The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has established an Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ), created to protect the health of disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations on the front lines of pollution and other environmental health issues.
The Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Brenda Mallory, said the announcement also represents a key step in confronting environmental injustice. The department will be tasked with leading initiatives to integrate environmental justice into the HHS mission, developing and implementing an HHS-wide strategy on environmental justice and health, coordinating annual HHS environmental justice reports, and providing the HHS Office for Civil Rights with environmental justice expertise to support compliance under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The office will also promote training opportunities to build an environmental justice workforce.
Click ▶️ to listen to AURN Washington Correspondent Ebony McMorris’s report:
