Today, the Trump Administration continued its assault on public health and safety, shuttering key environment offices across the federal government, including closing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and “remaking” the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. EPA’s Environmental Justice office worked to ensure that everyone, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income is entitled to equal protection from environmental harms and risks. ENRD’s lawyers represent the government in cases involving everything from pollution, public lands, and wildlife. In FY 2023 alone, ENRD attorneys worked on 4,500 matters and obtained over $440 million in civil and criminal fines, penalties and costs recovered. The division also secured federal injunctive relief valued at $2.3 billion, saving the United States more than $2.5 billion through litigation. **In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:** “Donald Trump is hellbent on dismantling and disregarding so much of what helps keep our families and our communities safe. Protecting our air and water and holding deadly polluters accountable helps American families. By shuttering these offices, Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors. Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe. The American people deserve better than this.”

The joint statement comes as Trump signs an executive order targeting trans athletes in women’s sports.