Remarks for the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights Launch, As Prepared for Delivery
Michael Regan
Warren County, North Carolina
Good afternoon, everyone.
It’s a beautiful day to be in North Carolina. Thank you, all, for joining us.
What an honor to be in the presence of so many giants of the environmental justice and civil rights movements – especially as we conclude a weeklong commemoration of the birth of the environmental justice movement, whose roots are firmly planted right here in Warren County, North Carolina.
As a proud son of North Carolina, born and raised, I was just a child when the state decided to site a PCB landfill in the backyard of a predominantly Black community. But I remember my parents discussing the heroism of the women and men who locked arms and laid down brazenly in front of trucks carrying dirt laced with PCBs.
Women and men like Dollie Burwell and Ben Chavis, Rev. Bill Kearney and EPA’s very own Charles Lee who joined protestors in solidarity.
A Washington Post story at the time quoted Reverend Luther Brown, a pastor of the largest Black congregation in the area. He said, “We know why they picked us… it's because it's a poor county – poor politically, poor in health, poor in education and because it's mostly Black. Nobody thought people like us would make a fuss."
But, boy, did they stir a hornet’s nest… because what this community lacked in political power, they made up for in courage. What they lacked in access to education, they made up for in heart. What they lacked in terms of the money in their pockets, they made up for in faith and hope and perseverance.
So, not only did they make a fuss – they ignited an entire movement.
Today, Warren County is synonymous with being the birthplace of environmental justice. Those protests 40 years ago were not only a catalyst for the environmental justice movement as we know it, but for a real awakening in the consciousness of communities that had been underserved and overburdened for years.
It demonstrated the transformative potential that exists when people peacefully mobilize and come together in common pursuit.
As Ms. Dollie Burwell put it, “African Americans determined that henceforth and forever more we will have some say in the government that was controlling our destiny."
So, despite losing that initial battle, these visionary women and men sparked something so much bigger… so much more powerful. And that’s what we’re here today to honor and to uplift.
The reason we’ve reached this moment – this moment when environmental justice is front and center to President Biden’s agenda and to EPA’s agenda – is because of the unrelenting advocacy of so many with us here today.
It’s because of faith leaders and civil rights leaders, the labor community and environmental justice community… folks like Vernice Miller-Travis and Dr. Bullard, Reverend Barber and Dr. Wright, Juan and Ana Parras and young leaders like La’Meshia Whittington who are carrying this sacred mission forward.
These are people who’ve dedicated their lives to standing up and speaking out against racism and injustice and inequality – and they are, finally, being heard at the highest levels in the land.
On day one of his Administration, President Biden directed every member of his cabinet to embed environmental justice and racial equity into our decision-making.
And EPA is at the heart of that mission.
As Administrator, I’ve had the privilege to travel across this country and see firsthand the injustices communities of color and low-income communities continue to endure.
Last November, we launched our “Journey to Justice” tour. I spent time in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, meeting with communities on their front porches, in their churches, and in their schools.
The conditions I saw were deeply troubling. I’m talking about children going to school right next door to chemical plants, elementary school students using porta potties because of failing water infrastructure, and generations of families living in the shadows of petrochemical facilities.
In my time as Administrator, I’ve met mothers whose children have been poisoned by lead in the water they drink, elders – our Grandparents – who must bathe in bottled water, families watching as the flood waters continue to rise.
Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of this systemic injustice is Lowndes County, Alabama.
Lowndes, which sits right in the middle of Highway 80 between Selma and Montgomery, was a wellspring for the civil rights movement – the Black Panther Party was founded there.
Lowndes County came to be known as “Bloody Lowndes,” because when organizers and protesters attempted to register Black people to vote, they were beaten, battered, and evicted from their homes.
I visited Lowndes, so that I could see up close the injustices that folks have been living with for decades – pipes protruding from the side of their homes, spilling waste into the same places where their children play.
I’ll never forget the two beautiful little children I met… their toys scattered around a lagoon filled with waste. It was as if these children were conditioned to accept that this is just the way things are.
But they shouldn't be, not for the children of Lowndes County, not for the children of Jackson, Mississippi, and not for anyone.
From Lowndes County, Alabama, to Warren County, North Carolina, these communities show us that the fight for civil rights is inseparable from the fight for environmental justice… for health justice… for racial justice… for economic justice.
We cannot be for one without the other.
President Biden and Vice President Harris… they understand this viscerally. The President and Vice President see everybody for who they are and who they can be when they’re given the opportunity and resources to soar.
From Justice40 to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to the historic Inflation Reduction Act, we are finally ensuring that the communities who’ve long borne the burden of pollution see and breathe and feel the benefits of the federal government’s investments.
It’s about changing how our government works and who it works for… something so many of you here today have dedicated your lives to realizing.
If we’re going to change how the system works, we need to change the structure of the system.
So, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
I couldn’t be prouder or more excited to announce today that EPA is creating a new national office charged with advancing environmental justice and civil rights.
We are elevating environmental justice and external civil rights to the highest levels of EPA, placing this critical work on equal structural footing with the Office of Air, Office of Water, and EPA’s other national program offices.
The new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights will dedicate more than 200 EPA staff and billions of dollars in resources toward solving environmental challenges in communities that have been underserved for far too long.
It will improve the agency’s ability to infuse equity, civil rights, and environmental justice into all aspects of our work – from regulatory, to enforcement, to policy decisions.
It will ensure the vigorous enforcement of civil rights law that, together, prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, as well as sex, disability, or age.
And it will memorialize the agency’s commitment to delivering justice and equity for all, ensuring that no matter who sits in the Oval Office or who heads the EPA, this work will continue to be front and center in everything we do.
When I first stepped into this role, I made a pledge to every person in this country who’s ever had to worry about the safety of the water they drink or air they breathe.
I pledged to them that everything we do – everything I do – at the EPA will be rooted in the realities and demands and aspirations of communities like Warren County, North Carolina; Mossville, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi, and too many others for whom the future hasn’t always felt certain.
We will use our time here, and our own capacity to make change, in pursuit of a more just nation where all our children can thrive.
We will live and breathe our mission to protect people’s health – and we will do so by ensuring that all people, no matter the color of their skin, the money in their pocket, or the community they live in, realize the full protections of our environmental laws.
We will ensure that a child from the South Side of Chicago is treated with the same level of dignity and respect and compassion as a child from a wealthy suburb.
My brothers and sisters, this is essential work. It’s the work I came to this Administration to do, and it’s the work that all of you have been demanding for generations.
Together, that is what we will do.