WASHINGTON, D.C. —  Closing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights would undo decades of nonpartisan efforts to address centuries of decisions that neglected the lives and livelihoods of millions of people and wildlife living in frontline and fenceline communities. The National Wildlife Federation urged the EPA to rethink any plans to shutter the vital office and end decades of critical work that has spanned Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Decades of decisions around dangerous chemicals, toxic emissions, and pollution have created national sacrifice zones where people and wildlife are struggling to survive the immediate and long-term health impacts of environmental injustices. Closing the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights would be an immense setback for communities struggling to overcome generations of neglect, environmental racism, and economic inequality. This action does not, however, close the door on the urgent need to continue the community partnerships working to highlight and address environmental injustices and demand that we do better moving forward,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, executive vice president of the National Wildlife Federation and one of the founders of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. “The administration should heed the calls of leaders on both sides of the aisle and continue the nonpartisan, decades-long effort to help frontline and fenceline communities go from surviving to thriving.”