Biography
Moisés Moreno-Rivera was appointed by Governor Newsom in February 2023 to serve as CalEPA’s Deputy Secretary for Environmental Justice, Tribal Affairs and Border Relations.
Prior to this, Moisés served as Assistant Secretary for Equity and Environmental Justice at the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA). There, he established CNRA’s equity and environmental justice framework, worked to embed these principles into the work of the Agency and its 26 member departments. Moisés created agencywide working groups to align and prioritize efforts to remove barriers to state funding, advance language access, meaningfully expand community outreach and engagement and more. He also, launched agencywide efforts to celebrate cultural commemorative months, to recognize and uplift staff and partners contributions in environmental stewardship.
Before his time at CNRA, Moisés held several roles at the State Water Resources Control Board between 2018 and 2021, including Assistant Tribal Liaison where he led their internal Tribal Consultation Policy implementation efforts and helped establish the framework for newly designated statewide Tribal Coordinators. Moisés has worked on various human right to water implementation projects, concentrating on raising public health awareness of groundwater contamination, domestic well testing, and interim replacement drinking water solutions. He also helped institute CalEPA’s Affinity Groups program — an agency-wide effort to create an equitable and inclusive community for historically underrepresented employee groups.
Moisés holds a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida. He was raised in the East Coachella Valley, bordering California’s Salton Sea.