13. Environmental Protection Agency · Major
Eliminate the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights
Printed page 421 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“Returning the environmental justice function to the AO, eliminating the stand-alone Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.”
Printed again later in the same chapter.
Printed page 442 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“OEJECR should be disbanded; OEJECR’s attorneys should be moved back into OGC; and nonlegal staff (for example, EJ Policy Advisers) should be moved back into the Administrator’s office as is customary.”
What has happened
- Done
EPA's FY2026 budget addendum on consolidations states it "has eliminated environmental justice offices in the headquarters and regions and removed the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as a national program manager", with external civil rights returning to the Office of Civil Rights inside the Administrator's office and regional EJ staff reassigned to Regional Administrators' offices. EPA's organization chart (updated 2026-01-08) no longer lists OEJECR. The Mandate's detail that attorneys return to OGC is not documented.
- Partially done
EPA's reorganization announcement recorded a reduction in force begun for about 280 EJ and DEI employees and the transfer of 175 others performing statutory work to other offices.
- Attempted
Administrator Zeldin announced EPA would terminate the agency's environmental-justice and DEI "arms".
- Attempted
EPA placed 171 employees on administrative leave — 160 in environmental-justice roles and 11 in DEIA — under the President's DEI orders; the office still existed.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The addendum PDF is undated beyond its September 2025 upload path; the done event is dated to the first of that month and flagged for the reviewer. The RIF’s effective date (reported elsewhere as 2025-07-31) was not found on an allowlisted page.
- Litigation over the EJ grant terminations (e.g. Justice Climate Fund v. EPA, D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00938; Inclusiv v. EPA, 1:25-cv-00948) concerns grants, not the office; not tracked here.
- Overlaps #1183 (redefine EJ / Title VI), which carries the policy side.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights
- ID
- 1043