South Bronx activists are concerned about the future — but they’re ready to keep fighting for clean air and more.
South Bronx environmentalists predict the Trump administration’s priorities will pose a significant threat to their work. In response, several groups say they’ll direct efforts toward the state, pushing for climate-related funding, legislation and regulations.
President-elect Donald Trump“signaled to frontline communities, Black and Brown communities, environmental justice communities… that the environmental racism that we’ve had to endure on a daily basis doesn’t matter,” said Matthew Shore, senior organizer for South Bronx Unite.
According to a study by the Brookings Institute, the first Trump administration took at least 74 actions that attacked environmental policy, including pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, supporting “energy dominance,” weakening environmental regulations, and reducing the budgets of federal departments, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Project 2025, a blueprint for governing development by the conservative Heritage Foundation, characterizes environmental regulations as “costly, job-killing” and suggests that the EPA needs to be restructured and its size reduced. Although Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, some of its architects are current aides and allies of the incoming president.
Federal money powers several South Bronx organizations via the Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change, Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement, and the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government programs — all funded through President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. All together In 2023, local groups that include the Bronx is Blooming, Nos Quedamos, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, and Bronx River Alliance received over $1.6 million in EPA funding.
“If this funding is cut or it changes we would need to scramble,” said Siddhartha Sanchez, executive director of Bronx River Alliance, “potentially scaling back interconnected programming that is impactful and needed in our communities.”
The Trump administration’s threat to restrict unspent funds of the Inflation Reduction Act also puts at risk initiatives like the EPA’s Thriving Communities Grantmakers. That program provides federal funds to large institutions to then distribute to small community-based organizations.
Fordham University, the local grantmaker for the EPA region covering New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, is dispensing a $40 million grant through its Flourishing in Community program. It received over 200 applications from front line organizations that would not otherwise have the capacity to receive federal funding.
“We are unsure of the future of the grant funding. As of right now we have been told to continue as is,” said Wanda Salaman, long-time South Bronx activist and Advisory Board Chair of Flourishing in Community.
South Bronx Unite applied for a $20 million Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant from the EPA to finance the first two phases of its Mott Haven-Port Morris Waterfront plan.
While the funds from the Community Change Grant are not at risk, South Bronx Unite worries future federal funding could be in jeopardy. That group and others are looking to Albany for leadership.
“States do have a lot of power to continue advancing, cleaning our air, cleaning our water, protecting our climate, protecting lands,” said Alok Disa, senior researcher and policy analyst for Earthjustice.
Earthjustice and the Point CDC are pushing Gov. Kathy Hochul to implement the Advanced Clean Act before the year ends. Earthjustice filed 200 lawsuits against the first Trump administration and they expect to take legal action against Trump again.
“If they are going to choose to unlawfully or carelessly attack the regime of environmental protections, we are ready,” said Disa.
In 2019, New York State passed the ambitious Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act which requires the state to reduce its carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050. Despite the landmark legislation, New York State’s implementation of the bill has been slow and is set to miss the 2025 deadline, further worrying climate advocates.
“I don’t think it’s a priority in the sense that we are not moving fast enough. We’re not moving big enough for the scale of the crisis at hand, at this point,” said Eunice Ko, deputy director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
South Bronx Unite and the Point CDC noted that the stark reality of the Trump administration may actually spur greater engagement in climate and environmental justice.
“While it’s harder to fight against these people, it’s easier to grow power to fight against these people,” said Dariella Rodriguez, director of community development of the Point CDC.
“Regardless if the Democratic Party or the Republican Party won the presidential election, we know that in tremendously oppressed communities, frontline communities, we would have still had to organize,” said Shore.
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