The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently informed local lawmakers that it revoked a $19.1 million federal grant intended for North Richmond’s Community Resilience Initiative due to the project’s connection with environmental justice and DEI initiatives.
The grant was intended to support a range of projects, including construction of a Community Resilience Center at the North Richmond Farm, and the planting of trees along the Verde Elementary schoolyard to shield students from pollution generated by a new distribution center.
In an Aug. 22 letter to Rep. John Garamendi’s office, the EPA said the North Richmond initiative “no longer supports Administration priorities.” The agency cited the Trump Administration’s termination of Biden-Harris DEI and environmental justice arms of the agency.
“It is a priority of EPA to eliminate discrimination in all of its programs throughout the United States,” the EPA letter states. “[EPA Administrator Lee M. Zeldin] has determined that, per the Agency’s obligations under the constitutional and statutory law of the United States, this priority includes ensuring that the Agency’s grants do not support programs or organizations that promote or take part in DEl initiatives, ‘environmental
justice’ initiatives, and conflict with the Agency’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and
excellence in performing our statutory functions.”
The EPA’s letter comes several months after local Congressmembers John Garamendi and Mark DeSaulnier protested the abrupt canceling of the $19.1 million grant. They say the EPA’s move violates federal law and the county’s grant agreement. They also say Contra Costa County never received a written termination notice explaining why the grant was canceled, which federal rules require.
The EPA’s response letter on Aug. 22 doesn’t address the congressmembers’ legal claims. The local lawmakers expressed frustration with the agency.
“The EPA has made it clear that they would rather jeopardize the health and safety of schoolchildren to appease Trump’s delusional MAGA crusade against a few words,” the office of Congressman John Garamendi stated today. “This petty action ignores the proven health benefits of reducing air pollution. The EPA’s reasoning, that this program was ‘discriminatory,’ is not only wrong, it’s nonsensical. Decision-making like this carries dangerous consequences for our youth.”
Garamendi’s office added that the project “was never discriminatory and was never about politics.”
“It was a hard-fought community grant designed to protect children from harmful air pollution,” it stated. “The EPA once stood for protecting people’s health and safety. Now, under this leadership, its only goal seems to be protecting one man’s ego.”
