like Trump from consolidating power.” This is unacceptable.
Our elected officials have an obligation to uphold equity under the law and to represent the needs of all people, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or where they live. At all times, but most especially when justice is at the greatest risk of being lost, it is our responsibility to keep our government to task and to protect these rights.
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WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan-based, membership-driven organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents are meaningfully included in the development of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Instagram.