Trump Must Put an End to Biden’s Environmental Injustice

Joe Biden took office amid a moral panic. A creed succinctly summarized by one of its most culturally celebrated champions, Ibram X. Kendi, had overtaken the progressive activist class: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.” The Biden administration put that supposition into practice when it resolved to embed “issues of racial equity into everything it does.” Practically, that ethos prescribed a campaign of positive racial discrimination.

That was the backward logic that led Biden’s Small Business Administration to reserve taxpayer-funded Covid-related relief for racial minorities, a subvention of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause that was swiftly rebuked by the courts. It was also the rationale for Biden’s “Justice40” initiative, a program that directed federal agencies to earmark 40 percent of the “benefits” associated with the president’s climate change agenda for “disadvantaged communities” as determined by something they called the Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool. Eventually, more than 500 programs administered by 16 agencies were covered by this framework. Its backers understood, however, that the blending of environmental protection and anti-racism lacked clear statutory authority, and the program would prove ephemeral unless the Biden team found one.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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Joe Biden took office amid a moral panic. A creed succinctly summarized by one of its most culturally celebrated champions, Ibram X. Kendi, had overtaken the progressive activist class: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.” The Biden administration put that supposition into practice when it resolved to embed “issues of racial equity into everything it does.” Practically, that ethos prescribed a campaign of positive racial discrimination.

That was the backward logic that led Biden’s Small Business Administration to reserve taxpayer-funded Covid-related relief for racial minorities, a subvention of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause that was swiftly rebuked by the courts. It was also the rationale for Biden’s “Justice40” initiative, a program that directed federal agencies to earmark 40 percent of the “benefits” associated with the president’s climate change agenda for “disadvantaged communities” as determined by something they called the Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool. Eventually, more than 500 programs administered by 16 agencies were covered by this framework. Its backers understood, however, that the blending of environmental protection and anti-racism lacked clear statutory authority, and the program would prove ephemeral unless the Biden team found one.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.