From the Daily Caller
Adam Parker
Contributor
Environmental justice advisers in the Biden-Harris administration will receive or influence the distribution of nearly $500 million in grant funding from the agencies they advise.
The advisers are members of the 36-member White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a humble but influential White House agency created by executive order in January 2021 to advise federal agency heads Provide policy recommendations as part of President Joe Biden's “overall policy.” The vast majority of grants to environmental justice activist groups represented on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) are among the $41.5 billion awarded to the EPA under the Inflation Reduction Act, according to records examined by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Based on DCNF's review, the six environmental justice organizations represented in WHEJAC have received or are expected to receive more than $230 million in EPA grant funding. EPA also selected four organizations in WHEJAC as award partners to provide $200 million in grants under EPA's $600 million Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grants (EJTCG) program.
In December 2023, EPA designated the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University (TSU) (represented by Robert Bullard on WHEJAC) to receive a $50 million award under the agency's EJTCG program. In April, the EPA awarded an additional $156 million to TSU's Bullard Center to fund the development of community solar programs in “low-income and disadvantaged communities” as part of the IRA's $7 billion Solar for All initiative.
“This is a very clear conflict of interest, and no one will provide objective advice, or they will distort that advice to make themselves more competitive and obtain millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer benefits,” Guna said. Sekara told DCNF.
The EPA under Trump specifically filed a directive in October 2017 barring recipients of EPA grants from serving on the agency's advisory boards. The directive was rejected. (Related: Trump’s EPA to fire taxpayer-funded science advisers)
In October 2023, EPA announced small awards of $500,000 or less to several environmental justice organizations in WHEJAC, including Ironbound Community Corporation, Appalachian Voices, and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. In a statement to DCNF, the EPA confirmed that the three awards have been awarded to the designated recipients.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been courting WHEJAC since the Biden-Harris administration took office. (Related: Green New Deal coalition backs Kamala Harris after member organizations receive $50 million from her executives)
“We need your insight, your expertise and your lived experience. We need your ideas and your advice. Basically, we need you, period,” Vice President Kamala Harris in 2021 WHEJAC members were told at the first advisory committee meeting in March.
A few months later, WHEJAC introduced proposals against fossil fuel procurement, nuclear power, highway expansion, road improvements and research and development, in addition to many other left-wing proposals in the May 2021 document.
Several influential WHEJAC members lead organizations that have received or are about to receive significant funding in support of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
“The environmental justice community will stand firmly behind Kamala,” Beverly Wright, a WHEJAC member and founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ), told Politico in an article published on August 11.
Wright and Peggy Shepard, co-chairs of WHEJAC and executive director of We Environmental Justice Action, respectively, at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Environment and Climate Crisis Committee during the DNC convention in Chicago in August Made a speech.
“Her participation and remarks do not represent an endorsement of any candidate; rather, her views on the Biden administration's environmental record — both good and bad,” Chris Dobens, director of communications for WE ACT, said in a statement told DCNF.
Ahead of the DNC convention, Shepard co-signed a letter endorsing Harris' campaign and described the vice president as a “champion for environmental justice” in a statement.
WHEJAC has largely evaded congressional scrutiny from Republican lawmakers despite proposing a host of far-left environmental policies that conservative energy experts say are harmful to the wallets of low-income and minority communities.
“It might be more accurate to call them an anti-economic growth, anti-Black Progress Council,” Donna Jackson, director of membership development for Project 21’s Black Leadership Network, told DCNF. “The question is, when they push for all these radical regulations, when they fight against fossil fuels, who gets sacrificed? Which businesses close? The people who have the least capital — the minorities. Every recommendation is for Black people Regressive taxes on businesses and black homeowners.
“For the past three and a half years, they have been taking actions to make life more difficult in communities, particularly low-income minority communities, because of things like inflation and high costs of energy. “, Mandy Gunasekara, former chief of staff to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler, told DCNF.
Former President Donald Trump and his advisers have pledged to roll back the Biden-Harris administration's environmental agenda, including tough EPA rules on new electric vehicle sales and the electric power industry, if the administration wins in November. (RELATED: 'Gross overreach': Energy group urges Congress to jettison Biden-Harris administration's 'electric vehicle mandate')
Gunasekara confirmed to DCNF that the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and EPA's new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights may also be on the chopping block.
“We will abolish these new offices, which were created more as a marketing stunt and a process that wastes taxpayer dollars by funneling money to nonprofit organizations that have little to do with improving environmental justice communities, and instead It has more to do with ensuring Democrats stay in power.
“President Trump has advanced conservation and environmental stewardship while boosting economic growth for families across the country,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement to DCNF. President Trump’s American energy agenda provides consumers with affordable, reliable energy and provides small businesses with stable, high-paying jobs while reducing U.S. carbon emissions to their lowest levels in 25 years. Mara Harris’s radical energy policies, like her electric car mandate and the Green New Scam, will hurt American workers, help China, but do little for the environment.
The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, DSCEJ, TSU Bullard Center, Ironbound Communities, Inc., Appalachian Voices and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.
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