Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren A Rose Garden jazz ensemble hits different from the echoey din of Zoom meetings. For the dozens of environmental activists assembled last week on the White House lawn, it was a sign of how much has changed over the years and how much President JOE BIDEN was counting on them in 2024. Officially, the advocates for “environmental justice” — those pushing for better outcomes in areas facing disproportionate environmental and health ills, typically minority and low-income communities — were celebrating Biden signing a new executive order bolstering communities’ abilities to resist dirty projects. It was there that they were serenaded by that festive jazz. As important as the musical numbers, however, was the context of the meeting. That Biden had invited the activists to the White House just days ahead of a rumored reelection announcement seemed, to them, to be no accident. “They are getting people in alignment for the next big push,” said MUSTAFA SANTIAGO ALI, executive vice president with the National Wildlife Federation, who gave input to the White House on the executive order and previously worked at the EPA. The environmental advocates Biden feted at Friday’s ceremony were not the usual Beltway green power players. This group of disparate community activists came from areas long overburdened with air and water pollution, whose residents face starker health and economic disparities than the whiter, wealthier members of so-called Big Green organizations that primarily focus on curbing planet-warming gases and preserving pristine nature. Their DNA seems drawn from the activist communities that populated the civil and social rights movement. They have at times chastised Biden for not doing enough to honor the communities that helped deliver turnout in crucial cities like Detroit and Philadelphia. And, as such, they’re seen as holding a key to driving specific voters Biden needs to win in 2024 — the urban communities that can sell Biden’s green industrial policy as a matter of environmental, economic and social improvement. The order Biden issued Friday was an evolution of relationships that began early in the 2020 campaign, when the then-candidate’s team began courting groups to shape his environmental platform. And they represent constituencies that Team Biden will need to turn out again in 2024. CECILIA MARTINEZ was part of that initial wave during the campaign. She came from community environmental organizing through a Minneapolis group she founded. The Biden campaign brought her in, where she led outreach to groups with DAVID KIEVE, the husband of former White House communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD. When the Covid-19 pandemic relegated relationship-building to Zoom, Biden and his team held listening sessions with more than 160 groups across seven different sessions. HAROLD MITCHELL, an early Biden champion and environmental leader in South Carolina, joined the Biden campaign engagement team. So, too, did eventual Interior Secretary DEB HAALAND, who has taken a prominent role advancing environmental victories for Indigenous tribes. The White House created an Environmental Justice Advisory Council which feeds recommendations to agencies across government. Martinez joined the Biden administration as the White House senior director for environmental justice director, housed in the Council on Environmental Quality. But weaving the promises into action wasn’t easy. Martinez left the Biden administration in January 2022, burned out with little staff support. Agencies battled with the White House Climate Policy Office, the new outfit tasked with executing Biden’s climate agenda over its handling of environmental justice goals. Members of Biden’s advisory council slammed the White House for not taking their issues seriously enough. And then came the Friday executive order creating a White House Office of Environmental Justice, potentially offering the level of commitment and resources that activists accused the Biden administration of lacking. “Where we're at now as opposed to where we were 20 years ago in this particular area is exponentially in a better place,” said Martinez, now an advisor at The Bezos Earth Fund. “And the fact that we're in the dialogue, we're in the conversation — that equity and environmental justice is part of the deliberation process — is in itself a significant accomplishment.” The mood was “absolutely celebratory,” said MARIA LOPEZ-NUNEZ, who was basking in the moment at The Hamilton — a bar-restaurant-hotel just a quick jaunt from the White House — with much of the White House advisory council. Many of the activists she knows weren’t even alive when former President BILL CLINTON signed the last such action in 1994. “I saw a campaign promise that was outstanding. And I'm happy it happened,” said Lopez-Nunez, deputy director of advocacy and organizing with Newark-based Ironbound Community Corporation. “Today, we get to celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to fighting.” MESSAGE US — Are you U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate JOHN KERRY? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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