Ellen Kohl, M. Sullivan, Mark Milton Chambers, Alissa Cordner, C. Sellers, Leif Fredrickson, J. Ohayon
{"title":"From ‘marginal to marginal’: environmental justice under the Trump administration","authors":"Ellen Kohl, M. Sullivan, Mark Milton Chambers, Alissa Cordner, C. Sellers, Leif Fredrickson, J. Ohayon","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2015548","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically been supported and enacted within the agency, with a focus on identifying impacts of the Trump administration on EPA’s EJ work. We find that while leadership support for EJ and emphasis across the agency have changed across presidential administrations, the EJ program has always held a marginal position in terms of allocation of resources and emphasis in regulatory decision-making. Starting from this position of long-term marginalization, EPA’s EJ program was further marginalized by the Trump administration. Though EPA employees expressed divided opinions as to how consequential the Trump administration’s actions were on enacting EJ internally, many thought that the administration’s emphasis on deregulation had significant health consequences in EJ communities. We argue that the impacts of the Trump administration, like those of future administrations, must be assessed within a historical context.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"242 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Sociology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2015548","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
ABSTRACT How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically been supported and enacted within the agency, with a focus on identifying impacts of the Trump administration on EPA’s EJ work. We find that while leadership support for EJ and emphasis across the agency have changed across presidential administrations, the EJ program has always held a marginal position in terms of allocation of resources and emphasis in regulatory decision-making. Starting from this position of long-term marginalization, EPA’s EJ program was further marginalized by the Trump administration. Though EPA employees expressed divided opinions as to how consequential the Trump administration’s actions were on enacting EJ internally, many thought that the administration’s emphasis on deregulation had significant health consequences in EJ communities. We argue that the impacts of the Trump administration, like those of future administrations, must be assessed within a historical context.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Sociology is dedicated to applying and advancing the sociological imagination in relation to a wide variety of environmental challenges, controversies and issues, at every level from the global to local, from ‘world culture’ to diverse local perspectives. As an international, peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Environmental Sociology aims to stretch the conceptual and theoretical boundaries of both environmental and mainstream sociology, to highlight the relevance of sociological research for environmental policy and management, to disseminate the results of sociological research, and to engage in productive dialogue and debate with other disciplines in the social, natural and ecological sciences. Contributions may utilize a variety of theoretical orientations including, but not restricted to: critical theory, cultural sociology, ecofeminism, ecological modernization, environmental justice, organizational sociology, political ecology, political economy, post-colonial studies, risk theory, social psychology, science and technology studies, globalization, world-systems analysis, and so on. Cross- and transdisciplinary contributions are welcome where they demonstrate a novel attempt to understand social-ecological relationships in a manner that engages with the core concerns of sociology in social relationships, institutions, practices and processes. All methodological approaches in the environmental social sciences – qualitative, quantitative, integrative, spatial, policy analysis, etc. – are welcomed. Environmental Sociology welcomes high-quality submissions from scholars around the world.