SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS – By Audrey Mei Yi Brown, March 26, 2025
Audrey Mei Yi Brown/San Francisco Public Press – Bay Area residents and advocates gathered in downtown San Francisco to protest federal EPA deregulatory actions and funding cuts
About 150 Bay Area residents and advocates for environmental justice gathered on the steps of an Environmental Protection Agency office in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday to protest the Trump administration’s rollbacks of environmental protections.
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, an advocacy and watchdog group, spearheaded the protest, rallying a new coalition of environmental and climate justice organizations from across the region to oppose deregulatory actions and funding cuts.
The Emergency Environmental Justice Coalition includes the Richmond Shoreline Alliance, 350 San Francisco, Sierra Club SF Bay Area Chapter, All Things Bayview, Tri-Valley CAREs, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and a half-dozen more. Advocates define environmental justice as the principle that all people, regardless of background, have a right to a safe and healthy environment and involvement in environmental decision-making.
The coalition enables member organizations to share ideas and learn from one another, said Sarah Ranney, director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Sierra Club.
“Historically, things have been done through movements just like this,” said Arieann Harrison, the founder and executive director of the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, an organization advocating for full remediation of the toxic Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
On March 12, federal EPA administrator Lee Zeldin declared the agency would undertake its biggest-ever set of deregulatory actions. Those 31 actions affect power plants, the oil and gas industry, mercury and air toxics standards and vehicle emissions. The agency is shuttering all its environmental justice offices and has canceled grants to fund environmental justice work. The EPA has already fired hundreds of its workers and President Trump has threatened to cut the agency’s staff by 65%, though he later walked back the statement.
Greenaction has historically had a contentious relationship with the agency; it has an outstanding lawsuit alleging the agency failed to enforce a swift and full cleanup of the Hunters Point shipyard. But having no functional EPA would be disastrous for vulnerable communities overburdened by pollution, said Bradley Angel, the Greenaction executive director.
“People are going to die if they get away with this,” Angel said, addressing the crowd. He called on the EPA’s new Region 9 administrator, Josh F.W. Cook, who is tasked with overseeing agency actions in the Pacific Southwest, which includes California, to come down from his office to address the protesters.
Though many in the crowd had gray hair, the protesters appeared to represent several generations. Vivid signs featured flames engulfing the faces of Trump and Elon Musk, with slogans in thick lettering condemning them. Homemade papier-mâché figures personifying the Earth loomed over the proceedings.
“This is going to decimate hard-fought victories,” said Jessie Fernandez, who coordinates a bike program at the community organization PODER. He said communities that bear a disproportionate burden of toxic pollution and predominantly have residents of color — which he called “sacrifice zones” — would be the hardest hit.
Such communities include Bayview Hunters Point.
“It’s hard out here. We have bad air, bad water. We’re coming down here to fight to live,” said Nicole Domino, a lifelong Hunters Point resident who is an outreach worker for Greenaction and the environmental justice organization All Things Bayview.
“Give us a chance,” she added.
Community organizations that rely on federal grants are also having to dial back their programs and cut staff, said Anoushka Raj, environmental program manager at the environmental justice organization Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore.
“Programs we applied to don’t exist anymore,” Raj said.