The Trump administration just flushed the nation’s first environmental justice, civil rights settlement, literally. The Department of Justice has terminated a historic agreement that aimed to fix raw sewage issues in Alabama’s majority-Black Lowndes County. This follows President Donald Trump’s new executive order banning all federal programs tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including environmental justice.
The settlement, reached under the Biden administration, required Alabama to address unsanitary conditions that left poor Black families living with human waste in their yards due to failing or non-existent sewage systems. It wasn’t symbolic — it was about survival.
Under the Biden-era settlement, the DOJ had even agreed to pause criminal penalties against families too poor to fix their own septic systems. But now, Trump’s DOJ says the deal was tainted by DEI preferences.
The state says it might continue the work as funding allows, but without federal pressure, the pace is — of course — as slow as the soil is thick.
Click play to listen to the report from AURN White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris. For more news, follow @E_N_McMorris & @aurnonline.
