Air Alliance Houston not too long ago joined a coalition of nonprofits, Tribes, and native governments in suing the Trump administration for unlawfully terminating the Environmental Safety Company’s (EPA) Environmental and Local weather Justice (ECJ) Grant applications regardless of a congressional directive to fund them.
The plaintiffs come from each area of the nation and will likely be looking for class motion certification so that every one 350 grant recipients who’ve been harmed by the wholesale termination of the EPA program might proceed their initiatives.
“Now we have been instructed by the Trump Administration that clear air is a precedence for all People,” mentioned Air Alliance Houston Govt Director Jennifer M. Hadayia, MPA. “The unlawful cancellation of those clear air grants will do the precise reverse. Right here in Houston, one of the crucial polluted cities within the nation, our grant would have helped individuals who dwell day-to-day with air air pollution to have a significant say within the environmental choices that have an effect on their lives.
“Now, communities like ours won’t obtain the important help wanted to make change, help that we legally and contractually acquired.”
This is a matter that particularly impacts Black folks in Houston as a result of the Bayou Metropolis has been floor zero for environmental racism and the outsized polluting of Black and Brown neighborhoods for generations. Dr. Robert Bullard, world-renowned for his work within the environmental justice area, began his marketing campaign combating for cleaner Black and Brown communities proper right here in Houston in 1979.
Bullard began researching and documenting environmental injustices after his spouse, Linda McKeever Bullard, requested him to assist with a lawsuit regarding a landfill in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The case, often called Bean v. Southwestern Waste Administration, Inc., was the primary of its type to cost environmental discrimination primarily based on civil rights legal guidelines.
That landmark lawsuit centered on environmental injustices befalling Northwood Manor, positioned in East Houston. However there are a number of predominantly Black and Brown Houston-area neighborhoods that rank as the best polluted within the metropolis and the southwest area.
Two of these communities specifically, impacted by the Trump administration’s transfer to defund nationwide EPA applications, are the Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens. The Fifth Ward alone is residence to 6 most cancers clusters, allegedly attributable to the Union Pacific Railroad.
“It’s a whole lot of air pollution happening,” mentioned Marcus Glenn, program developer of the Black United Fund Houston (BUFTX). “We’re searching for methods to assist cut back bronchial asthma and totally different continual sicknesses which are tied to those environmental points in a holistic means.”
BUFTX, with a $200K EPA grant, partnered with the Houston Well being Division, HCC-Northeast’s International Heart for Vitality Excellence, The Inexperienced Thumb Academy and South Union CDC to supply free photo voltaic coaching to neighborhood members. Desire was given to residents of the Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens and Denver Harbor. The initiative wouldn’t solely assist cut back air pollution but additionally present coaching and certifications for employment.
That funding, nevertheless, was taken again with the Trump administration’s termination of EPA applications.
Hadayia mentioned Air Alliance Houston joined this go well with as a result of the group believes everybody has the proper to breathe clear air and that having the sources to do that vital work on behalf of communities is value combating for.
The EPA grants supported community-based initiatives that embrace enhancing pure catastrophe preparedness, increasing workforce growth alternatives, enhancing and monitoring air high quality, mitigating stormwater and flood harm, combating excessive power prices and enhancing neighborhood members’ potential to take part in decision-making and allowing processes that affect their well being and setting.
Earthjustice, Southern Environmental Regulation Heart, Public Rights Mission and Attorneys for Good Authorities filed the problem on behalf of ECJ grant recipients to hunt the nationwide restoration of this system and to require the administration to reinstate awarded grant agreements.
The Environmental and Local weather Justice Program was created by the Inflation Discount Act (IRA) beneath Clear Air Act (CAA) Part 138 to award $3 billion in grants to community-based non-profits, Tribes, native governments and better training establishments in each state to sort out the local weather disaster and environmental harms on the native stage.
The grant-funded initiatives in rural, small city and concrete communities throughout the nation embrace air high quality monitoring, neighborhood air pollution notification techniques, tree planting in city warmth zones, lead pipes alternative in neighborhood ingesting water techniques, resilience initiatives to strengthen communities in opposition to extra frequent and intensifying excessive climate occasions and extra.
“Unlawfully ending this program threatens the flexibility of native governments to guard their folks and the setting,” mentioned Jon Miller, chief program officer, Public Rights Mission. “This case isn’t nearly restoring grant funding in a handful of locations — it’s about restoring important providers and initiatives in areas of the nation with the best want. We’re combating alongside our companions to proper the wrongs of the previous and chart a more healthy path ahead for hundreds of organizations, Tribes and communities.”
SELC Litigation Director Kym Meyer concurred.
“Environmental justice grants have been created to handle the actual hurt to public well being in communities of shade and low-wealth communities,” mentioned Meyer. “Nobody voted for community-based organizations to get the rug pulled out from beneath them. This administration is utilizing political rhetoric as an excuse to unlawfully take away cash that Congress appropriated for these initiatives. This lawsuit will show that in court docket.”
