Biden promised to clean up heavily polluted communities. Here is how advocates say he did

After World War II, Black people in Houston found the rare chance to buy a nice home in the new community of Pleasantville, Texas. But in the years that followed, officials routed the Interstate 610 loop with its tailpipe exhaust along one side of Pleasantville and cement plants and other heavy industry grew nearby.

Just days after taking office in 2021, the Biden administration made huge promises to heavily polluted Black, Latino, Indigenous and lower income areas like this, known as environmental justice communities.

To evaluate how well Biden and his departments delivered on these promises, media spoke to some 30 environmental justice groups around the country, people who have been trying for years and sometimes decades to get places near their homes cleaned up — Superfund sites, petrochemical plants and diesel-burning ports, for example.

Many said this administration has done more than any previous one. With ambition not seen before they said, federal officials have solicited their advice, written stricter environmental protections and committed tens of billions of dollars in funding.

“Once he was in office, he put money where his mouth was,” said Beverly Wright, who directs the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and sits on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. “I almost gasped when I saw the amount of money.”

But the local advocates interviewed have concerns, too. Some said Biden administration policies have been too weak to drastically reduce pollution and change their lives. Officials have even favored climate technologies that make conditions worse, they said.

Those advances could be reversed if the presidential election Nov. 5 brings in a Republican administration. Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump considers much of the regulation these groups favor to be overreach.