This swamp continues to be drained.

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it placed on leave 168 employees who worked on addressing pollution facing communities of color and low-income and rural areas.

The move is the latest and most sweeping action by EPA to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda targeting diversity, equity and inclusion activities across the federal government.

The Biden administration had sought to increase the agency’s focus on those “environmental justice” communities that have historically borne a disproportionate share of the country’s pollution, but the Trump administration has moved to roll those efforts back as part of its campaign to end DEI work.

Shortly after being sworn in as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi made some changes at the Justice Department as well, firing 20 employees in her agency’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

And as one of her first acts after being sworn in as the nation’s 87th attorney general Wednesday, Pam Bondi rescinded former attorney general Merrick Garland’s directives on environmental justice, according to a memorandum obtained by The Washington Post. Bondi also directed the heads of all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to revoke any “memoranda, guidance, or similar directive that implement the prior administration’s ‘environmental justice’ agenda.”“Going forward, the Department will evenhandedly enforce all federal civil and criminal laws, including environmental laws,” the memo concluded.

The environmental justice movement is described as a modern progressive initiative that emerged in the early 2000s. It argues that low-income and minority neighborhoods are disproportionately selected as sites for industrial waste disposal and pollution. However, the people let go were political activists and not hired to do actual work.

In certain instances, both negligent corporations and governments have indeed placed hazardous waste in minority areas. A prime example is the Flint Water Crisis, where a primarily low-income community suffered from lead contamination in their water supply because of inadequate government oversight. However, it has largely been the responsibility of state and local governments to enact and enforce environmental rules, especially when it came to pollution.

If any entity, whether private or governmental, causes harm to a person’s health or property, that person has the legal right to sue for damages. This common law principle was considered sufficient for centuries, long before the term environmental justice came into vogue.