New Environmental Justice Office to Focus on Harm to Low-Income Communities

Illustration by Giorgio Tadieski via Flickr

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a new office at the Justice Department that will focus exclusively on environmental justice.

The office will prioritize low-income communities that have been hit hard by pollution and contamination, reports NBC News.

The Biden administration has asked Congress for $1.4 million for the office, which will be headed by Cynthia Ferguson, a Justice Department veteran from the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

“Although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution and climate change,” said Garland in a statement released Thursday, 

“For far too long, these communities have faced barriers to accessing the justice they deserve. The Office of Environmental Justice will serve as the central hub for our efforts to advance our comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy. We will prioritize the cases that will have the greatest impact on the communities most overburdened by environmental harm.”

Joined by EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, Garland also announced a new comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy to guide the Justice Department’s work and issued an Interim Final Rule that will restore the use of supplemental environmental projects in appropriate circumstances.

“EPA and the Justice Department’s partnership to protect overburdened and underserved communities across America has never been stronger,” said EPA Administrator Regan.

“This environmental justice enforcement strategy epitomizes the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to holding polluters accountable as a means to deliver on our environmental justice priorities. Critical to that is the return of Supplemental Environmental Projects as a tool to secure tangible public health benefits for communities harmed by environmental violations.”

Consistent with President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta issued a comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy.