Incoming EPA Administrator Lee Zelden in an April 2025 interview called spending on environmental justice (EJ) “scams.” Zelden said that the Biden-Harris Administration “lit [taxpayer dollars] on fire to fund cronies and activist groups” while they “showered billions on ideological allies.” He concluded that “politicians and bureaucrats have been fleecing the public purse under the guise of ‘environmental justice’” and quoted an unnamed EPA staffer who compared it to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.” Zelden was referring to programs stemming from a series of eight executive orders between 2021-2023 relating to EJ, including the Justice40 initiative which earmarked 40% of designated spending for “marginalized” populations living in “environmental justice communities.”
Myra Reece
South Carolina, an allegedly “red state” is, in some respects, a national leader in EJ, thanks to the SC Department of Environmental Services (SCDES). In South Carolina, EJ programs are the responsibility of the Director of Environmental Affairs, Myra Reece, now interim head of SCDES. A 2024 organizational chart is here. Reece is Governor Henry McMaster’s nominee to lead the SCDES permanently and a state Senate hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, April 14.
Reece has been employed with SC DHEC/SCDES since 1991, according to her LinkedIn. She was Director of Environmental Affairs from January 2016 to July 2024, the office responsible for the state’s EJ initiatives, and then Interim Director until the present, maintaining leadership responsibility for EJ programs.
She was the 2022 president of the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) and remains an officer per the 2025 leadership page. In April, she was listed as co-chair of the Environmental Justice Workgroup reporting directly to the ECOS Board of Directors according to an ECOS leadership and committee chart. The group’s 2022-2026 Strategic Plan shows that ECOS is a group fully dedicated to fulfilling the mandates of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The ECOS strategy outlined steps underscoring its intention to adhere closely to EPA orders, with the intention to “build enduring institutional connectivity with EPA.” The document mentioned that environmental justice was one of the “[t]opics about which states and EPA also interact.”
On the current ECOS website, a page offering links to “Key Information on Environmental Justice at ECOS” emphasized members’ commitment to making EJ part of their practices, presumably in policies for their respective states. It indicated that ECOS would be “working closely with its members, U.S. EPA, and other stakeholders to share information about policy developments, guidance, and best practices for embedding environmental justice (EJ) and equity considerations in day-to-day programmatic work.”
In a 2016 press release, ECOS commended the EPA for its 2016-2020 strategic plan, the EJ 2020 Action Agenda, a strategy to “expand on-the-ground work in communities and with a diversity of stakeholders.” It quoted Reece who was speaking of South Carolina’s EJ accomplishments and referred to her as “an EJ leader among the states, serving on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee.”
A 2017 ECOS document on state approaches to incorporating equity into permitting and community outreach was released followed two webinars with EPA involvement regarding EJ and the issuance of permits. Reece was named as a webinar participant and South Carolina’s (DHEC) practices were discussed in the paper. The document was intended to provide “selected examples of how various states consider equity and environmental justice issues in permitting. The report concluded that “[a]bsent state-level statutory or regulatory authority explicitly requiring consideration of EJ concerns as part of this process, states may be limited in their ability to fully consider equity within the permitting process.”
Reece is a founding board member of Sustain SC, a public-private partnership working closely with several state offices focused on advancing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in South Carolina and to conservation. The group also promotes Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) protocols in businesses. According to Reece’s LinkedIn volunteering profile, she remains an ex-officio board member (Jan 2018-present).
What is environmental justice (EJ)?
The Biden-Harris EPA, in its FY 2022-2026 Strategic Plan (now only available in archived form) described EJ policies as involving “the intersection of smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development” as part of tackling “climate change,” energy transition, and “addressing historical and systemic barriers,” while being “grounded in inclusive community engagement practices.”
In fact, it is an equity scheme employed to replace existing policies with progressive ones and transform core governmental systems. Racial equity and social justice are essential to environmental equity. As mentioned in Part 1 of the Palmetto State Watch health equity series, EJ is like every equity policy in that it is designed to redistribute resources with special favor toward minority and poor populations. It is part of South Carolina’s three-part equity agenda — health, racial, and environmental — under the SC Department of Public Health (SCDPH). EJ considers environmental factors, ranging from pollution to moldy walls to climate change, to be social determinants of health (SDoH). EJ aims to eliminate disparities in the rates at which minority and poor populations are exposed to these conditions. South Carolina’s policies are being rewritten to include equity which makes it the state government’s responsibility to eliminate those disparities. Taxpayers will pay for the expansion of government to oversee new programs and government offices and will be responsible for funding it all. It’s incremental socialism under a centralized governmental system.
Because equity policies focus on racial identity groups and class differences, it is framed in terms of social justice. Whether it is federal or state government implementing equity policies behind EJ, the initiatives are designed to bolster existing progressive groups and increase their membership through public outreach and training. Furthermore, both state and federal government, together with corporate partners, use EJ to gain public support for green energy “climate change” policies that require taxpayer-funded investments in expensive, experimental technology. EJ policies effectively embed DEI and ESG into business models which are then spread to nearby communities. The Justice40 agenda explicitly states that it was intended to permanently embed EJ equity into the functioning of all levels of government.
One reason that DEI is prominent in environmental equity is that racial justice and racial equity are key components. One Department of Energy official stated in 2022 that “environmental and racial justice go hand-in-hand.” She repeated that remark in 2024 for a South Carolina Educational Television studio. Among community activists, you’re just as likely to hear the words “environmental racism.” That’s because environmental justice activists claim there are “deep ties between racism and climate change,” owing to “a long, long history that is centered on capitalism and the extraction of our land and our labor in this country.” There is evidence that some of South Carolina’s EJ proponents also make accusations of “environmental racism” when discussing EJ.
According to a EcologyCenter article, Justice40 involves allocating “climate change,” resources to “disadvantaged zip codes,” and those who “feel left behind by the clean energy movement.” It also involves environmental justice and energy justice. Energy justice means that taxpayers reduce the energy burden on low-income residents. Quoting a South Carolina-born faculty member at the University of Michigan, Tony Reames, environmental justice is about “historical and systemic inequities in how environmental harms and benefits are distributed and seeks to remedy those disparities” while “energy justice” is about achieving “equity in both the social and economic participation in the energy system while also remediating the social, economic, and health burdens of those who have historically been harmed by that system.” According to Reames, “Justice40 unlocks the power of government to improve access to affordable and reliable clean energy for communities like his.”
SCDES history with EJ
The environmental justice (EJ) pages from the former SC DHEC were transferred to the new SCDES website in very similar form, sometimes verbatim, but taken offline in early 2025 and links are to archived pages.
From an EJ timeline history, we learn that SC DHEC senior leadership received specialized EJ training in 2004. Then, in 2007, our state legislature passed A171 which decreed that an EJ stakeholder group be formed, involving academia, according to an EJ overview page:
South Carolina formed an S.C. Environmental Justice Advisory Committee in 2007. Act 171, which passed the S. C. General Assembly in 2007, mandated that a governmental advisory committee be created. The Advisory Committee consists of approximately 12 agency heads or their designees and 3 academia. The major task of the Advisory Committee was to study and consider existing practices at state agencies related to environmental justice in economic development and revitalization projects in this state and to make recommendations related to environmental justice issues in economic development and revitalization projects in this state.
2004-2008: The early years of EJ in SC
Between 2004-2006, the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) first developed and then updated (2008) the Environment Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model (CPS) created to organize community activists “bringing environmental justice to their community” and to help them “think strategically to ensure that their community’s limited resources are mobilized effectively to achieve priority goals.” The CPS document made numerous references to ReGenesis, a community environmental justice organization in Spartanburg, SC and many examples from ReGenesis were presented in the report.
The CPS model seeks to “…address the complex, interrelated factors related to environmental justice, such as environmental, public health, economic, and social concerns.” Among the EPA’s suggested community goals were addressing pollution, providing “good housing conditions,” improving “vehicular and pedestrian access” including improved commercial access, closing disparities in the “level of service for power, water, sewer, and telephone as are prevalent in Spartanburg neighborhoods,” ensuring stable economic growth conditions, developing an effective implementation plan, and making a regional impact with their activities.
In 2008, the EPA gave SC DHEC its Environmental Justice Achievement Award. The announcement mentioned that SC DHEC intended to implement “the South Carolina environmental justice law enacted on June 15, 2007” through the South Carolina Environmental Justice Advisory Committee which DHEC chaired. According to the announcement, “[t]he Advisory Committee is aiming to replicate the ReGenesis Collaborative Problem-Solving Model, used in Spartanburg, in several other South Carolina communities. State pilot projects are now being defined in several communities.” (emphasis added)
ReGenesis: an activism model for racial equity in government
ReGenesis is hailed by racial equity activist groups as the ideal model for to mobilizing community organizations to integrate racial equity into the policies of public offices. One group that admires ReGenesis is the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) which “transforms the everyday mechanics of local and regional governments” in its pursuit of “equity and racial justice.” GARE provides activists with guidance on how to influence government policies, such as its 2015 “transforming government” guide and the 2024 “Advancing Racial Equity in Housing, Land, and Development” series.
For its 2022 conference, GARE brought Harold Mitchell, Jr., a former SC State House Representative (2005-2017) and founder of The ReGenesis Institute, to share his experiences. Mitchell was one of the signatories to a 2019 platform declaring “we need to tackle the climate crisis and environmental racism as well as to achieve a just climate future.” Mitchell was a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council that issued a 2021 report with recommendations for the Justice40 initiative. A press release for the report quoted co-author Mitchell as saying:
It’s historic that we are able to represent our communities who are on the frontlines of environmental injustices through WHEJAC. This is a critical moment to define bold and equitable climate solutions that address the legacy of systemic racism and environmental injustice while rebuilding the U.S. economy in ways that work for everyone.
Among the discussion moderators for the closing segment was Keisha Long, identified as SC DHEC Environmental Justice Coordinator. Long has been named on the archived 2025 SCDES pages for EJ. The conference was co-hosted by GARE’s “programmatic partner State of Equity, and the Federal Initiative for Racial Equity (FIRE).” State of Equity is a health in all policies (HiAP) initiative through the Public Health Institute that “transforms public institutions to advance racial equity and health.”
2009: SCDES and Leaders in Environmental Action Pilot (LEAP)
In 2009, SCDES (then SC DHEC) partnered with the EPA to create the Leaders in Environmental Action Pilot (LEAP) aimed at organizing community groups to further environmental equity policies.
2009: DHEC’s Leaders in Environmental Action Pilot (LEAP). DHEC entered into a cooperative agreement with the EPA to launch the “Leaders in Environmental Action Pilot” (LEAP). The agreement helped to provide grants and technical assistance to an Environmental Justice community in each of the state’s four (4) regions. Each of the selected projects worked to address an issue that was unique to that community.
According to another LEAP document containing lessons learned from the LEAP pilot program:
From 2009 to 2012, four community organizations in South Carolina participated in the Leaders in Environmental Action Pilots (LEAP) initiative, a cooperative agreement between the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Region 4 office. The purpose of the LEAP initiative is to build the capacity of grassroots organizations to advance environmental justice, community revitalization and sustainability in their communities.
The four community organizations named were:
- Community Development Improvement Corporation (CDIC) “works in partnership with the Graniteville Community Coalition (GCC)”
- Imani Group
- Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC)
- A Place for Hope
2013: SC DHEC+ EPA = EJ Leadership School
In 2013, SC DHEC and partner, EPA Region 4 Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ), created “an EJ Leadership school” that became “a model for EPA Region 4’s OEJ Environmental Justice Academy and Allen University’s Environmental Justice Scholar’s program.”
2016-2024: Under Myra Reece
In 2016, at the time Reece was Director of Environmental Affairs, three South Carolina community leaders were listed as graduates of the EPA’s inaugural EJ Academy class. Among the skills imparted were “to increase capacity to address communities’ environmental and/or public health issues; and [a] basic understanding of environmental justice and environmental regulations.” Another state resident was in the second scheduled class.
In 2017, the South Carolina Energy Office, Office of Regulatory Staff presented an Energy Plan, the state’s first. It included environmental equity. According to the SCDES history of EJ page, “[d]ue to the importance of addressing issues that pertain to environmental equity, economic development, and environmental planning, Environmental Justice was among the top eight recommendations. SC DHEC partnered with the Energy Office to carry out this initiative.”
In 2022, the SC DHEC-EPA partnership developed a series of EJ workshops. The steering committee for the “Growing Grassroots Workshop Series” involved representatives from then SC DHEC. The speakers included government employees, activists, elected officials, and academics. The workshop contents, including slides and videos are still available for viewing at the provided link.
In October 2024, with $1 Million in EPA funding, SCDES and Myra Reece announced the initial meeting of EJ Strong PREP, “a new Environmental Justice (EJ) partnership building off the agency’s previous and ongoing EJ initiatives.” The purpose of the program was described:
EJ Strong PREP aims to better prepare communities for potential environmental impacts, such as natural disasters, and to also empower residents to take part in local decision-making about environmental topics that could impact their daily lives.
The announcement quoted Keisha Long, “SCDES’s Environmental Justice Coordinator” and named participating organizations:
The federal grant partners that SCDES works closely with on its EJ trainings include the Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities; Clemson University: College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences; College of Charleston: Center for Coastal Environmental & Human Health; and the University of South Carolina: Arnold School of Public Health.
Arnold School of Public Health claimed to have “partnered with SCDES on EJ Strong since its inception.” The Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC) was part of the earliest state EJ pilots and has participated in many SCDES EJ programs over the years.
The state’s EJ policies –and embrace of “equity” itself — deserve closer scrutiny as do the state employees who implemented them. These involve “woke” activities that can no longer be concealed from a public that is getting wise to the progressive influence being allowed to permeate South Carolina’s institutions. EPA Administrator Zeldin’s evaluation of EJ’s intentions and consequences shouldn’t be ignored by South Carolina’s leadership.
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