Legislation would help direct 40% of
President Biden’s climate investment toward disproportionately impacted
communities
Washington (January 28, 2021)
-- Today, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
and Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) announced the introduction of the
Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021, legislation
that would take ground-breaking steps toward identifying and connecting
environmental justice communities with policy outcomes. This legislation,
written through collaboration with grassroots environmental justice leaders,
aims to create and authorize funding for a system to comprehensively identify
the demographic factors, environmental burdens, socioeconomic conditions, and
public health concerns that are related to environmental justice and collect
high-quality data through community engagement and a government-wide interagency
process. These data would be used to build layered maps depicting which
communities experience environmental injustices, and would assist the Biden
administration in directing at least 40 percent of the investment in a clean
and climate-safe future into communities that have been harmed by racist and
unjust environmental practices.
“We have long-known that
communities of color and low-income communities have experienced unsustainably
high pollution levels, and this pandemic has made it even more clear how inextricably
connected pollution is with public health,” said Senator Markey. “As we
rebuild our health and our economy, we need to make sure justice is at the
heart of every policy, and that means having an evidence-based method for
targeting investments and protective policies toward those who have faced the
most harm. Systemic racism needs systemic solutions, and this legislation will
take an important step in ridding of these historic injustices.”
“I am honored to be working
with Senator Markey and Senator Duckworth on this critical legislation that
makes it clear: environmental justice is racial justice,” said Congresswoman
Cori Bush. “In St. Louis City, Black children are 2.4 times more likely
than white children to test positive for lead in their blood. They make roughly
10 times more emergency room visits for asthma each year than white children.
Black neighborhoods experience most of the city’s illegal trash dumping. Black
households in St. Louis are disproportionately affected by high energy cost
burdens. Black neighborhoods host the majority of the City’s air pollution
sources. We boast a police department that leads the country in police killings
— a disproportionate number of which are of Black people. And there is a
nuclear waste site — the West Lake Landfill, which is a
catastrophe-in-progress. This legislation is bringing St. Louis to the
forefront in the fight to end environmental racism. It will federally fund and
create an interagency committee to develop detailed mapping, down to the
neighborhood, of specific environmental risk factors — including air quality
monitoring, which has long been understudied in St. Louis, fossil fuel
infrastructure, and police violence.”
A copy of the legislation can be found
HERE.
A one-pager of the bill can be found
HERE.
The bill has support from over
70
grassroots and environmental organizations, including GreenRoots, Sunrise
Movement, Alternatives for Community and Environment, Missouri Coalition for
the Environment, Action St. Louis, Front and Centered, Climate Justice
Alliance, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Deep South Center for
Environmental Justice, California Environmental Justice Alliance, WE ACT for
EJ, Evergreen Action, Renew Missouri, St. Louis County Branch of the NAACP,
Union of Concerned Scientists, Data for Progress, Moms Clean Air Force, The
Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club, in addition to over 40 leading environmental
justice scholars.
In the House of
Representatives, Reps. Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-04), Alcee L. Hastings
(FL-20), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Bennie Thompson (MI-02),
Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44), Terri A. Sewell (AL-07),
Gwen S. Moore (WI-04), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23), Jerrold Nadler
(NY-10), Mondaire Jones (NY-17), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Mark DeSaulnier
(CA-11), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Grace
Napolitano (CA-32), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Emanuel Cleaver, II (MO-05),
Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Juan Vargas (CA-51), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Earl
Blumenauer (OR-03), Ritchie Torres (NY-15), Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11), Lisa
Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Doris Matsui (CA-06), Hank Johnson (GA-04), A. Donald
McEachin (VA-04), Diana DeGette (CO-01), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Jim Cooper
(TN-05), and Raul Grijalva (AZ-03) have joined the legislation as original
co-sponsors.
“Environmental justice
communities are not abstract entities to be treated solely as talking points.
These are real places, with real people facing quintessential challenges
engendered and exacerbated by decades of environmental racism and systemic and
wanton dehumanization that renders Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and poor
white communities into sacrifice zones,” said Anthony Rogers-Wright,
Director of Environmental Justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
(NYLPI). “This EJ community mapping tool is essential to determining where
Federal and State dollars should be primarily allocated and central to
advancing other key legislation that directs investment to historically
marginalized communities. Senator Markey’s legislation and the process by which
his staff created it lift up the interests and voices of the communities hit
first and worst by the climate crisis in alignment with the Jemez Principles -
the package and the process both warrant praise and appreciation.”
“Senator Markey's bill to
create an EJ road mapping tool and a committee to confront these issues could
not come at a better time. The Environmental Justice communities are at a
higher risk of contracting Covid-19. Highly polluted areas have been shown to
have higher rates of infection of this virus. We have to clean up our act to
protect vulnerable communities. This bill will help us to do that,” said
Mela Bush Miles, Transit-Oriented Development Director at Alternatives for
Community and Environment. “ACE has spent over a quarter of a century
working to address Climate, Transit and Environmental Justice and the disparate
impact to protected groups when corporations and municipalities have no
accountability. We are in support of this bill as it hits many markers like
creating a fund to support the cleanup of toxins. The establishment of a
committee to oversee and make recommendations is essential; it must include an
advocate that has real lived experience with the issues at hand.”
“I have reviewed and support
Senator Markey’s bill to establish an environmental justice mapping committee.
The bill addresses the important need for developing a tool to create a
national map of Black and other people of color communities who are
disproportionately burdened by pollution. Importantly, the bill sets forth the
collection of data on a range of factors contributing to environmental
injustice and racially disparate climate vulnerability. A major strength of the
bill is the recognition of the importance of the data to guide corrective
action and contribute to overcoming the longstanding barriers to environmental
justice,” said Beverly Wright, Executive Director of the Deep South Center
for Environmental Justice. “I am pleased with the provisions of the bill
that value community participation on the proposed environmental justice
mapping committee as well as in the work of the committee to engage communities
in developing, updating, and ground-truthing the tool for mapping and data
collection.”
"As a national alliance
of frontline groups and environmental justice organizations, the Climate
Justice Alliance is excited to support the establishment of this interagency
committee as a good starting point and first step toward engaging the very
communities who have bared the brunt of environmental racism and injustice for
far too long,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director of UPROSE and
Board Co-Chair of the Climate Justice Alliance. We look forward to ensuring
it truly supports those communities most impacted, those who are forging local
climate justice solutions that stop the practice of sacrifice zones continued
through false solutions, and rather resource just, community based solutions
that leave no one behind."
"The Environmental
Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021 is a foundational step toward
improving the conditions of Black, Indigenous and People of Color living with a
high environmental exposure. "The Act" does more than just identify
these communities-many of which we know have existed for generations, but
actually positions these communities to see the kind of policy outcome that
will directly improve people's lives,” said Jamesa Johnson Greer, Climate
Justice Director at Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, a member
organization of the Climate Justice Alliance.
"The Environmental
Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021 addresses the critical need of
accurately identifying communities who have been systematically overexposed to
pollution and contamination for way too long. Importantly, the Act incorporates
other indicators of vulnerability, such as income, unemployment, homeownership,
and educational attainment levels, rent burden, and linguistic isolation into
the indicators for identifying environmental justice communities, recognizing how
these injustices intersect and reinforce each other,” said Basav Sen,
Climate Policy Director at the Institute for Policy Studies.
“We don’t just need to bring
our energy, technology and infrastructure into the 21st century, we also need
to modernize our data and mapping capabilities—especially if we want to keep
campaign promises to communities of color harmed by poverty and pollution,” said
Marcela Mulholland, Political Director at Data for Progress. “Senator
Markey’s Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021 is a
critical piece of legislation that will empower communities and policymakers
with the data they need to advance equitable policies in the fight against
climate change.”
“This bill from Senator
Markey is a critical step towards rectifying the harm of generations of
environmental racism,” said Evergreen Action Executive Director Jamal Raad.
“Sen. Markey’s Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2020
provides a roadmap for environmental justice, by empowering the federal
government with new tools to identify which communities have been
disproportionately harmed by climate change and pollution. The legislation also
rightly makes clear that affected communities must have a seat at the table
throughout the decision making process. Sen. Markey’s bill will provide
critical data to help President Biden fulfill his plan to invest 40% of federal
green spending in frontline communities and jumpstart the path to environmental
justice in America.”
“Senator
Markey, Senator Duckworth, and Congresswoman Bush’s EJ mapping bill is a
comprehensive, long-overdue effort to ensure federal investment in the mapping
and data collection needed to identify communities harmed by or at risk of
suffering environmental injustices. These maps and data of new and existing
sources of pollution can form the bedrock of a range of national policies to
benefit communities that have long been marginalized by systemic racism and its
accompanying adverse environmental, economic and public health burdens,” said
Adrienne Hollis, Senior Climate Justice and Health Scientist at the Union of
Concerned Scientists. “This bill also provides a clear process for the
federal government to interact in a true and transparent partnership with
stakeholders, including environmental justice communities and advocates.
Additionally, it acknowledges the invaluable contributions of existing data,
historical knowledge and information, community science- including data
gathered by affected communities, and academic science. This legislation is a
giant step in the right direction.”
“After decades of segregation
and disenfranchisement, environmental justice communities throughout New
England are now bearing the brunt of climate and health threats like dirty air,
extreme heat, and flooding,” said Conservation Law Foundation President
Bradley Campbell. “Senator Markey’s bill will ensure that these communities
get the resources they need to protect their families and businesses while
giving them a voice in government decisions that affect them. This bill
recognizes that it’s past time to remedy the longstanding injustice suffered by
frontline communities.”
“Climate change, worsening
natural disasters, and decades of toxic pollution have all compounded to create
a detrimental force working against Black, Brown and Indigenous communities who
are living in sacrifice zones,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president
for environmental justice, climate and community revitalization at the National
Wildlife Federation. “Senator Markey’s bill will help identify gaps in data
and resources to direct funding where it is truly needed so we can help ensure
frontline and fence line communities are afforded the same protections as
everyone else.”
“Technology like geospatial
mapping tools can help us understand the burdens that frontline and fenceline
communities face,” said Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Director of the Community
Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH) lab at the University of
Maryland. “Properly investing in these tools, and using them to drive
decision-making will help us advance climate equity and environmental justice,
which is crucial if we want to create healthy and resilient communities for all
particularly for populations whose communities have been used as sacrifice
zones.”
"This bill is an
essential first step in ensuring that climate investments benefit the
communities that need them most. Passing this bill would help communities to
fight for home energy retrofits for low-income households, increased public
transit, healthy green retrofits to schools, and remediation of existing
pollution. From a social science perspective, this bill does an excellent job
highlighting the broad range of metrics needed to fully capture environmental
injustice,” said Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology and
Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative at the University of
Pennsylvania.