Environmental Advocates and Members of Congress Raise Alarm Over Trump Attacks on EPA

Moves to gut workforce, freeze funding, and eliminate environmental justice office will harm public health, communities, and families, advocates warn.

Sen. Ed Markey speaks during a press conference outside EPA headquarters on February 6, 2025. Credit: Screen shot from event live-stream

A few months ago, One Earth Now ran a piece headlined “Will the Environmental Protection Agency Be Gutted Under Trump?” Now, two and a half weeks into the new Trump administration, it appears the answer may be yes.

EPA, like other federal government agencies, is facing an unprecedented and, critics say, unconstitutional assault by Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) team led by billionaire Elon Musk. Federal funds authorized by Congress remain frozen despite court orders requiring such funds, including for clean energy and environmental projects under the Inflation Reduction Act, be disbursed. Agency staffers are being threatened into resigning, and those who stay are fearful they will be fired or retaliated against just for doing their job. Parts of EPA are already being dismantled, like the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.

Environmental advocates and several Democratic members of Congress gathered outside EPA headquarters in Washington on Thursday in response, warning about the detrimental impacts these moves will have on public health and on our families, communities, and children.

“This is not okay,” Stephanie Reese with Mom’s Clean Air Force said at the afternoon press conference organized by Climate Action Campaign, a coalition of advocacy groups. “Critical public health and environmental protections will be diminished. Our ability to track and measure environmental hazards will be severely compromised. Essential resources will be stripped from initiatives that combat pollution, improve public health, and build climate resilience.”

Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, as well as other advocates, sharply rebuked the sudden shuttering of EPA’s environmental justice office, which was initially created in 1992 under the George H.W. Bush administration. “This is an assault on our health, on our environment, and on our future,” Alt said.

“Shuttering the environmental justice office will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past,” Matthew Tejada, senior vice president for environmental health at Natural Resources Defense Council and former director of EPA’s EJ office, said in a statement.

During the press conference, Tejada explained the importance of the office he headed for 11 years.

“There are communities in this country that do not have clean air. There are communities in this country that cannot turn on a tap and get drinking water. There are communities in this country, when they flush the toilet, it runs out into the stream where their children play in,” he said. “The job of the environmental justice program is to extend the mission of this agency to those communities.”

But it is not only environmental justice communities that are left worse off and more vulnerable by the attacks on EPA. It is all Americans, with threats to our health from more pollution and from the ongoing climate crisis, advocates say.

“When science is sidelined, people are harmed,” said Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The administration is trying to paper over the facts. But we know that you cannot erase reality with a piece of paper. President Trump cannot use the stroke of a pen to erase climate impacts that threaten communities across the country.”

“My children, like all of your children, are growing up with the existential threat of climate and the crisis that we are failing to mitigate. Gutting the EPA is an effort to undermine the bedrock environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. These laws protect against pollution that causes asthma and cancer and COPD,” Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, a physician who represents Oregon’s 3^rd District, said.

Dexter and other Democratic members of Congress vowed they would stand against what they say is an unprecedented assault on EPA.

“Today we’re making it clear that we will not tolerate these attacks on EPA,” New York Congressman Paul Tonko said.

“We’re facing unprecedented attacks. They need to be met with unprecedented response on the streets of our country,” said Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. He told reporters that he tried to go inside the EPA building and requested to meet with DOGE representatives but was denied this request.

“Thousands of EPA projects worth tens of billions of dollars have been illegally shut down, shut off, and shut out of funding in red and blue states alike,” Markey said at Thursday’s gathering outside EPA headquarters. “Who is going to test water quality? Who is going to keep our air clean? Who is going to hold polluters accountable?”

“We have to protect our families,” Markey added. “We have to protect our livable future.”