Leading environmental justice advocate steps down

The White House’s top official on environmental justice is stepping down a year after President Biden took office with an ambitious plan to help disadvantaged communities and overhaul policies that have historically hurt them.

The departure Friday of Cecilia Martinez, senior director for environmental justice at the Council for Environmental Quality, puts a spotlight on both the administration’s successes and promises yet to be fulfilled.

“It was a hard decision,” Martinez told the Associated Press in an interview this week. She said that after many months of working on Biden’s environmental policy, she needed time to rest and be with her family.

Colleagues at the White House and in Congress say her departure is a loss as she played a pivotal role in centering disadvantaged communities in Biden’s environmental and climate policies.

“Her credibility in terms of environmental issues — in particular environmental justice issues — is going to be missed,” Rep. Raul Grijalva said.

Martinez helped develop then-candidate Joe Biden’s environmental justice agenda while he was campaigning by setting up meetings between Biden’s team and key environmental justice leaders from around the country. She went on to oversee a review of the Council on Environmental Quality as part of Biden’s transition team and was eventually appointed as the top ranking official on environmental justice in the administration.

Through executive orders and legislation, the administration has tried to direct resources toward disadvantaged communities, develop tools to monitor climate and economic justice and pass regulations to clean up the environment.

Some of that was accomplished. The White

House’s Justice40 initiative mandated that 40% of benefits from federal investments in sustainable and green infrastructure, such as clean energy, pollution cleanup and water improvements, go to disadvantaged communities.

The administration also created a mapping tool that will help identify communities most in need of such investments.

And the Biden administration has restored dozens of environmental regulations rolled back during the Trump administration, including rules that limit the amount of toxic waste coming from coal plants, require extensive environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects, and protect endangered wildlife.

But environmental justice leaders around the country expressed disappointment and frustration at what they call a lack of progress and failure to protect communities most vulnerable to climate change, most exposed to pollution and that have the least access to environmental benefits such as clean water.

“I would say that overall there was some progress made in advancing environmental justice priorities more through executive actions than legislation,” said Juan Jhong-Chung, climate justice director at the nonprofit Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition.

“But our communities are still waiting for the results on the ground.”

Some money from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill will be spent on projects like cleaning up toxic waste sites.

But a lot more investment that would have gone toward environmental and climate justice initiatives in frontline communities likely will not be part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill. Moderate Democrats have demanded cuts and it’s unclear what, if any, part of the bill may eventually pass.