Biden Admin Launches Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights

The Biden administration on Saturday launched a new national office dubbed the “Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights” charged with addressing what some officials say are the disproportionate harms inflicted on low-income areas and communities of color by pollution and climate change.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government, announced that the new office “will position the agency to better advance environmental justice, enforce civil rights laws in overburdened communities, and deliver new grants and technical assistance.”

The new office will oversee a portion of Democrats’ $60 billion investment in environmental justice initiatives created by the Inflation Reduction Act—specifically, the implementation and delivery of $3 billion in block grants to underserved communities affected by pollution.

The EPA said the new office will also “ensure EPA’s implementation of other funding programs provided by the Inflation Reduction Act [and] Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

Three existing EPA programs that oversee environmental justice, civil rights, and conflict prevention and resolution will be merged into the new senior-level office.

The new national office will have more than 200 EPA staff in EPA headquarters and across 10 U.S. regions, according to the agency. The staff are charged with seeking to better understand the needs of communities with “environmental justice concerns,” as well as the needs of tribal, state, and local partners.

The staff are also tasked with managing and disbursing “historic levels of grants and technical assistance,” and working with other EPA offices “to incorporate environmental justice into the agency’s programs, policies, and processes, as allowed by law.” They will also ensure that EPA funding recipients “comply with applicable civil rights laws.”

The president is expected to nominate an assistant administrator to lead the new office at a later date. The Senate would have to confirm the person before they

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases