EPA’s New Environmental Justice and Civil Rights Office to Address Climate Equity

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Sep. 24 announced the creation of a new national program office devoted to advancing environmental justice and civil rights. This office will act as an enabler fulfilling the agency’s commitment to delivering justice and equity for all, while pushing the critical issues to the highest levels of the government, and ministering community-driven solutions.

The new office will oversee and monitor a $3 billion climate and environmental justice block grant program, which is a part of recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act‘s $60 billion investment in environmental justice. Apart from this, the new office will also monitor other funding programs granted by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act while tracking the Justice40 Initiative’s key performance index on a regular basis.

The new office will have an employee strength of more than 200 in the agency’s headquarters across 10 regions for tackling climate challenges. The major focus of the new office would be to engage with environmental justice representatives, tribal, state, local partners to learn their requirements, offer financial grants and technical assistance, coordinate with other EPA offices to speed up the agency’s policies and programs, and monitor funding recipients to ensure compliance with applicable laws.

EPA launched the new office in North Carolina where the environmental justice movement took place forty years ago.

The new office is the amalgamation of three existing programs run by EPA. They are the Office of Environmental Justice, External Civil Rights Compliance Office, Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center. The major functions of the new office include:

• Enhancing the EPA’s ability to implant environmental justice, civil rights, and equity;
• Involving people in law enforcement and in the implementation of regulations and policies without any discrimination;
• Ensuring participation of communities with environmental justice concerns and enabling easy access to funds and technical assistance; and
• Offering expert services in conflict resolution through collaborative problem solutions.