Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA)

EJHA is fiscally sponsored by Coming Clean (formerly the Environmental Health Fund), a Vermont-based left-of-center environmentalist advocacy organization that supports the increased regulation and taxation of businesses, as well as state funding of plastic-to-plastic recycling programs favored by environmentalists. ^{3 4 5 6}

Background

Coming Clean was founded in 2001 by environmentalist activists, and it and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform have conducted joint activities since then. EJHA’s early activity included intergenerational youth organizing trainings held in 2012, 2013, and 2014, as well as the publication of Who’s In Danger? Race, Poverty, and Chemical Disasters, which focused on populations living near industrial and commercial facilities. ^{2 7 8}

The coalition’s claimed size has varied. In a February 2019 biography submitted to the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, Michele Roberts described EJHA as a coalition of more than 30 groups in 13 states. However,  an August 2025 federal complaint filed in EJHA’s name described the network as having slightly more than a dozen member organizations located in ten states. ^{9 10}

As of August 2026, EJHA’s website lists fifteen organizations as members, including Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Black Women for Wellness LA, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services. ¹¹

In 2021, the alliance’s two national co-coordinators, Michele Roberts and Richard Moore, were both selected to serve on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a federal advisory body created during the Biden administration. ^{2 12}

Activities

Chemical Facility Rules

Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform has concentrated much of its work on the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) rule, which covers roughly 12,000 facilities handling chemicals. The group organized technical comments, signed by 68 organizations in 2016; mobilized opposition to the first Trump administration’s delay and rollback of the rule in 2017 and 2018; and coordinated a joint comment with Coming Clean signed by more than 80 organizations in 2022. ²

After the EPA announced in April 2025 that it would reopen the 2024 version of the rule, EJHA was among the  groups, including the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, represented by Earthjustice that intervened in an industry lawsuit challenging it. The same coalition remained in litigation after the EPA proposed eliminating and weakening portions of the rule in April 2026. ^{13 14}

Litigation

EJHA sued the EPA with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and People Concerned About Chemical Safety over the agency’s failure to issue rules governing chemical spills from aboveground storage tanks, reaching a settlement agreement in 2016. After the EPA declined to adopt a new rule, EJHA filed a notice of intent to sue in 2018 together with Clean Water Action, the Just Transition Alliance, and NRDC, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a consent decree in the matter in 2020. ²

In August 2025, EJHA joined Clean Water Action and NRDC in filing suit in the same court seeking to vacate a 2019 EPA decision declining to issue hazardous substance spill prevention regulations required under the Clean Water Act. ^{15 10}

Campaign for Healthier Solutions

As of August 2026, EJHA was coordinating the Campaign for Healthier Solutions, which targets discount retail chains over allegedly problematic chemicals present in their merchandise. The campaign organized visits to 66 dollar stores in 21 states in 2016 and 103 stores in 21 states in 2017; staged protests at Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and 99 Cents Only shareholder meetings and corporate offices; and delivered more than 155,000 petition signatures to Dollar General and 99 Cents Only. In 2022, the campaign released product testing reports, which claimed that more than half of the items purchased at major dollar stores in 2021 contained chemicals the group claimed were “of concern.” ²

Federal Advocacy

EJHA endorsed the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform in 2019 and lobbied for the Environmental Justice for All Act, sponsored by then-U.S. Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Donald McEachin (D-VA). The group publicly celebrated $60 billion in environmentalist-aligned provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act while simultaneously criticizing others in the same law, and joined efforts to oppose legislation backed by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). After President Joe Biden signed an executive order concerning the environment in April 2023, EJHA and Coming Clean issued a joint critical race theory-aligned statement, which made claims about the existence of systemic racism and its alleged effects on the environment and environmental policy. ^{16 2}