Senator Booker Using Environmental Justice To Cover For Biden EPA Fold On Clean Air Standards

Walking Tour Of Elizabeth NJ Highlights Air Quality, Just Days After Biden EPA Folded On Ozone Standards

I've long argued that distribution of patronage grants and various forms of identity politics - including environmental justice - are cynically used by Democrats to co-opt environmental groups and are increasingly used as cover for pro-corporate and anti-regulatory policies.

To support those arguments, I've relied on the academic work of Professor Nancy Fraser regarding what she describes as "Progressive Neoliberalism":

In its U.S. form, progressive neoliberalism is an alliance of mainstream currents of new social movements (feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ rights), on the one side, and high-end “symbolic” and service-based business sectors (Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood), on the other. In this alliance, progressive forces are effectively joined with the forces of cognitive capitalism, especially financialization. However unwittingly, the former lend their charisma to the latter. Ideals like diversity and empowerment, which could in principle serve different ends, now gloss policies that have devastated manufacturing and what were once middle-class lives. ...

In place of the New Deal coalition of unionized manufacturing workers, African Americans, and the urban middle classes, [progressive neoliberalism] forged a new alliance of entrepreneurs, suburbanites, new social movements, and youth, all proclaiming their modern, progressive bona fides by embracing diversity, multiculturalism, and women’s rights. Even as it endorsed such progressive notions, the Clinton administration courted Wall Street. Turning the economy over to Goldman Sachs, it deregulated the banking system and negotiated the free-trade agreements that accelerated deindustrialization. What fell by the wayside was the Rust Belt—once the stronghold of New Deal social democracy, and now the region that delivered the electoral college to Donald Trump

Well today, an EPA Press Release provides a perfect textbook example.

EPA and Senator Cory Booker Celebrate the Power of Partnering with Communities in Elizabeth, NJ to Bring Environmental Equity

NEW YORK (August 25, 2023) – Join EPA and Senator Cory Booker on Friday, August 25, at 3:30 p.m. for a walking tour along 1st Street to see how EPA’s investments in overburdened communities in cities like Elizabeth, NJ are improving people’s lives. Learn how a $75,000 EPA grant helped Elizabeth monitor truck emissions near one of the world’s largest ports and discover how a $500,000 EPA grant will further help Elizabeth provide air quality data and education to its residents. The grants are part of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America and Environmental Justice initiatives. EPA is partnering with communities across the nation to ensure that everyone has access to clean air and a healthy environment. ...

The EPA "walking tour" highlights "a $500,000 EPA grant will further help Elizabeth provide air quality data".

In a case of very bad timing, the clean air "walking tour" comes just days after NJ Spotlight reported on the Biden EPA's fold on Clean Air Act ozone standards, a move that repeated the Trump administration EPA's failure to adopt stricter regulations:

Biden administration further delays adopting new pollution standard

...  The new delay was immediately assailed by clean-air advocates who have pressed the administrations of both presidents Biden and Trump for more stringent standards, all without success. 

“I’m disappointed in the rollback,’’ said Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of the Ironbound Community Corp. “When it comes to our community, there is always excuses; it’s never a priority.’’ ...

Protecting polluters?

“This means tens of millions of Americans will be subject to unsafe air pollution for years to come,’’ said John Walker, director of clean air for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The national ozone standard is not only outdated, but it was left unchanged by the Trump administration’s EPA which ignored medical science because it was more interested in protecting polluters than people.’’  …

“This is a step back for clean air in New Jersey,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “With climate change, New Jersey will see more hotter days and more ozone days.’’ 

I hope the NJ press corps calls out Senator Booker on his cynical political stunt and asks him specifically about the Biden EPA failure to act on the ozone standards.

If this was a coincidence, then the EPA press office who scheduled this political event - likely at the direction of the Biden White House - has an embarrassing case of very bad timing!

Regardless, EPA should be criticized for once again politicizing EPA grant programs and promoting the Biden administration, another press event in an obvious national campaign to boost Biden's fading '24 Presidential electoral chances.

But I find the timing highly suspect - given the issue focus (clean air) and the environmental justice politics - and a likely effort to change the subject from the Biden EPA cave on ozone standards.