Trump revokes advances by Clinton, Biden

Among the targets of executive orders issued this week by President Donald Trump upon his return to the White House were actions taken by Presidents Clinton and Biden to ensure federal attention to environmental justice.
That included the revoking of Executive Order 12898, President Bill Clinton’s landmark order establishing federal actions to address environmental justice in minority and low-income populations, a move experts say could have deadly implications.
“It really shows there is a war on equity and a real fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of environmental justice,” said Peggy Shepard, executive director and co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a national advocacy group based in New York City. “It ensures communities of color will feel the effects on their well-being.”
Trump revoked Clinton’s order as part of an overall directive seeking to halt what he describes as illegal discrimination while restoring “merit-based opportunity” – part of his broad opposition to programs intended to correct the wrongs of systemic racism.
“I therefore order all executive departments and agencies to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements,” Trump’s order states.
What is Executive Order 12898?
President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12898 on Feb. 11, 1994.
The order directed the federal government to consider environmental justice and potential discriminatory effects when making decisions, with particular focus on the impact of those decisions on minority, tribal and low-income community health.
“Federal agencies were directed to make environmental justice an integral part of their missions and to establish an environmental justice strategy,” the Department of Energy explained in a post chronicling the history of environmental justice in the U.S.
Why was it created?
Clinton’s order hoped to address increasing calls for environmental justice around the country, which had already prompted President George Bush Sr. to create an environmental equity group and initiate federally sponsored meetings with community leaders to tackle the issue, the DOE noted.
“The order affirmed that all people living in the United States of America deserve safe places to live, learn, work, play and pray by acknowledging there are environmental dangers that disproportionately target especially people of color,” said Myrriah Gómez, an associate professor at Honors College at the University of New Mexico who studies environmental racism.
As detailed by the DOE, among the major situations leading up to Clinton’s order was the 1982 designation of a small, mostly Black community in Warren County, North Carolina as the site of a hazardous waste landfill intended for soil contaminated by toxic waste illegally dumped along state roadways.
Massive protests led by the NAACP kickstarted the environmental justice movement and drew national attention, leading to the formation of advocacy groups committed to the issue.
What was the order’s significance?
According to the National Resources Defense Council, the order was the first major federal action on environmental justice in the U.S., giving legitimacy and directing public attention to the movement and the idea that low-income and minority communities disproportionate suffer the effects of environmental pollution and its health risks.
“It was very exciting,” said Shepard of New York’s WE ACT. “The environmental justice movement had worked for years to bring these issues to the federal government, and it really began to provide a more equitable way of looking at the distribution of environmental pollution.”
States nationwide would follow suit, the agency said, requiring that agencies consider environmental justice in their own decision-making processes.
In a post commemorating the order’s 30th anniversary, WE ACT said that despite its good intentions, Executive Order 12898 ultimately fell short of achieving much beyond public recognition of the issue.
However, those intentions were bolstered and furthered by President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14008 in 2021 and Executive Order 14096 in 2023. They mandated that disadvantaged communities affected by pollution get a portion of federal climate-crisis resources and pledged ongoing commitment to a scientifically supported approach to such issues with a focus on communities with environmental justice concerns.
On Monday, Trump revoked both of those orders as well.
Why did Trump revoke the orders?
Gómez said Trump’s revocation of the orders ignores the long history of environmental racism in the U.S., especially the effects of toxic and polluting industries on Indigenous, Black and Latino communities.
“The current attacks on environmental justice by the Trump administration speak to its inability to understand the environmental dangers of toxic and polluting sites and industries in this country and their desire to place capitalism ahead of people’s health and well-being,” she said.
Shepard agreed.
“They’re claiming that these environmental justice initiatives are illegal and discriminatory when these programs are actually there to reverse the discrimination that’s been occurring for decades,” Shepard said.
What are the potential impacts of Trump’s actions?
By revoking the orders, Gómez said, the Trump administration not only puts communities with environmental justice concerns in harm’s way but also eliminates or restricts funding and research intended to help make the nation safer.
Trump’s action, she said, “places many communities at risk, especially communities comprised of a majority of people of color, where toxic and polluting industries tend to be sited.”
Shepard said adverse health effects will worsen in such communities as a result.
“Poor water quality exacerbates underlying conditions,” she said. “We will see a sicker population. The fact that so many polluting facilities can be permitted in some communities versus others is what’s really creating these health impacts.”
Gómez warned that the action not only affects current industries but potential future industries, “which are likely to evolve more quickly if environmental protections are stripped.”
Such protections are crucial as the nation confronts the growing issue of nuclear waste, she said, noting that efforts are underway to revive previously closed or decommissioned nuclear reactors as support grows for the creation of small modular nuclear reactors, primarily to support AI-related data centers.
“Currently, the country has no repository for high-level nuclear waste, much less a plan for a facility,” Gómez said.
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