Environmental Justice communities swung more decisively towards Trump than non-EJ communities. New analysis from @atrembath and @lrntex @TheBTI.
The premise of Biden climate and EJ strategies was that delivering clean energy jobs and environmental benefits would assure that EJ… pic.twitter.com/nBXNj0vJbA
— Ted Nordhaus (@TedNordhaus) March 3, 2025
Environmental Justice Communities Swing Towards Trump
By Alex Trembath and Lauren Teixeira
In one of his early acts as president, Joe Biden directed his executive agencies to determine “how certain federal investments might be made toward a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits flow to disadvantaged communities.” This direction led to the Justice40 Initiative and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), which determined which census tracts qualified for disproportionate funds based on more than thirty indicators across eight categories of burdens including energy, legacy pollution, workforce development, transportation and more. This turned out to be a significant portion of the country; as of 2023, 33% of Americans lived in an environmental justice community, according to the CEJST.
It should not be surprising, given the scope of the communities, that the goals of environmental justice as construed by the Biden administration were also broad and nebulous. Under the Biden administration, “environmental justice” came to encompass not just local environmental remediation—toxic waste, lead pipes, asbestos, and so on—but helping “communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis” with renewable energy investments and generally stimulating the economy by creating “good paying, high quality jobs” in parts of the country “too often overlooked and underserved.”
All noble goals, to be sure; but it quickly became clear that voters were more comfortable with the earlier, narrower idea of environmental justice than the broadly ambitious one espoused by the Biden administration.
A January 2023 poll by the progressive pollsters Data for Progress, found that support for “ensuring the fair treatment of all people” in the creation of environmental laws was strong and cross-partisan: 77% of all voters said they supported the idea, with even 60% of self-identified Republicans saying it was “very important” or “somewhat important.” Yet responses to the Biden version of EJ as manifested in the Justice40 initiative were much less enthusiastic and much more partisan: when Justice40 was described to respondents, just 54% of voters said they supported the initiative, including only 25% of Republicans. Support among Blacks (72%) and Latinos (68%) was high, although not as high as among Democrats overall (82%).
An under discussed issue when it comes to climate change and black, Hispanic or Asian voters is that , it’s just not a salient issue high enough on the priorities to make them support Dems more, if anything it hurts . Depressing stuff but still true https://t.co/bXyndG7tKk
— oppressed by gas prices (@DCgayLeo) March 3, 2025
