Climate science, policy, politics, and action
The purpose of these calls is to inform communities about EPA’s environmental justice work and enhance opportunities to maintain an open dialogue with environmental justice advocates. As environmental justice continues to be integrated into EPA programs and policies, the Agency hopes that these calls will help reaffirm EPA’s continued commitment to work with community groups and the public to strengthen local environmental and human health outcomes.
Registration: Due to limited space, participation in this call will be on a first come, first-served basis. Pre-registration is highly suggested, but not required. If registration has reached capacity, please see the links below for instructions on how to access the call if seating is available on the day of the meeting. If you are unable to join the call, a summary will be posted to the U.S. EPA Office of Environmental Justice’s website after.
Interpretation: If you need English-language interpretation assistance, or special accommodations for a disability or other assistance, you can submit a request when registering for the meeting. Please submit your request by September 23, to give EPA sufficient time to process.
For more information about the National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Calls, please visit the website or email: Victoria Robinson ([email protected]) or Christina Motilall ([email protected]).
JOIN THE ZoomGov Webinar
IMPORTANT: Due to limited seating, PLEASE enter the call using either your mobile device OR your computer, not both. Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://usepa.zoomgov.com/j/1606599212?pwd=L3lTTFpmRVVLNGVsbVFxUFlhWEUvZz09 Passcode: 11066564
On Wednesday, September 22, at 9:30 AM ET, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a business meeting to consider several of President Biden’s nominees, legislation to rename federal buildings, and several General Services Administration resolutions.
Immediately following the business meeting, the committee will hold a hearing on the importance of promoting a circular economy.
The hearing will be conducted via teleconference.
Text of the Science Committee Print and the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute by Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson.
The proposed $45.4 billion Science Committee ANS includes:
Department of Energy ($20.6 billion)
Environmental Protection Agency
FEMA
NASA ($4.4 billion)
NIST ($4.2 billion)
NOAA ($4.2 billion)
National Science Foundation ($10.95 billion)
Introduced amendments:
On Wednesday, August 4, at 10:00 AM ET, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing on three of President Biden’s nominees to key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Uhlmann, nominated to be the chief enforcement officer at EPA, served for 17 years as a federal prosecutor, including seven years as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice.
At the end of the 2020 election season, Uhlmann wrote of the urgency to enact sweeping climate legislation:
The United States may soon have the chance, for the first time in more than a decade, to enact urgently needed legislation to address global climate change—but only if Democrats don’t repeat the mistakes they made at the start of the Obama administration.
The top corporate-polluter law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth warned that Uhlmann’s nomination “is a very strong signal of how serious” the Biden administration’s intention to “increase environmental enforcement” is, and that “companies should prioritize review of environmental compliance and performance and remain vigilant.”
Waterhouse, a Howard University law school graduate and professor, is an “an international expert on environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and redress for historic injustices.” He served as an EPA lawyer from 1991 to 2000. If confirmed, he will oversee the Superfund and related programs.
On Wednesday, June 16, at 10:00 AM ET, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing on the following nominations:
Nominees:
Today, the White House announced the
members
of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory
Council
(WHEJAC). The advisory council will provide advice and recommendations
to the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (soon to be Brenda
Mallory) and the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council
on how to address current and historic environmental injustices.
The first meeting of the WHEJAC will be held virtually tomorrow, March 30, and will be open to the public.
The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) was established by President Biden’s executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Biden’s order also established the White House EJ Interagency Council as the successor to the Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group, which was established in 1994 by Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.
The Environmental Protection Agency will fund and provide administrative support for the WHEJAC.
The council will advise on how to increase the government’s efforts to address current and historic environmental injustice through strengthening environmental justice monitoring and enforcement. The duties of the WHEJAC are to provide advice and recommendations on issues including, but not limited, to environmental justice in the following areas:
The WHEJAC will complement the ongoing work of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a federal advisory committee established in 1993 to provide advice and recommendations on EJ issues to the Administrator of the EPA.
For updates, subscribe to the EPA-EJ listserv.
An email sent by EPA
associate administrator for the Office of Policy Samantha
Dravis,
a long-time Republican operative, outlines organizational structure
changes that put the Office of Environmental Justice and Office of
Federal Activities under her control.
Dravis previously ran EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt’s industry-funded, anti-regulatory dark-money group, the Rule of
Law Defense Fund, when he was Oklahoma Attorney General. She was also
legal counsel at the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce
dark-money group. Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 8:17 PM
To: OP-Everyone
Subject: Announcement
From: Kime, Robin On Behalf Of Dravis, Samantha
Dear Colleagues,
For the past several months I’ve had the pleasure of learning about the many ways the Office of Policy (OP) contributes to the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency. The analysis and support we provide for the agency’s most critical functions is of the utmost importance to me. As a cross-media and cross-agency office, I believe that the following changes to OP’s organization will enhance our ability to advance Administrator Pruitt’s priorities in line with EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ): In order to better serve overburdened communities, OEJ will join the Office of Policy. OEJ will work in partnership with the Office of Sustainable Communities, which will be renamed the Office of Community Revitalization. It is important to both Administrator Pruitt and myself that the most underserved and overburdened communities have a meaningful say in environmental protection and regulation. EPA has, and will continue to consider and incorporate environmental justice concerns into our regulatory process and this move enhances our ability to achieve this core function. It will also enable EPA’s EJ program to maximize its ability to support meaningful engagement and public participation across the agency and lead federal level coordination to consider overburdened community needs and the application of federal resources to meet those needs. Moving OEJ to OP allows OECA, where OEJ was previously located, to focus on its mission of enforcement and compliance assurance.
Office of Federal Activities (OFA): OFA will join the Office of Policy where it will continue to carry out its vital responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Also within OFA will be a Permitting Policy Division to build on the successful streamlining efforts in the NEPA program. Together, these organizations will focus on two of the Administration’s top priorities: expediting federal infrastructure projects and streamlining permitting processes. This move will reform the agency’s permitting and NEPA roles that will streamline the entire environmental review process and reduce subjectivity, providing our stakeholders with more clarity and certainty on their projects; ensure staff are able to quickly elevate high visibility issues to the Administrator for resolution; coordinate with the permitting AAs which will allow the agency to drive solutions to expedite the entire environmental review process, as directed by the President under Executive Order 13766, under one central office; and continue the progress that has already been made to strengthen the NEPA program and our partnerships with our sister federal agencies. OFA staff who work on hazardous waste transport issues will move to the Office of Land and Emergency Management, where complementary work resides.
Sectors Team: I have established a Sectors Team within the Office of Policy’s Immediate Office to work with staff across OP and the agency. The Sectors Team will develop strategies that better protect human health and the environment by engaging with partners at all levels to ensure the agency puts forth sensible regulations that encourage economic growth. This team will coordinate with stakeholders to better understand their needs and challenges so as to improve environmental performance and inform smarter and more predictable rulemaking. This work will build upon our experience with the Sector Strategies Program as well as our ongoing work in regulatory and permitting reform.
Operations Office: Over the course of the last year, the Operations Team in the OP Immediate Office started efforts to streamline and improve our administrative and operational activities. To further these efforts, I have established an Operations Office, through which we will consolidate our operations and administrative support functions, leading to increased efficiency and enhanced processes.
Office of Strategic Environmental Management: To fully staff OP’s priorities, including the new functions noted above, many OSEM staff will be reassigned to OFA, ORPM, NCEE, and other areas where additional staffing is critical to meeting OP’s core mission and the Administration’s goals. I appreciate the unique skills and leadership OSEM has brought to numerous cross-cutting EPA priorities over the years and believe that OP’s new organizational structure will allow us to better harness their talents. The team will concentrate on streamlining the agency’s operations, especially in programmatic areas such as permitting.
The new responsibilities outlined here are a testament to OP’s valued expertise and its many past successes. I am excited about the new opportunities for OP, and how we can help the agency achieve its mission of protecting human health and the environment more efficiently and effectively for the American people.
Samantha
Sen Joe Manchin grins as Donald Trump signs legislation rescinding the
Stream Protection Rule in February 2017.
Save EPA, a volunteer organization of former Environmental Policy Agency staffers, has released a guide for activists who wish to counter attempts by the Trump administration to roll back public protections issued by any federal agency. The guide is inspired by the Indivisible project, which began as a guide for activist engagement with Congress by former Hill staffers.
Trump has made systematic deregulation, a longtime priority of the Koch brothers and other corporate-right leaders, a top priority. A January executive order of questionable Constitutional legitimacy called for the elimination of two federal regulations whenever a new regulation is issued.
The first draft of “A Practical Guide For Resisting The Trump De-Regulatory Agenda” explains:
Fortunately, no president can roll back regulations by fiat. The Trump Administration must go through the same process that’s used for making regulations, and that process gives everyone the opportunity to participate. Regulated businesses are sure to participate, since they are directly affected and may save money if regulations are delayed, watered down or repealed. Public interest groups are likely to participate, too, but they can’t be expected to save regulations all on their own. As members of the public that the regulations are designed to protect, we need to be loud and clear that the regulations are important to us. We can’t afford to be silent while President Trump tries to take away our protections.
The guide includes a comprehensive guide to the public comment process, recommendations for how to draft effective comments, and additional tips for influencing regulatory decisions. The guide also recommends Columbia Law School’s Climate Deregulation Tracker.
The guide can be downloaded here.
An accompanying press release offers three recommended actions to take for one current and two upcoming comment periods:
Proposed 2-year stay and reconsideration of methane emissions standards for oil and gas sector – The public comment period is ongoing; comments must be received on or before 11:59 pm August 9. To comment, search for Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0505 on the federal eRulemaking portal. The proposal was signed June 16. EPA web link
Waters of the U.S. rule proposed rescission – A 30-day comment period will begin soon when the rule, signed June 27, 2017, is published in the Federal Register. To comment, search for Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0203, on the federal eRulemaking portal. EPA web link
Withdrawal of proposed Pebble Mine determination – EPA is proposing to withdraw a July 2014 Clean Water Act Section 404© Proposed Determination that would have imposed restrictions on the discharge of dredged or fill material from the potential “Pebble Mine” in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed. A 90-day comment period will begin soon when the withdrawal notice is published in the Federal Register. Comments can be emailed to [email protected] (reference docket number EPA-R10-OW-2017-0369 in the email subject line). EPA link