"Two former EPA staffers on what the closure of the agency’s environmental justice offices means for the country and the "irony" of Trump’s agenda."
"The first thing Amanda Cronin did when her supervisor offered her a job at the Environmental Protection Agency was buy herself a big piece of chocolate cake. The 25-year old New York native had spent nine months searching for work in environmental advocacy with little luck, until she stumbled upon a posting for a program analyst in the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, or OEJECR, based in Washington, D.C. When she joined in May 2023, the Biden Administration was in the midst of a historic push to advance environmental justice nationwide, and the office was buzzing with the energy of a start-up company.
“I just felt like I was part of something big and special,” Cronin recalled.
She quickly plunged into the world of environmental justice work, helping to coordinate the EPA’s partnerships with tribes and local advocacy groups, and organizing webinars to inform residents from Arizona to Alabama about federal grants they could apply for to fight the pollution in their backyards. Last November, when Donald Trump won the presidential election on a platform that promised to gut environmental regulation in the nation’s industrial corridors, Cronin knew her days in the agency could be numbered."
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