President Trump has weakened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by understaffing, underfunding, and restricting its work—leaving vulnerable communities at higher risk of environmental discrimination and racism. Within weeks of taking office, Trump revoked several key Biden-era executive orders on climate, public health, and environmental justice. While some of Trump’s actions have been reversed, his attacks toward the EPA remain unrelenting—continuing a pattern of sweeping environmental rollbacks that defined his first term. This time, however, his efforts are more targeted and dangerous, striking directly at the intersection of climate and race. Through data censorship and removal, the Trump administration is dismantling key tools for advancing environmental justice and protecting communities from environmental discrimination.

Research has played a key role in the environmental justice movement

The environmental justice movement began in the late 1980s when organizers and residents protested the illegal dumping of toxic waste in Warren County, North Carolina—the state’s most heavily Black-populated area. These demonstrations led the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice to publish a landmark study showing that minority communities were disproportionately targeted for toxic waste sites. Targeting these communities was not incidental—it reflected a deliberate strategy to place hazardous facilities in areas where residents lacked the political power or resources to resist.

As the study garnered national attention, the EPA established the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992. President Clinton followed by issuing Executive Order 12898 that directed federal agencies to develop strategies for addressing the disproportionate health and environmental impacts on low-income communities and communities of color. This executive order became a cornerstone of federal enforcement of environmental justice—until Trump rescinded it on the second day of his presidency.

To support the implementation of Executive Order 12898, the EPA later developed the Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJScreen), but Trump’s EPA removed the tool in early February. First released to the public in 2015, EJScreen offered nationally consistent data on 13 environmental burden indicators, alongside six demographic variables relevant to minority and historically marginalized communities. By combining environmental and demographic data, the tool generated Environmental Justice Indexes for each burden, helping to highlight areas of concern.

EJScreen played a key role in guiding the EPA’s development of policies and programs, while also empowering the public to conduct research and advocate for environmental and health equity. Since the removal of EJScreen from the EPA’s website, various organizations have worked to recreate the tool and host its data elsewhere; however, the tool will not be updated by the EPA, nor will it serve as a guiding tool for the agency.

The economic costs of air pollution

One of the environmental indicators available in EJScreen is potential exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5. This particle pollution is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and originates from both natural and human-made sources, including indoor and outdoor environments. In outdoor air, PM 2.5 is primarily produced through combustion—such as emissions from gas and diesel vehicles, as well as coal and fracked gas-fired power plants. Both short- and long-term exposure to high concentrations of PM 2.5 have been linked to serious cardiovascular and respiratory health risks, including nonfatal heart attacks, asthma in children, and premature death.

Research also demonstrates that communities of color and low-income communities face greater exposure to air pollution. Interlocking systems of discrimination—such as racist housing policies, government disinvestment, and economic exploitation—have shaped the social and spatial dynamics that place communities of color in closer proximity to sources of air pollution. These structural forces continue to drive the disproportionate environmental burdens these communities face. Black and Latine populations, in particular, are exposed to significantly more air pollution than they produce—underscoring the systemic nature of environmental injustice.

Air pollution is also a significant barrier to workers’ health and productivity. Employees in low-wage and manufacturing industries are especially vulnerable, often exposed to harmful air contaminants that can lead to illness and reduced workplace performance. Research shows that the lifetime medical and productivity costs of a single new asthma diagnosis was approximately $49,600 per case across all age groups in 2021. Yet, with only 58% of low-wage workers having access to paid sick leave and Congress considering devastating cuts to Medicaid, support for protecting their health—and the environmental conditions of their workplaces—remains dangerously inadequate.

Working families also bear the cost of how PM 2.5 impacts children’s cognitive function and overall children’s health. The economic and health burdens of air pollution have far-reaching, long-term impacts on workers—especially in communities of color and low-income families—threatening both economic stability and overall well-being.

Mapping injustice with environmental data

Using EJScreen data, we analyzed potential community-level exposure to PM 2.5 relative to the state average, and how relative exposure varies with the racial demographics of communities in similar income classes. EJScreen provides data at the Census tract level—census-defined geographic units within county boundaries that typically range from 1,200 to 8,000 people.

Figure A indicates that for each income class, the share of tracts with greater potential exposure to PM 2.5 (compared with their state’s average) typically rises with the share of people of color (POC) in the area. Tracts with the highest proportions of people of color (at least 60%) stand out most. Among tracts that are 20–40% low income, nearly three-quarters (72.6%) of those with at least 60% people of color have greater potential exposure. In tracts where the share of population is at least 40% low income, nearly two-thirds (65.1%) of tracts with at least 60% people of color exceed their state’s average exposure level. Conversely, tracts with the lowest shares of people of color (less than 15%) consistently show the smallest share of elevated exposure compared with state averages for the same income class. To be clear, tracts cannot be compared across income classes as the basis of comparison for each tract is their respective state’s average within the income class.

The removal of EJScreen significantly hinders government entities, organizations, and communities’ ability to assess the persistence of disproportionate health and economic impacts experienced by low-income communities and communities of color. Data erasure adds an additional barrier for communities to advocate for their needs and access critical resources to prevent and mitigate the harms of PM 2.5 and other environmental burdens.

Impacts of environmental data erasure

EJScreen provided accessible data to both the EPA and the public on environmental disparities that persist to this day. Federal recognition of environmental racism and environmental justice helped hold the EPA accountable in planning and implementing its programs. Under the Biden administration, the EPA explicitly made efforts to better implement environmental justice into their regulatory and enforcement work. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided major funding for local air monitoring, which is critical for measuring the extent of harm caused by air pollutants. By contrast, Trump issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop the enforcement of state and local climate and environmental justice policies—marking an escalation in his administration’s attacks on environmental equity. Coupled with efforts to expand coal and fossil fuel production, these actions pose far-reaching consequences for the health and safety of communities already burdened by environmental harm.

Tools like EJScreen enable federal and state agencies to craft clear, data-driven policies that protect the health and safety of vulnerable communities. While the EPA’s EJScreen is no longer accessible, at least 16 states have developed their own environmental justice screening tools, each with varying indicators, data sources, and user interfaces. Although these state-specific tools can be useful for localized analysis, they lack the national consistency that the EPA’s EJScreen provides. Without a federal baseline, states may interpret and apply environmental justice data differently—leading to fragmented efforts and uneven protections.

When federal data are censored or erased, it undermines the ability of researchers and policymakers to document harm and expose persistent disparities that might otherwise remain invisible. The EPA plays a critical role in advancing environmental justice—and restoring its data tools is essential to protecting workers and the communities they live in.