The Biden-Harris administration announced members of the first-ever White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council on March 29, including several long-time grantees and community partners of Kresge’s Environment, Health and American Cities programs.

The advisory council was established by President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad to fulfill the administration’s commitment to confronting longstanding environmental injustices and to ensuring that historically marginalized, polluted and overburdened communities have greater input on federal policies and decisions.

Read the full press release: White House Announces Environmental Justice Advisory Council Members

Kresge partners and grantees include:

• Jade Begay, climate justice campaign director of NDN Collective.
• Robert D. Bullard, former dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University and current professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy.
• Kim Havey, director of sustainability, City of Minneapolis.
• Angelo Logan, campaign director of the Moving Forward Network and co-founder of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ).
• Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
• Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.
• Miya Yoshatani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN).

“This is a historic moment that environmental justice communities have been working toward for decades. President Biden and Vice President Harris are, for the first time ever, bringing the voices, perspectives, and expertise of environmental justice communities into a formal advisory role at the White House,” said Cecilia Martinez in the release, senior director for environmental justice, CEQ. Martinez is also the co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy (CEED) in Minneapolis – another Kresge grantee partner. “The advisory council builds off the important work of EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and will provide input and recommendations to senior leaders across government as this administration works to clean up toxic pollution, create good-paying, union jobs in all communities, and give every child in America the chance to grow up healthy.”

Congratulations to our grantees and community partners appointed to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council!