The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is routing nearly $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds for awardees to pursue “environmental justice,” with an array of left-wing activist groups among the awardees.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is administering the funding, which will benefit 105 applicants around the country aiming “to advance local, on-the-ground projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity.” While some universities and municipal governments are among the EPA’s recipients, so too are left-wing activist groups that oppose capitalism, sponsor other organizations pushing for decarceration and seek to push so-called “diversity, equity and inclusion” in classrooms.
“On day one of his Administration, President Biden promised to target investments to communities that for too long have been shut out of federal funding,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said of the funding announced Thursday. “Today, thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, EPA is delivering on that promise. These selections will create jobs, improve public health, and uplift community efforts in all corners of this country, regardless of geography or background.”
One project receiving EPA cash will be assisted by the Ella Baker Center For Human Rights, an activist group in favor of defunding the police. That particular project will “engage up to 1,350 individuals in California prisons and reentry communities to learn about the unique environmental and climate justice challenges faced by these communities,” and will also establish a state advisory board that will produce recommendations as to how to improve these issues, according to the EPA.
Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit that provides sponsorship to up-and-coming left-wing activist groups, is the lead applicant on an awarded project that will seek to help residents of Los Angeles decarbonize buildings, according to the EPA. Some of the organizations benefiting from Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs’ sponsorship include Decarcerate KC — an organization seeking to “replace systems of incarceration and policing” in Kansas City — and Decarcerate Sacramento, which has similar goals for California’s capital city, according to Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs’ website.
Another awardee announced by the EPA on Thursday is the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance, which is partnering with the University of Memphis for its “Affecting Communities Through Educator Voices” project, according to the EPA. Their initiative will train teachers in the ways of engaging with the government on environmental issues, and teachers who go through their training program “will be poised to collaborate with government officials on local environmental issues.”
Notably, the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance, or TECA, has also advocated strongly for DEI in the classroom and the education system more broadly.
“There is a need for an organization like TECA to be a leader in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work with schools, districts, and the Department of Education in Tennessee to help increase the number of educators of color and inform equitable practices in schools across the state,” TECA’s December 2020 strategic plan states. “This component is also seen as a key revenue generating opportunity for TECA.”
El Puente — another EPA awardee announced Thursday — will use its EPA funds to “facilitate regular public workshops, seminars, focus groups, trainings, and education events” for Brooklynites to discuss various environmental issues, according to the EPA. Notably, El Puente claims that black and brown people are disenfranchised in the ultra-liberal Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick and Williamsburg, and El Puente therefore works to get people to vote in local and federal elections.
In Washington state, two activist groups — Front and Centered and Solid Ground — are receiving an EPA payout to train 15 “community leaders” annually to “engage in governmental processes” relating to things like land use, transportation and energy policy, according to the agency. Front and Centered supports a so-called “just transition” away from capitalism supposedly rooted in “patriarchy” and “white supremacy” and toward a “regenerative” economy that limits resource use and prioritizes the elimination of inequalities, according to a September 2020 report the organization published.
Solid Ground, meanwhile, runs its own anti-racism programming and workshops in order to “identify conditions that lead to inequities and work to undo them,” according to its website.
The EPA’s $1.6 billion “environmental justice” blowout follows the agency’s Wednesday announcement that it is moving to spend $735 million in taxpayer funds to facilitate the adoption of zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicles around the country. Other Biden administration agencies are also reportedly hustling to get as much cash out the door as possible in advance of the incoming Trump administration’s arrival in Washington, D.C.
The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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