EPA used COVID relief to fund environmental justice initiatives

By Abigail Adcox

Published June 23, 2022 1:05pm ET

In this Sept. 21, 2017, photo, a sign on a door of the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. The EPA says it has recovered 517 containers of âunidentified, potentially hazardous materialâ from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey. But the agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether thereâs a threat to human health. | (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

The Environmental Protection Agency has directed millions of its funding under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan toward environmental justice initiatives, many of which do not directly address the pandemic.