On March 1, 2025, EPA terminated the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) according to the General Service Administration’s federal advisory committee website. The NEJAC entry states that the committee was terminated consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order 14217, “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”
Background
Among the NEJAC’s many contributions to EPA policy making are 67 formal reports of recommendations and letters of advice, including a 1996 Brownfields report which created the national Brownfields conference and a 2005 Recommendation on disaster response that informed the agency’s ability to respond to the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. Under the Biden Administration, the NEJAC issued many significant recommendations including reports on cumulative impacts, farmworkers and pesticides, water infrastructure, and PFAS. Since the NEJAC’s formation in 1993, the General Services Administration estimated that EPA implemented over one-third of the NEJAC’s recommendations.
According to the General Services Administration,
“The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) was established by EPA on September 30, 1993, to provide independent advice to the EPA Administrator on broad, cross-cutting issues related to environmental justice. Over the course of its history, NEJAC has provided a crucial forum for the discussion and elevation of issues critical to the environmental justice movement and the integration and consideration of environmental justice within the work of EPA and the larger Federal family. NEJAC’s influence has spanned the environmental justice spectrum from foundational issues of meaningful involvement and land use to future direction on science and fundamental policy issues related to regulations and rules. NEJAC has convened meetings on all three coasts and many points in between. Its members have ranged from leaders of business and industry to leaders of tribal governments, citizen advocates, world-renowned scholars and, most importantly, residents of communities facing their own environmental justice challenges. The products and presence of this body have made an undeniable impact upon the Agency it serves, and an impact which continues to generate progress on environmental justice through its past advice and current endeavors.
It has also served as a place of convening for the many citizens, advocates and supporters of environmental justice throughout the United States. Though perhaps easily overlooked, this is one of the most important aspects of NEJAC – as a consistent space where officials from EPA and other Federal agencies can convene with a broad spectrum of those working to support environmental justice not only to hear advice and recommendations, but to come together as individuals in a spirit of friendship, collaboration and mutual respect. The ability to come together has always been a hallmark of the strength of environmental justice as a movement, and similarly grounds and supports EPA’s continuing efforts to further environmental justice within and throughout the federal family.
In the 30 years since its creation, the NEJAC, through its deliberations, has brought to EPA decision making an outside perspective from diverse stakeholders that EPA managers and staff otherwise would not have access to. It has helped bring together a group of diverse stakeholders and the Agency in constructive ways to address environmental justice issues. In addition, the NEJAC has played a significant role in educating and sensitizing EPA managers and staff about Environmental Justice. NEJAC recommendations have called for a collaborative problem-solving approach to address environmental justice issues and have enabled EPA program and regional offices to become more aware of, and better informed about, community concerns to devise proactive approaches to addressing these concerns. NEJAC recommendations have played a role in the creation of EPA’s CARE Program, the Diesel Retrofit Program, various environmental justice grant programs, the multi-agency Brownfields and Superfund Job Training Initiatives, and other EPA Initiatives. The NEJAC also has helped to sensitize EPA to the needs of Tribal government and Indigenous communities, farmworkers, and improved NEPA training.”