(HorizonPost.com) – The White House has been bragging about its “whole-of-government” approach to what it calls “environmental justice,” and the GOP is pushing back.
Texas Republican state Rep. August Pfluger is heading a Republican effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to turn their attention to “environmental justice.”
Precisely what this term means has never been defined by the White House. But its “fact sheets” make it clear that the Biden Administration believes that nearly every environmental issue should be viewed primarily through a lens of how it allegedly affects black people and “overburdened communities.”
Pfluger says the executive order is just a way to permanently engrain “environmental justice” as a philosophy into the federal government and he offered a bill May 12 to overturn that order.
Instead of concentrating on actual crises, he said, Biden has focused on “environmental justice” and has no connection to the real problems ordinary Americans face.
Public perception of the administration’s focus on “woke” race issues has not been favorable. When a 50-car freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this year, it released a plume of toxic chemicals made worse by “clean up” efforts. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg waited weeks to acknowledge the disaster and visit the site.
An angry public reacted, pointing out that while the train crisis was unfolding, Buttigieg was on social media pushing the idea that the lack of black workers in “infrastructure” was a major problem for his department to solve.
If the White House’s definitions of specific terms are not clear, its philosophy is. That philosophy claims that “racism is a fundamental driver of environmental justice.” Biden’s order mandates that federal departments focus on “disproportionate” environmental effects on “minority” communities.
Agencies are required to do consultations with what the White House calls historically marginalized or excluded groups to ensure that the government is giving those groups “just treatment.”
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