The Trump Administration has taken several actions to dismantle the Environmental Justice policies that underlie many agency rulemakings, grant making and other programs.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton issued EO 12898, which was the first time federal agencies were directed to develop strategies for implementing EJ.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump revoked Clinton’s EO as part of an overall directive entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” In repealing the Clinton-era mandate, President Trump said the policies violate federal civil rights laws and “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”

To implement this new approach, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a memo last week that the Justice Department will reverse a Biden-era directive to prioritize enforcement of environmental laws in disadvantaged and low-income communities. Bondi’s memo rescinded former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo, along with any similar guidance for U.S. attorneys “to ensure that the Department engages in the even-handed administration of justice.”

In addition, the EPA leadership put 168 employees involved with the agency’s environmental justice work on administrative leave last week which had been tasked with administering billions of dollars in grants to low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.