Just hours after assuming office for his second term on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump ended via executive order one of the most ambitious efforts to embed energy and environmental justice in federal policy, covering hundreds of federal programs across multiple agencies: the Justice40 Initiative. This action rescinded President Joseph Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which established the initiative in January 2021 and distributed more than $600 billion across 500 programs in 19 federal agencies.
The elimination of Justice40 and related environmental justice programs will lead to increased pollution exposure, reduced protections and hindered efforts to address health disparities and promote sustainable development in marginalized communities across the nation.
While coverage of Justice40 cuts have tended to focus on EPA programs and funding, journalists should shift their reporting to identifying all projects funded through this initiative, and highlighting the fallout from its termination. They can do so by contacting federal workers who currently work or once worked in the offices relevant to Justice40 decisions; by contacting policy scholars who work on environmental justice topics; and using the mapping tool detailed below.
More about the policy
This landmark federal policy had a quantitative and equity‑driven central goal: At least 40% of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate, clean energy, housing, water infrastructure, transportation and pollution cleanup must flow to disadvantaged communities — especially communities of color, low‑income neighborhoods, Indigenous communities, and areas heavily burdened by environmental pollution or climate vulnerability. This coordinated, whole-of-government effort was managed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Climate Policy Office, and the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council.
Environmental justice cuts
Inside Climate News has done monumental work tracking down environmental justice cuts within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that include Justice40 projects, publishing their analyses to the open data sharing network GitHub.
Justice40 has influenced a range of federal agencies, including not only the EPA, but also the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Department of Labor. Its impacts include expanded solar grants, clean air initiatives in schools, community energy planning, workforce development, and targeted pollution remediation — all aimed at closing historical gaps in investment and improving health and resilience in frontline communities
Justice40 coverage
Coverage of the loss of Justice40 happened amid a spate of reports about programs that ended when President Trump began his second term. Audiences had trouble keeping track of them all, and the implications remain poorly understood — leaving a knowledge gap that journalists can fill. The sweeping effects of this initiative are largely lost on American and international audiences.
Agencies identified eligible communities using the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST). Journalists can also use this tool to highlight the impacts of the loss of Justice40. The tool compiles data on environmental burdens across eight categories: climate change (such as heat burden or expected agricultural losses), energy cost and access, health (including outsized health burdens or health care access), housing issues (such as lead paint exposures, housing cost and affordability), legacy pollution (such as Superfund sites or hazardous waste facilities), transportation (accounting for traffic proximity and barriers to transit), water and wastewater, and workforce development (incorporating unemployment and educational attainment).
The map is impressively high resolution, with information on each census tract. Although this map is no longer updated, which can disrupt monitoring, some states have environmental justice mapping projects. A journalist can zoom in to their coverage area, and see which census tracts are highlighted as bearing outsized burdens of poverty and pollution, which would have qualified them for funding priority in a wide array of infrastructure and public health projects. By contacting local governments in these areas, journalists may find abruptly disrupted projects that have received little attention.
