Biden EO on ‘Environmental Justice’ Poses Threat to all Americans

by Clyde Wayne Crews & Daren Bakst, Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Biden administration announced on April 21, 2023, a new executive order purporting to “further embed environmental justice into the work of federal agencies.” CEI regulatory and energy experts warn of the unprecedented dangers posed by the president’s radical “whole of government” changes.

President Biden’s new executive order today to ‘Revitalize Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All’ pits Americans against one another and represents large scale federal meddling in civil society. Biden’s ‘whole-of-government’ environmental justice agenda extends his prior whole-of-government policies on climate, equity, digital currency, long-COVID and more in order to further inject the federal government into our economy, communities and households. Statement by Wayne Crews, Fred L. Smith, Jr. Fellow in Regulatory Policy

Biden’s new move again goes beyond normalcy and well beyond even Obama’s “pen and phone” regulating in terms of executive overreach, all in service of aggressive, far-left economic social and societal interventions.

Just the prior week to this order, Biden issued an executive order called ‘Modernizing Regulatory Review’, in which he rejected prior standards of normal regulatory supervision and oversight. He replaced the central watchdog role of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) with one of promoting regulation and dubious ‘benefits’ of regulation.

In addition to the order’s spending agenda and its ‘Environmental Scorecard’ intended to bully the private sector, the new order expands the federal view of alleged ‘disproportionate effect’ of some behavior it disfavors in order to make it easier to marshal bureaucratic intervention.

Biden’s agenda must be roundly repudiated by our elected representatives in Congress, including this new attempt to rewrite regulatory review (“Circular A-4”) standards. This divisive environmental justice agenda poses major harm by reducing jobs and economic opportunity for everyone in America.

This new executive order is another example of Biden ignoring Congress and the will of the people. He is not faithfully executing the laws but creating his own laws for his faithful. Daren Bakst, Deputy Director, Center for Energy and Environment

Biden talks about environmental justice as his policies drive up food inflation to levels not seen in over 40 years and make filling up at the gas pump a financial burden for American families. The people who get hurt the most by these policies are low-income households who are disproportionately harmed by higher prices. ▫