Champions for underserved communities see a chance to expand the Biden administration’s historic support as their ally, Vice President Kamala Harris, makes a run at the White House.
President Joe Biden and Harris have touted environmental justice as a top priority during their time in office, distributing billions of dollars to marginalized areas struggling with pollution as well as embedding new programs within the federal government to protect those places, often dominated by people of color and low-income families, meant to outlast their administration.
Now with Harris leading the ticket, advocates hope to double down in a second term on those efforts, which are under threat from the return of former President Donald Trump.
“I think she can play that role in moving climate justice, energy justice and environmental justice, in terms of that global leadership in this area,” said Robert Bullard, considered “the father of environmental justice.”
Bullard said he would like to see Harris continue and broaden Biden’s legacy, boosting youth outreach with the American Climate Corps as well as be a voice on the world stage for those who could be left behind during the clean energy transition.
“It’s important that she will build out and expand that interconnectivity” and “to build out resources that can make our country more resilient,” said Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University.
Harris began showcasing her environmental track record as she launched her campaign this week.
“As district attorney, to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our nation,” Harris told her campaign staff Monday. She compared that to Trump, who has asked oil and gas industry officials for $1 billion in campaign contributions.
Republican critics have attacked that history and its ties to racial politics. Trump, who pulled back environmental protections in his first term, has pledged to go on a deregulatory spree if he is elected again to the White House.
Environmental justice advocates warned that would be catastrophic for the Black and Brown neighborhoods sitting on the fence line of industrial sites.
“You don’t have to play 20 questions. We know what they’re going to do,” said Vernice Miller-Travis, a longtime environmental justice activist. “They’re going to eliminate all civil rights programs, all civil rights enforcement, all things that are targeted at communities of color and tribal communities. That’s who they are.”
Asked about Trump’s plans for environmental justice if he is elected president again, his campaign said the former president produced reliable energy and stable jobs as the United States’ carbon emissions dropped during his last administration.
“Kamala Harris’ radical energy policies such as her EV mandate and the Green New Scam will hurt American workers, help China, and do virtually nothing to help the environment,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in a statement.
Harris campaign press officials didn’t respond to questions for this story.
Environmental justice through a prosecutor’s lens
After serving as San Francisco district attorney, Harris was elected as California attorney general in 2010, where she kept a focus on environmental justice.
Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said she thought Harris was “a progressive prosecutor.”
“She looked for opportunities to prosecute cases that were having a disproportionate impact on people of color, whether it was for civil rights violations or for environmental crimes,” Williams said.
Harris, as state attorney general, took on high-profile cases against big polluters and launched an investigation of Exxon Mobil for being allegedly misleading about the dangers of climate change.
“That was pretty bold back then,” Williams said.
“Vice President Harris knows the environmental justice issues facing California,” said Susana De Anda, co-founder and executive director of the Community Water Center, pointing to Harris bringing national attention to the drinking water crisis for Latino farmworkers. “She understands the importance of community involvement to create solutions together to solve our most pressing issues.”
Harris ran for Senate in 2016 and won. She sponsored legislation centered on environmental justice during her time there, including signing onto the Green New Deal.
But Harris offered her own bills, too, such as the “Clean School Bus Act,” which would have replaced school buses with electric models; the “Water Justice Act,” designed to reduce lead and other drinking water contaminants; the “Environmental Justice For All Act,” which would have stood up a variety of programs to address disproportionate impacts on communities of color and low income; and the “Climate Equity Act,” calling on budget offices in Congress and the White House to consider environmental justice for legislation and regulations, respectively.
None of those bills passed, but similar programs have popped up in the Biden administration.
Under the infrastructure law, EPA has $15 billion to replace lead pipes to improve drinking water as well as $5 billion to provide electric school buses. In addition, the administration has set up the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and issued executive orders requiring agencies to consider environmental justice.
Activists appreciated that Harris has been the public face of many of those efforts.
“When you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, which put money on the table for partnerships that would implement many of the things that were in that [“Environmental Justice for All”] legislation, I think she really gave us a foundation and a blueprint to work from,” said Robin Morris Collin, who served as the environmental justice senior adviser to the EPA administrator during the Biden administration.
Collin added, “And to the extent we hit the ground running, it was because of a lot of the work she had already brought in.”
In addition, Harris, as vice president, cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the climate law, which provided $369 billion in clean energy and environmental justice funding.
What remains for Harris
The Biden administration has left some of its environmental justice goals unfinished.
EPA set up a new national program, the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, in 2022. Slated with staff and resources, the office still does not have a Senate-confirmed leader. Biden has not nominated someone for that assistant administrator role.
“I promise you that if she was elected, that that will get addressed in the first few months of that administration,” said Miller-Travis, an executive vice president at Metropolitan Group, a social change agency. “I’m absolutely positive that they will bring forth a nominee.”
Supporters will also want to see the Justice40 Initiative continue, which ensures federal relief arrives in disadvantaged communities. Money continues to flow out under that effort, including $325 million in grants EPA announced Thursday to slash pollution and strengthen climate resilience.
The Biden administration has struggled with civil rights cases related to environmental pollution. Red states have challenged those investigations, raising the issue of race and stalling their progress.
Advocates will want a more aggressive stance from Harris if she is elected president.
“She’s the hammer,” Miller-Travis said. “That’s what EJ constituencies have wanted forever: enforce the law, equitably enforce the law.”
The environmental justice advocacy community would face a much different scenario under a second Trump administration.
Trump’s conservative allies have proposed Project 2025, a plan for the next Republican president, which promises to eliminate EPA’s environmental justice and civil rights office and launch a comprehensive review that could block grants.
If Trump was reelected, Collin said environmental justice work would go underground. “People of goodwill will continue to do the work at the community level,” she said.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Biden White House welcomed advocates for its first environmental justice summit. Jalonne White-Newsome, the first federal chief environmental justice officer, opened the event.
“I am so grateful to be in this role to help our president and our vice president execute the most ambitious environmental justice agenda ever,” White-Newsome said. “We cannot take that for granted or take it lightly.”
