Editor’s Note: This story was updated on March 8, 2023, because an earlier version of the story did not meet CNN editorial standards.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has announced it is creating a new national office with a focus on environmental justice and civil rights.
The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, with 200 staff at the agency headquarters in Washington and across 10 regional offices, “will position the agency to better advance environmental justice, enforce civil rights laws in overburdened communities, and deliver new grants and technical assistance,” the EPA said in a news release.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan unveiled the new office during a visit to Warren County, North Carolina, on Saturday.
“From Day One, President Biden and EPA have been committed to delivering progress on environmental justice and civil rights and ensuring that underserved and overburdened communities are at the forefront of our work,” Regan, the first Black man to lead the agency in its 50-year history, said in a statement.
“With the launch of a new national program office, we are embedding environmental justice and civil rights into the DNA of EPA and ensuring that people who’ve struggled to have their concerns addressed see action to solve the problems they’ve been facing for generations,” he continued.
In creating the office, the EPA merged its Office of Environmental Justice, External Civil Rights Compliance Office and Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center. The new office will oversee a number of funding programs, including implementing a $3 billion climate and environmental justice block grant program.
That program was created following Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill, which Biden signed into law last month. The $370 billion clean energy and climate package marked the largest climate investment in US history.