EPA’s New Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights: A Moment in History

October 6, 2022

Addressing a gathering on the lawn of the Warren County, North Carolina courthouse, Dollie Burwell, often described as the mother of the Environmental Justice Movement, quoted Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I thought about bending that arc as I sat among the crowd and watched Administrator Regan sign the document officially creating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights signifying a clear turning point in the environmental justice movement.  

I’ve spent my career representing communities that have had to deal with all the challenges that come with housing the country’s pollution in their own backyards. I came to EPA wanting to help the Biden Administration follow through on the commitment to addressing environmental inequality. As I chatted with colleagues, community members, and inspiring environmental justice advocates, I knew that what made this moment different than past milestones was the deep-seated commitment of this Administration and the unprecedented resources backing this new program office.

What will the new EJCR Office Do?

EPA’s new Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights office will have 200 people working across the agency to advance environmental justice and external civil rights.  This is more than triple the existing staff that support efforts like processing grant applications from communities with environmental justice concerns, reaching out to residents to understand their concerns, and enforcing civil rights. The new EJECR office will bring together the former Office of Environmental Justice, External Civil Rights Compliance Office, and Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center and allow them to work alongside each other to protect public health and the environment for all communities. Below are just a few of the actions that will come from the new offices within OEJECR:

• Community Support: Matching grant funds to the communities that need it most, including more than $50 million in grant funding during fiscal year 2022, and providing technical assistance to communities in need.
• Policy, Partnerships and Program Development: Ensuring consideration of equity, environmental justice and civil rights in EPA policies and programs in order to – in the words of the Administrator, “bake environmental justice and civil rights into the DNA of the Agency.”
• External Civil Rights Compliance: Ensuring compliance and enforcement of federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination by applicants for and recipients of federal financial assistance from EPA; and
• Conflict Prevention and Resolution: Bringing people together to find common ground on environmental issues by providing services and expertise in alternative dispute resolution.

Justice 40 and the Inflation Reduction Act

In addition to more staff, this new program office will ensure federal funding makes it to communities that have been left out for far too long. OEJECR will help fulfill the commitments of Justice 40 by ensuring that 40 percent of benefits of large categories of investments go to communities that have been underserved and environmentally overburden. The Inflation Reduction Act granted the EPA billions of dollars to tackle the climate crisis, including $2.7 billion - that’s billion, not million – dedicated to environmental justice.  

Accountability

We have a historic opportunity not only to improve infrastructure and pay for needed projects but to fulfill the promise of equal protection. Tackling disparities on the basis of race and national origin in the environmental sector is an unfinished promise of the civil rights and environmental justice movements. Our work must translate into change on the ground, and we know that we can depend on activists like those protesting forty years ago to make sure we fulfill our commitments to them. Ultimately, we must keep bending that arc ever closer to justice.

Celebrating our Future

About the Author

Marianne Engelman-Lado
Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator
Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights

Marianne Engelman-Lado joined the Environmental Protection Agency as Deputy General Counsel of Environmental Initiatives, where she focuses on implementing the Administration’s commitment to equity, environmental justice, and civil rights enforcement, and carrying out the agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment. She previously directed an Environmental Justice Clinic at Vermont Law School and served as Lecturer at both the Yale University School of Public Health and the Yale School of the Environment. Before clinical teaching, she served as senior staff attorney at Earthjustice and as General Counsel at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), a non-profit civil rights law firm. She began her legal career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). She recently served as co-chair of the Equity and Environmental Justice Working Group of Connecticut’s Governor’s Council on Climate Change. Marianne has lectured widely and taught graduate, law and undergraduate level courses. She holds a B.A. in government from Cornell University, a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University. Her most recent writing has focused on civil rights enforcement in the environmental justice context.