THE SET-UP: It’s quite amazing to watch Trump’s Kulturkampfires grow from once-obscure embers spread by professional political arsonists. They fuel them and foster them until they burn even seemingly untouchable institutions like the mighty Pentagon. But that’s exactly what’s been happening with the DEI witch hunt currently engulfing every office of the Federal Government and, like an actual wildfire, it’s even jumped into the corporate world and scorched schools and colleges.
At the Pentagon, it’s meant firing the top brass solely because of what the color of their skin implies. If you are Black … or a woman or trans, for that matter … you are obviously a “DEI Hire” and, therefore, inherently unqualified for the position. It’s a pernicious dog whistle for so-called “reverse racism.” The implication is that a pilot or a general who is not a White guy is obviously only there because they are not a White guy.
It’s also led to Onion-like excesses … like memory-holing the military achievements of Jackie Robinson and deep-sixing the apparently impolitely-named Enola Gay. The stakes for the long-suffering souls living in Cancer Alley, though, are much higher. They’ve been counting on the EPA to do something that’s long-overdue … to follow through on a lawsuit against the petrochemical profiteers who callously and maliciously helped give an 85 mile-stretch of Louisiana is sadly well-earned name. But Trump’s EPA looked at their lawsuit and, as Wonkette points out, they found DEI:
The Trump administration this month dropped a lawsuit by the Environmental Protection Agency against the owners of a huge petrochemical plant in Louisiana, which isn’t all that surprising, given the administration’s love of pollutants and the polluters who generously share them with the public. And while that will always be true, the Justice Department announced the dismissal of the suit as a great big victory in the administration’s fight against “DEI.” Yes really.
They were scheduled to go to trial next month. But the lawsuit and its paperwork used the words “environmental justice” and that, folks, is DEI-speak. DEI-speak is verboten. Per Wonkette…
The DOJ press release said dropping the suit “fulfills President Trump’s day one executive order […] to eliminate ideological overreach and restore impartial enforcement of federal laws.”
That’s no joke, either. Take a look at the list of “woke” words and phrases essentially outlawed by Trump’s witch hunters. Kulturkampfires are often built at the foot of a stake. - jp
TITLE: Income, wealth, and environmental inequality in the US
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/income-wealth-and-environmental-inequality-us
EXCERPTS: In our recent paper (Colmer et al. 2025), we combine 40 years of administrative microdata linking individual-level information on income and wealth for the near population of the US to high-resolution data on air pollution concentrations to provide systematic evidence on the relationship between pollution exposure and economic wellbeing. We document new descriptive facts about the relationship between income and ambient air pollution exposure, how these relationships differ by race and ethnicity, and how these income–pollution gradients have changed over time. We then identify a sample of individuals who experienced a one-time, plausibly exogenous windfall in income (most likely from lottery winnings) to examine the causal effect of changes in income on air pollution exposures.
We found that in 1984, individuals at the top of the income distribution were, on average, exposed to similar pollution concentrations as those at the median or bottom of the income distribution. While air quality has improved substantially in the intervening decades, with pollution concentrations declining by more than 60% and the income–pollution gradient becoming more negatively sloped, the relationship between income and air pollution remains relatively flat.
It is possible, however, that the income–pollution relationship might differ across demographic groups. To explore this possibility, we estimate income–pollution relationships separately by race. Similar to our overall estimates, we find that the income–pollution relationships are relatively flat and similar across demographic groups. However, Black individuals are exposed to higher pollution concentrations than white individuals at every single percentile of the national income distribution. This means that the richest Black individuals are, on average, exposed to worse air quality than the poorest white individuals. Again, this pattern has persisted over time, despite overall improvements in US air quality. We also show that these findings hold in every single location type (central cities, rural areas, suburban areas) and even within metro areas. Across different measures of pollution, different measures of income or wealth, different places, and different time periods, a simple fact endures: racial minorities are, on average, exposed to higher levels of air pollution at every single income percentile.
Our findings suggest a fundamental limitation of income-based approaches in addressing environmental inequality: reducing income inequality alone will not eliminate disparities in pollution exposure. Using our empirical estimates, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that harmonising median income between Black and white individuals would be associated with a 10% reduction in the overall Black–white PM2.5 gap in 2016. We note, however, that our conclusions do not reflect various ways in which aggregate changes to the income or wealth of a community or group may affect environmental exposures, not simply through mobility, but through channels such as political engagement and/or collective action (Banzhaf 2012, Banzhaf et al. 2019). Understanding how these broader social processes influence relative environmental exposures remains an interesting and important area for future research.
TITLE: Trump’s EPA Shuts Down $3B Environmental Justice Program
https://seattlemedium.com/epa-rolls-back-environmental/
EXCERPTS: The Environmental Protection Agency’s very brief era of environmental justice is over.
Just days after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin issued a memo declaring the immediate end of all “diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental justice offices and positions,” the agency announced it will close 10 of its Environmental Justice Divisions in regions around the country.
Advocates say the moves are troubling signs of an impending rollback of government efforts to address racial disparities in environmental policy.
The sweeping cuts are the latest in Zeldin’s war against environmental justice at the EPA, which had received $3 billion for that work through President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The new policies also align with President Donald Trump’s disdain for federal initiatives that touch on racial diversity, equity and inclusion.
But EPA efforts to specifically address disproportionate pollution in Black and brown communities ground to a halt last year, due to a red-state lawsuit challenging the EPA’s method for investigating civil rights-related pollution cases.
Both the lawsuit, filed by the state of Louisiana, and Zeldin’s memos have several parallels in how they discuss — and, critics say, fundamentally misunderstand — the role of race in environmental regulation.
Zeldin’s supporters say removing race from the agency’s work allows it to refocus on its core mission. But critics argue that Zeldin has undermined the agency’s statutory responsibility to help communities of color who have suffered disproportionate harm.
Though Zeldin officially shut it down, the EPA’s environmental justice work had been stymied by Louisiana’s legal challenge to the agency’s use of the so-called disparate-impact standard to investigate pollution in minority communities — most notably, a Black community called “Cancer Alley.”
In a statement, Zeldin said Trump “was elected with a mandate from the American people. Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.”
“Our goal at EPA is going to be to remediate these environmental issues directly,” Zeldin said at a press conference, according to CBS News. “We’re not going to discriminate. We’re not going to make people give us a thousand questions about their background in order to qualify for support. We want everyone to qualify for support.”
But race is usually a very good indicator of where disproportionately high levels of pollution — or an outsized risk of a climate-related weather disaster — might be found. Black neighborhoods in particular are far more vulnerable to extreme weather, having dangerously high exposure to toxic emissions, or both, than white communities
The EPA has taken it upon itself “to decide whether otherwise-lawful emissions are affecting the ‘right’ racial groups,” according to the lawsuit. “Put succinctly, EPA frequently does not care about the content of air and water emissions, but only the color of the skin of those proximate to them.”
TITLE: Trump’s EPA Suspends $19M North Richmond Environmental Justice Grant—Again
https://baynature.o/article/trumps-epa-suspends-19m-north-richmond-environmental-justice-grant-again/
EXCERPTS: Sometime since Friday, when Contra Costa County officials last checked on an anticipated grant for North Richmond, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had suspended the promised $19 million, marking the second time the grant has been put on hold since President Donald Trump tried to freeze federal grants in January. The suspension throws into question several community development projects to improve the environment, health and overall quality of life in North Richmond—including tree plantings, creek restoration, and a green jobs initiative.
“This is really about hurting the people and community of North Richmond,” Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia said. “That’s what this is.”
Presently, the database lists the county’s grant as “in progress,” with two years and 10 months remaining, and indicates that the grant started Feb. 1. But Gioia said last week the portal through which funds are disbursed indicates the grant had been suspended. And while the county had been able to withdraw $30,000 of grant money two weeks ago, it was unable to access additional funds last week.
The North Richmond Community Resilience Initiative is among 105 projects awarded EPA grants through the Inflation Reduction Act’s Community Change Grant Program. The funding was awarded late last year. These grants to local communities totaled nearly $1.6 billion and were said to be the largest investment in environmental and climate justice in history.
North Richmond is a small unincorporated community, entirely encircled by the City of Richmond, that was established as a “refuge” for Black shipyard workers and families during World War II, according to the county’s grant application. This low-income, majority-Hispanic community, situated along the Bay Area’s refinery corridor, has long faced “poor air quality, heightened health risks, and environmental degradation.” It is now also facing serious flood risks as the sea level rises. Under CalEnviroScreen, a state mapping tool for identifying communities most at risk from pollution, North Richmond scores in the 96th percentile.
The county has received no information about why the grant was suspended again, Gioia said. It was first suspended for a couple of weeks shortly after Trump took office and announced he was freezing all federal grants. It remained suspended even after two federal judges issued temporary injunctions to keep the money flowing. Around Feb. 21, Contra Costa County officials noticed that the North Richmond grant’s status had changed from suspended to “open.” Through all the changes, they said they had no communication with the EPA. Last week, county officials were optimistic when they were able to access the grant portal — the grant is set up to reimburse money spent upfront by the county. But within days, the portal closed again.
Two EPA employees were assigned to manage the grants, but Gioia said he heard that one was reassigned and the other was laid off. “As of right now, the county doesn’t have anyone to go to about this,” he said.
On the EPA website, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin boasts of the savings the agency has made by working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), noting it has cut more than 400 grants in the past few weeks. “Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin said in a news release last week. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”
“We put a lot of work into applying and getting this grant for the benefit of North Richmond residents,” Gioia said. “So I think it would be quite unfortunate to lose the ability to improve the life of North Richmond residents through this grant.”