Billions of dollars once dedicated to environmental justice projects across the country were cut by the Trump Administration this year, stalling progress for advocates who have long fought for resources to address environmental injustices in their communities.

At a Tuesday APHA 2025 session, “Meeting the Moment in Environmental Health,” environmental health advocates and leaders shared how they are moving forward with work in their communities.

Denae King, associate director in the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, said funding cuts have hindered the center’s partner work.

“Our community partners really developed their capacity,” she said. “They were ready, they were working. … Now everyone’s asking, ‘what do we do next?’”

Despite resistance from the Trump administration, King emphasized that this vital work must continue. Efforts to document and remember the rollback of environmental and public health protections are essential.

“Showing up now is so important because we need people who understand why we did all of that work,” she said. 

Challenges to public health and environmental justice are especially daunting for students like recent graduate Saswait Upadhyay. “This is a terrible time to be an early-career scientist ... but I still believe in hope and resilience,” she said.

Updadhyah has found hope and resilience through volunteering at nonprofits. In July, she launched the podcast “In Her Element: Unfiltered Stories of Women Finding Their Voice — and Their Power” to amplify women in science, health, policy and the arts.

Addressing environmental justice also means championing widely supported causes such as clean air and water, said Denise Patel, director of National Organizing for WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Almost three-quarters of Trump voters and 80% of all voters support increasing federal funding to communities disproportionately harmed by air and water pollution, a November 2024 poll from the Environmental Protection Network found. 

Despite what is said in the media, environmental justice policies still have strong public support, Patel said. “People care about clean air and clean water.”

John Balbus, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ former deputy assistant secretary for climate change and health equity and former director of the HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, pointed to emerging patterns. First, while many health care and mission-driven organizations are holding firm on their climate and health pledges, others are retreating under political pressure. Fear of legal repercussions and the loss of nonprofit status have prompted some to cancel initiatives, scrub websites or shift focus away from climate, justice and health equity work.

However, the institutions that made climate and health pledges aren’t backing down, he said. They are standing firm because their missions, not politics, drive their work.

Photo by Dragos Condrea, courtesy iStockphoto.