>> Our babies are being born with this pollution in their bodies.

Women are having miscarriages.

Some of them have preemies.

All of this because of the pollution.

>> There would not be no justice to the 40, if it wasn't the blood, sweat and tears, the death, sickness and illness of our people for not only 30 years, but for hundreds of years.

>> Not only is it the blatant structural racism that's taking place now, but what is happening around...around democracy.

>> You know, you own your property, but we're going to fast track and make sure we can drill in your backyard, and you have no say on what that means.

>> It's about wealth.

>> A lot of these solutions are actually just to extend fossil fuel infrastructures because they want to keep making money.

>> And how can we create a living economy of respect and harmony with that sacredness of Mother Earth and not an extractive economy?

>> We bear the brunt of the production of plastic.

>> Environmental racism is, I know it sounds harsh, but as a tribal person, you can't help but feel that.

>> Environmental racism is the problem.

Environmental justice is the solution to the problem.

♪ Funding for Environmental Justice: 30 Years of Federal Focus is provided by Public Information and Community Outreach, and the United States Department of Energy.

♪ ♪ Carolyn Sawyer> Hello, and welcome to Working Toward Environmental Justice: 30 years of Federal Focus.

I'm Carolyn Sawyer.

Thanks for being with us.

In 1994, former president Bill Clinton made history by signing Executive Order 12898.

This landmark document directed federal agencies to consider environmental justice in all policies, programs, and activities.

The aim was to ensure that minority and low income communities are not disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards.

30 years later, President Joseph Biden reinforced that measure with Executive Order 14008.

Breathing new vigor into the environmental justice movement.

I'm joined here today by a diverse group of individuals who've dedicated their lives to fighting for environmental justice.

To discuss what we've accomplished, what we've learned, and how we need to carry on.

We want to jump right in on this conversation.

I did the math.

Collectively, You all have been out here in the EJ movement over 150 years.

Richard, I'm going to take you back to 1991.

Richard> Okay.

Carolyn> And there was a meeting, a summit.

And some say this summit actually is what pushed Clinton four years later to come up with the first order.

Tell us about the summit.

Richard> Yeah, I really appreciate the question.

I think the convening of the First People of Color Summit and where we are today, I think there was several significant things that came out of that.

And I think many of us are actually practicing the ethics of what our people did and the decisions that were made at the First People of Color Summit.

One of those is that it's not by sheer accident, that communities of color and native indigenous communities are being targeted for everything that others, in many cases, don't want in their communities.

Now we're just going to be real, real with each other here.

Some of the stuff that we've seen, some of the things that have been talked about, would not be permitted to happen in other communities.

Let's just be really real about that.

The other thing, I think that goes along in history, unfortunately, speaks for itself is that we've proven the fact that our communities are being targeted.

There was a report that was put out, many, many years back, and a consulting firm that was hired by business, by industry saying, where should we locate our facilities?

And they very clearly, laid it out.

Locate them in in what's perceived as undereducated communities.

Locate them in communities.

that don't have political clout, locate them in communities that are Catholic.

When you look at the state of New Mexico and see what the Catholic population is, then very clearly they laid out that.

The other significance is that when we came together, we realized it wasn't just us.

It wasn't just my community in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

and so we made significant decisions at the First People of Color Summit as people of color, as Native Indigenous, as Latinos, as Asian Pacific Islanders, and African Americans, that we would go back to our communities and continue to assist in the building of very powerful grassroots organizations that we had to do this together.

None of us were going to be able to do it by ourselves.

Carolyn> Tom, you were there, as well, correct?

Tom> I was, I was, at that time the, the coordinator of, the largest tribe in Minnesota's environmental protection program.

And it was during that time that, we found that the majority of the tribes in this country, 474 tribes, did not have environmental protection infrastructure programs in place.

And we found out that we got one tenth of 1% of the funding of EPA for Indian Country.

And that was a time when we look at a lot of the mineral, the extractive industry contracts that were negotiated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is another federal agency that has a responsibility to develop Indian lands, but also kind of a trustee relationship to take care of Indians.

So I was invited by one of my clan sisters and told me about this large summit coming up that I should be there since I've been elevating this equity issue as far as funding and, the role of the government of the United States, and as fiduciary trustee responsibility under treaty agreements that we've made with the US government, government to government nation to nation.

Way back when that they weren't providing support to tribal nations to develop programs.

I said that's the big issue, big issue, whether it's managing our solid waste or toxic waste, pollution, air pollution, water pollution, all those concerns that state governments have.

And we have a special, under American law, we have a special status in the government here that we are sovereign.

We are not mere stakeholders.

We are rights holders.

And that's why it's important at this, people of color gathering that the American Indian, Alaska Natives are there, participating because we definitely have a lot of concerns about environmental racism, environmental justice.

But we've been experiencing this since 1492.

You know, we're always really, touched in my heart at this summit in '91, was the tribal members, the grass roots of youth, women's societies and elders coming together.

They weren't part of tribal government.

They were grassroots telling this story just like other folks were.

And that was a formation of our network as indigenous people that I'm with now.

And it came out of there to organize, organize and organize back in the areas we're from.

And we're still doing that.

We're still doing that.

Carolyn> Lessie I want you to talk to me about your engagement back in 1991 and then now, 30 years later, particularly at the local level, Lessie> There are several things going on with me personally and professionally and politically, in 1991.

One, I was an elected official, I was the first female to run for public office in my town, and, the first one to get elected after one unsuccessful run.

In addition too, I was working at Savannah River Site, and there were things going on regarding environmental justice and programs taking place in terms of informing folks of our safety at Savannah River Site, educating the public on the processes taking place.

But politically, I...decided to recommend to city council to... an environmental committee, and that was largely due to my personal concerns and my community about solid waste and the disposal of solid waste.

Recognizing that these were the things we need to be taking care of now and not wait until later to address.

And we formed an environmental committee.

And as we as we go towards 30 years, that has benefited us greatly in terms of having that open dialog, the kinds of things we were doing in terms of addressing renewable energy.

You have to have the total package in terms of working to get together to address those concerns.

Carolyn> What's nice about this panel is they come from all over the country, and it's interesting as well that the concerns don't seem to be too different all over the country.

Catherine, I'm turning to you now, as she mentioned waste.

I'm thinking about how you got into EJ and then what, last year you're introducing President Biden as he's coming up with an updated order.

So talk to me about the last 30 years and what you see.

Catherine> I think that the fact that I come from Lowndes County, Alabama, which is located between Selma and Montgomery, I just remember growing up in a rural community where, they would spray DDT around where we lived and everything would die.

And years later we saw people developing Cancer very early because of the exposure.

in addition to that, there was lots of raw sewage underground, you know, people would flush their toilets and it would go out on the ground.

When I grew up, people had outhouses and slop jars.

People who are old enough to remember that know what I'm talking about.

And when I left, Lowndes County and became a teacher, I thought a lot of those things had changed.

Then I went back and marched from Selma to Montgomery, and all along the way, people were coming to me because I was an activist in high school telling me about the problems they were still experiencing.

And then I moved back and I saw that there could be no sustainable economic development without having infrastructure.

And as time went on, we started fighting the sanitation fight a lot of people didn't recognize it as an issue in the US.

And since that time, it has not only been recognized as an issue.

Other people, I think, now feel comfortable talking about the fact that, the sanitation systems in many places are not working properly or people don't have access, and then you have the intersection with climate change and those systems that have been in place are failing and it forces sewage back into people's homes.

And consequently, this is where I think the intersection of health and environmental justice come together at least as one example.

So what I've seen is that we are now talking about the environmental injustices on a regular basis, in a way in which we never talked about them before.

And I'm hearing from people who didn't recognize that they were living in the, in situations that were unjust or they were being chosen, to site, either plants or even wastewater treatment or sewage lagoons in their neighborhood, that it is an environmental issue, and that it is it tends to happen in marginalized communities.

Carolyn> I was actually going to turn to Christine in California and tell me what EJ means to you.

And then when you look at the last 30 years, because you have a very personal story of growing up across from the plant.

Christine> Yeah.

So I grew up...so mostly when people think of the Bay area, you think of tech, think about the Golden Gate Bridge.

And what folks don't know is just neighboring to San Francisco.

There's the county that I grew in Contra Costa County, and we have, four of the five refineries.

And California actually refines, a ton of oil and gas in that area.

And I didn't know this growing up.

Like, if you ask anybody on the street now, if they know about the executive order on environmental justice.

No, no.

Probably not.

Right.

But what we do know is that sometimes the air would be so bad that it would strip the paint off the muscle cars my family used to take care of.

Right.

My cousins that they cared about.

And one of the, one of the things I love about working for APEN, Asian Pacific Environmental Network is my family, my communities are included in our work, So all along the county there are there are communities like ours who live right next door to a polluting facility, a refinery, a chemical plant, a gas plant.

And we have to figure out how to live.

So in, in not just, you know, kind of things that I thought were normal growing up, I didn't know weren't normal, like a lot of kids had, you know, asthma.

Instead of, passing out snacks on the playground, you know, our...nurse organizers, they talked about passing out inhalers, right.

And so this is very common.

And so, I think over the 30 years, the one thing that has been interesting to watch is that with the increase of climate change impacts, more and more folks are kind of starting to come home a little closer.

And now that the issue affects more people rather than just our communities, it's like, oh, this is everybody's problem now.

Like, we all got to work on this now and it can't be, if you had cared about our communities earlier, maybe would have started fixing this stuff because we're the communities that have been carrying the burden, right, of these companies, polluting our neighborhoods.

And really, we're just trying to live, Carolyn> Beto, your story's not too different from hers in terms of how you came up in the California region, as well.

Can you share it with us?

Beto> You know, I grew up on a nitro petrochemical facility because my parents were part of a first time home owner project where they had to be part of of building the home.

And so when we think about environmental racism, you know, I knew there was something wrong.

I didn't know it right away.

I was youth, you know, we're just having fun.

We're just happy to have a home, but we are being pushed into this place.

Later, realizing the dangers that, that we were living next to chemical in the air.

Every day they had spills.

They had releases.

They had fires, all of that.

So all of that culminated to an actionable organizing effort where a community came together and said, we don't want this in our neighborhood anymore any longer.

And at that moment, I think that we didn't even realize it was environmental justice, like some others have said, you know, we, a lot of us, were working toward that, but we didn't know.

Carolyn> We're going to talk a little bit more about the organizing, and I'm actually going to have you meet a group.

This is an 85 mile stretch of land that's along the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

It has earned the nickname "Cancer Alley" because of its high concentration of petrochemical plants and refineries, and its high incidence of Cancer among residents.

Their cry for environmental justice has taken shape in the form of grassroots advocacy, mobilizing against industrial pollution and demanding reforms to protect their health.

♪ Sharon LaVigne> This is the fifth district in St. James Parish on the West Bank, where a lot of the petrochemical industries are in refineries.

We have 12 within a ten mile radius.

Our governor, John Bel Edwards announced in April of 2018 that a $9.4 billion for most of the plastic plant would be built in St. James, two miles from my home.

And I said, there's no way I'm right in the midst of it, me and my family.

And we said, no more.

Sharon> St. James residents.

Shamell LaVigne> RISE St. James was founded by my mom, Sharon LaVigne, in 2018.

Our mission is to prevent new industry from coming into "Cancer Alley", and also preventing an existing industry from expanding.

Sharon> So we sat down and we talked about it in anger because we felt like we are being the dumping ground.

The 6th district don't have any.

7th district don't have any.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd district, they don't have any.

It's wrong for them to do things, to pollute one community and not the other.

Shamell> We're overburdened in St. James, and we have the proof that these companies are violating their air permits.

We know that they're emitting more ethylene oxide than they should be.

We know that they are emitting nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfuric acid.

We can go into the database and look.

And so our job is to educate the public.

We do that through "Chemical of the Month".

We also have Rise University where we do a specific topic over 5 to 6 weeks online.

We want to make sure that the, the residents throughout "Cancer Alley" know what's being emitted into the air, the water and the soil, so that they can take action and they can decide what they want in their backyards, in terms of industry.

Sharon> We are trying to save our lives.

Our babies are being born with this pollution in their bodies.

Women are having miscarriages.

Some of them have preemies.

All of this because of the pollution.

Shamell> And it's not even the older folks that are being diagnosed with Cancer.

It's young folks.

We bear the brunt of the production of plastic.

Carolyn> In April of this year, the EPA issued new standards on toxic pollutants, many of which are prevalent in "Cancer Alley".

The move was the first time the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Organic Pollutants had been amended in 30 years.

EPA Director, Michael Regan invited Sharon to attend the ceremonial signing, but as we see from that story, the work continues.

And I think, Christine, I read something where you said the federal attention allows the voiceless to have voice.

What did you mean by that?

Christine> Well, one, I would I would definitely say that our communities have been voicing things for a very long time with the executive orders made different is that our electeds had to listen.

And I think with this, in particular, with the latest executive order, though, what we've seen is that there's actual federal backing in the forms of funds and investments that are saying we want money to go to the communities that have carried the burden for these industries to actually be able to transition to this clean, green economy.

Right.

So now you have money involved.

Carolyn> Are we seeing that money trickle down?

And I think I read somewhere, Catherine, where your concern was about technical training to be able to support communities with funding so that they could access it.

Catherine> Well, I think it's technical training, but I think it's also we have to change the economic paradigm.

Yes.

This administration has been very, very proactive in terms of funding.

You know, through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, there's now, what, $27 billion set aside to help.

But I'm wondering, what about those marginalized communities, those communities where they're constantly in debt and everybody that has a high interest rate can set up businesses in those communities where there's title loans or whatever.

So are they going to be able to have access to this clean energy tech?

Is it going to be based on a credit score?

I mean, is all of these kinds of things we have to think through that, along with providing training and entrepreneurial opportunities where someone doesn't come in from the outside, take away all the wealth, put this stuff up.

Don't leave anybody there with the capacity to maintain it and move on... That... those are the kinds of things that, that concerns me.

But I think that, there are enough community organizations on the ground to advocate and push to make sure that the money gets to the least of these.

Carolyn> Beto, I see you nodding your head.

That's what you want to hear.

Right?

Enough on the ground?

Beto> Yes.

Really want to hear, you know, that those investments make it, on the... to communities on the ground.

Right.

And ensuring that the benefits don't just make it, but they actually provide tangible benefits to the community.

Right.

There is a direct benefit because, you know, this is a monumental, opportunity that we have, right, to ensure that we tap into these resources.

But if, if the money is going to some of the bigger organizations in the area or people that have more capacity and have never done environmental justice and, and now are saying that they're doing environmental justice work because there's this precedent amount of funding, it actually can harm our communities further.

right, then I think that that also opens up the, the conversation about the academic institutions.

Right.

There's a lot of the money is going to academic institutions to research technologies that we know or don't have any proven scientific, methodologies behind it that are going to protect our communities.

So, this is another fight that we're against.

Richard explain to me, I hear the term Justice 40.

What does that mean?

Richard> Thank you for that.

You cannot have environmental justice without economic justice.

Let's be real about that.

So I say to that there would not be no justice to the 40 if it wasn't the blood, sweat and tears, the death, sickness and illness of our people for not only 30 years, but for hundreds of years.

And the impact by the US federal government and other agencies.

So Justice 40 is significant.

And so we will continue to put the justice on the 40.

We want our money.

That's our money.

That ain't a give away program, okay.

That's our money, our people.

I'm working for that money for generations and so on.

And so to clean up our communities, brownfield superfund sites.

I mean, you could go on and on and on with those injustices.

And we're not we're not saying, please give us the money, the resources to do this.

We're demanding and saying, you have the responsibility to do what's being done, not only in other communities for the protection of health, safety and well-being, but you have the same responsibility, US government, to make sure that our resources are going back to where we want them to go.

So that's a part of it.

Lessie> One of the greatest harm that we're doing to rural areas and depressed areas and distressed communities is not helping them to get information.

Now one may say, well, people are supposed to be intelligent.

They have the cell phones.

They have computers.

But having all of that and not knowing where to go to get that information has hindered them greatly.

And in my connection with rural communities, they are intimidated by some people with titles.

They believe that because they may be a mayor, a council member, that I can't afford any risk of going to the governor, for example, and saying something that may harm me personally from getting things from, from my community, for my community, to help my community.

So we have to break these barriers of fear of asking for what your community needs.

Carolyn> Catherine, Catherine> You know, the political structure is set up in such a way that now I'm concerned about democracy and I'm concerned about democracy and whether or not even with the policies being in place, are they going to stay in place?

And I'm very concerned about the battles to come.

I'm looking at the structural, not only the blatant structural racism that's taking place now, but what is happening around...around democracy and the right to vote.

And I'm concerned that if we with all the money that's on the federal level, what we're seeing in Alabama is what's going to happen, because a lot of it has to go through the states and once it gets to the state, they're doing the same thing they've always done.

Or they will find a person of color and form their own organization and give them a name that sounds like one of our organizations, and they get the money and they still go to those communities that shouldn't get it.

And the ones that need it, don't get it.

So I'm very concerned about that.

And I think that, a part of this discussion should also be why it is important for us to protect democracy, because we will have no environmental justice without.

Carolyn> Thank you.

Catherine.

I think democracy indeed is something we should all be paying close attention to.

I want to turn your attention now to hydropower.

It provides more than a quarter of the renewable electricity generation in the US, and about 40% of that hydroelectricity comes from the Columbia River.

But for indigenous peoples who've called the Columbia River Basin home for generations, this green energy is leaving a legacy of environmental harm.

Donella Miller> The Columbia River Basin covers a huge portion of the Pacific Northwest.

It creates the border between Washington and Oregon all the way from the Pacific Ocean.

With its headwaters being in Canada, there's been heavy use throughout its range, such as, you know, hydroelectricity, agriculture, transport, recreation, urbanization, all of these things have their, take their toll.

Elaine Harvey> Progress has had a higher proportion of negative impacts on the tribes of this region.

you know, number one is the is the hydro system.

There are over 200 dams in the Columbia Basin, and the main ones here in the Columbia River region displaced the tribes.

And it's a collection of these contaminants throughout the basin.

And there is supposed to be a natural flow that goes to the Columbia River.

And now you have reservoirs which capture and contain these toxic sediments in the Columbia.

And, you know, really, where does that pollution go then?

Donella> We consider ourselves salmon people.

And that's the heart of our culture, which our tribal religions revolve around.

The Columbia River was once home to 17 to 20 million salmon, numerous species, and that returned all throughout the year.

And now from the summer, and to our our Fall snook are struggling because of blocked access to their natal streams.

And then once they return, they're returning to this system of warm water pollutants and toxins.

The current situation at Bonneville Dam with Bradford Island, all of the fish that live there, have the highest concentrations of PCBs in the entire nation, and it was just listed in 2023 on the National Priorities List for clean up, and that took 20 years.

There's consumption advisories in every stretch of the river on every species that's here.

But yet we do not have a monitoring program to monitor the water quality in the the fish that...we eat, everybody in the Pacific Northwest eats It's maddening.

The long term monitoring program.

It really is a federal responsibility.

But the Yakama Nation actually started a pilot program for water quality in fish tissue monitoring.

But it's just been pieced together without any, secure long term funding.

And when you're looking at one, two, three year grants, you don't, you can't build capacity Elaine> Up and down the Columbia River, there's many superfund similar sites that aren't addressed.

And it's really hard because the tribes are not at the table.

I was citing many of those renewable energy projects, and it's like letting the tribes and the salmon carry the burden of green energy.

Carolyn> So I listened to that story and I gotta turn to you, Tom.

Are they actually listening to the indigenous peoples?

Tom> It's very frustrating to a lot of the people that we work with within our indigenous environmental network.

A lot of them come from that community, not only with the injustice of devastating a ecosystem and an aquatic ecosystem.

These are fish cultured people.

It's a spiritual relationship they have with the salmon, and that's been disrupted, not only that, but Hanford Nuclear Facility that has contaminated the region.

So layer after layer, and it reminds me of other stories of hydro-development where there had never been no consultation, consultation to ask for approval and permission from the people whose land is flooded.

It reminds me of the people up in North Dakota, where the Dakota access pipeline, that area of Fort Berthold in North Dakota also's land was flooded by Paul Energy policy of the United States decades ago.

All their traditional ways of producing the food corn, squash, beans, melons was destroyed.

And along with that was the culture.

And now in Minnesota, 25% of our electricity comes from Canada, from Cree and Ojibwe land whose lands are flooded, ruining their trap line culture, their fishing culture.

And they come to lobby in Minnesota saying, this is an injustice.

Please, Minnesota, don't write off hydroelectric as an offset.

Don't write it off as clean energy to meet your...requirements to demonstrate you're moving away from fossil fuels.

So we see these contradictions, in addition to the push for nuclear energy, as well.

It keeps on popping up and how do we hold policymakers accountable when somehow American Indian Alaska Natives are not on their agenda?

You know, it's a serious issue.

So a lot of what we've been fighting for, whether it's participating in the Green New Deal Network or as our Just Transition Alliance started to push, Just Transition is we're looking at structural systems change, something that does not work, especially when we have to redefine wealth, redefine what capitalism is, and how can we create a living economy of respect and harmony with that sacredness of Mother Earth and not an extractive economy, a fossil fuel economy.

That's kind of what we've been pushing for.

Yeah.

Carolyn> Lessie, you were saying they're hearing that in Washington?

Lessie> People are hearing this, but hearing... and action is two different things.

Getting the policies in force.

It's about wealth.

And we're not we don't have that perspective that we need as we look at governance, as we look at democracy, as you you've addressed.

That is not apparent in this time.

And at this age, it's, there's a different view of how you gain wealth and success in this climate.

Carolyn> Christine, you had wanted to have a comment after the last Christine> I'm numb.

Honorable Price, Ms. Lessie.

This is...so this idea of what is wealth, right, and who gets to have it and that we are in a culture that...

So the good news is... here's the good news, We've been talking about a lot of stuff that's really heavy, right.

What see, in California, and California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and what we see is that this transition is happening.

We will have to get off of fossil fuels because we cannot sustain on this planet as a human species unless we figure it out.

Right.

So to Tom's point about systems change, the end of the oil era is happening.

So part of what I see happening around the democracies, there is a desperation from people who have collected the wealth, who have been extracting for long, and they see that their time is coming, and they see that the veil has come from people who know that this is a problem we cannot sustain this way.

So for us, we're like, okay, the transition is going to happen.

Will it be just will this green economy actually benefit the communities that have been overburdened?

Right.

Or will they continue to dump the new toxics of the new economy onto the very same communities that you put it on the backs of the old one?

Right.

And it's going to take us engaging very actively in our democracy.

Tom, we asked ourselves that question at APEN, how do we convince the policymakers?

At some point we said, oh, we have to be the policymakers, right.

So it's also why we do civic engagement work at APEN, because it isn't going to be enough.

No one, no one, changes anything or fixes anything with one tool.

Right.

So when we think about doing the systems change, how are we actually attacking it or building it and creating it from all different points, whether it's active engagement of citizens, whether it's being and protecting our democracy, and making sure we can engage in that way, organizing on the ground and doing that, and coming up with the solutions that are actually solutions.

Right.

So under the veil of the green economy, our relatives in Columbia River, this is happening all over.

They're pushing all kinds of things.

And frankly, I think oil and gas got in front of us a lot of these solutions are actually just to extend fossil fuel infrastructures because they want to keep making money.

So you'll hear about things like all kinds of weird, funny tech stuff, hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels, things like this, all of that.

I'm sorry, is "whowey".

Just like we are saying that they are they are solutions, but when you dig under the covers to the point, Beto was talking about, there's actually... they got so much money for things that are not proven.

They force our communities to prove over and over that we're getting sick.

Right?

But these companies get to do whatever they want.

And they've got like this little study that they, they did that they funded, and they get all this money to then continue polluting our communities.

So I think the good news is, is that the change is coming.

And the question is, are we going to be on top of it or are we going to be underneath it?

Carolyn> Richard, I see the excitement in your eye.

Richard> Oh yeah.

You know, I think there has been some movement forward.

On the other side of that, You can't talk about those successes without making the proper decisions politically and otherwise to derail legacy communities.

Let me give you a very quick example.

We're still dealing in New Mexico with 1945.

Where was the atomic bomb tested at?

In southern New Mexico.

They said, oh, we're out here in this field where nobody lives, and we're just going to we're going to experiment with this atomic bomb right here.

Our people were ranching, living around those areas.

The animals were impacted.

Our people, this many generations later.

Still today, many of our people are suffering from Cancer, generational Cancer, one after another after another.

New Mexico's a military colony of the US.

Let's just be very clear about that.

We've got military sites that are responsible for the, for the contamination and poisoning of our people, my community in Albuquerque, part of the pollution, the contamination of the water and so on is coming from a military facility and has come from a military facility.

So we got it.

Yes, correctly.

Democracy.

Our folk...have never experienced democracy since time being.

Hydrogen is not good for our people, whatever color it is.

that's another experiment.

So why do our people, from generation to generation, have to continue to be experimented on?

So we've come some ways, but we got to be strong sisters and brothers.

I'm going to tell you at the end of the day, we need to stay united.

We...are not to allow any institutional, or any government pit us against each other, any other institution to do that, we need to build strong community based organizations, student organizations, and we need to continue to build an intergenerational movement, that helps to move our communities and our people forward.

Carolyn> I see Beto nodding, and I want to get Catherine an opportunity to comment on this segment as well.

Beto> Yeah, it's also our integrity, right, and our commitments to our communities, our ancestors, those who have paved the way for us to continue this fight.

And I say that because when we think about, you know, who's at the decision making table, right.

What...is a prior informed consent?

What is it?

What are those things that need to happen?

And, you know, there's a long list of policies that have been really informed by community organizations over the last 30 years that have been implemented, but it has been also ensuring that the community and the policymaker are at the table together and really drafting those policies.

Right.

You cannot do that without community.

You need the community there to know which are the policies we want, what do we want to see in our neighborhoods.

So again, we want to acknowledge a lot of the... the winds that have happened, right, in our communities.

But there is still a lot of work to do.

The decision making and any policy making solutions have to be informed by our communities to ensure that we can move forward in a just, in a just and equitable way.

Carolyn> Catherine, what can others do if they too, are worried about democracy?

Catherine> Vote, because that's the only way we're going to change things.

And I got to say that there has been progress made.

Some of the progress that I've seen has been, at least with this administration, to acknowledge that environmental justice is a real thing.

And we have been able to use some of the tools, to fight for environmental justice in Alabama.

But those tools would not be valid if we do not vote in November.

And we don't change things, because if we don't, then we're going to be right back where we started.

Panelists> You are so correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Lessie> One of the most optimistic thing that I'm seeing right now is our younger generation coming along and being more informed about environmental science and seeing the seasoned individuals that have really paved the path for these younger folks, really bringing them into the fold.

And that is where we need to be focused on as well.

Catherine> There's lots of hope... that I'm seeing in young people, and I'm glad to see that there are, young people that are reaching out.

We have an internship with our program where young people are helping us to collect data that is not there, because people feel that if the data is not there, that there's no policy to address the issue, but young people are very much driving that.

So I feel like, the fact that environmental justice was something they really didn't talk about a whole lot in Alabama, but now the fact that young people are interested in hearing that message gives me hope.

And for my indigenous brothers and sisters, the one thing that I learned about learned in Standing Rock was the 7th generation principle.

And I have since led my life by that principle, It's making sure that any work that I do benefits the 7th generation.

Christine> International thinking, intergenerational organizing, all of that.

So we organize across three generations.

The, we actually have youth that co-designed, what's what they call a youth deliberation hub, where we have solar and battery backup power so that it can be a climate resilience hub for the community.

And they based it on what their families, intergenerational families needed, places where you can refrigerate medication that's needed, where when the energy runs out, you can still run your medical machines.

And in the case of California wildfires, sometimes we can't breathe outside.

You know, so what are these places that communities already trust where we can build these hubs, right?

And I think if you start listening to young people, they actually know what is needed and what they want, and that there's a vision for our communities that we have had, right, this whole time, and that the way to get there is actually going to be paved with the young people that believe in the future, we have to build, in an engaged democracy that we need to- It's not something you do one time at the ballot box either, right.

We got to know what those laws are, being passed.

So in California, we're so successful that they try to, they try to overturn the laws that we, that we put in.

This is where oil and gas is at this point.

And then they try to buy our politicians.

They're the second largest giving, sector to politicians in California, oil and gas.

And that's because they know how powerful we are.

We just passed a law that said, maybe you shouldn't oil drill within a mile of a kid or a school.

And you know what they're doing?

They're putting that to the ballot.

They want to overturn that.

They want to drill within a mile of your house and your school, right.

It's, it's kind of bananas.

And so on the one hand, this can be very discouraging.

But on the other hand, I think they see how powerful we're becoming.

And they know that their time is up.

Tom> So how do we get a political will of industrialized countries throughout the world to wind down oil development, to move away from a fossil fuel economy and phase out fossil fuel?

I've been bringing indigenous delegations to the UN climate meetings.

And I just recently in Dubai, back in November, it was really difficult to get world leaders to agree to a phase out of fossil fuels.

And there were more lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry than some of the governments had in delegations.

And the United States' role and Canada's role is something that people need to witness as well.

Sometimes we hold the administration, Biden's administration as a caregiver around addressing climate issues, energy issues, EJ issues, but we don't have that support there.

What is the politics that causes that?

So when I first heard of carbon trading, carbon offsets, carbon... emissions trading, carbon pricing, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation called red in the global South.

I wanted to know what that was.

I found out this is what it is.

And I'll use an example of people in Richmond, California that live where Chevron Oil Refinery is.

So they ask now, once they learn about carbon trading, they asked Chevron how come you're not cutting back your emissions?

And they basically say, this is my translation.

They say, You don't understand.

The community says, what is it, we don't understand.

Well, we're going carbon neutral.

We're offsetting our carbon.

The community says, How are you doing that?

We're still suffering from respiratory illnesses.

We're sick and dying.

They said, Well, this is how we're doing it.

We're buying carbon credits to protect the forests and the Amazon.

Okay.

And, and by doing that, we're offsetting our pollution in the North, you know, and, so the community said that doesn't help us.

We're in a toxic hot spot.

And how do you know that the mathematics is working?

That's where we come in, in the research.

There's been more studies within the past five years that carbon offsets, carbon trading, carbon emissions, ...they don't work.

It does not cut emissions at source.

So, but they're still coming to our Black people, colored, and Indigenous communities selling this like a snake oil seller saying, "Hey, we can give you money.

"And for you farmers, will even give you money "so you don't turn the soil.

You sequester the carbon," but no one is told to ask.

And where does that money come from?

Is it coming from federal government?

Is it coming from some congressional law?

No, it's coming from the polluters.

They're the ones that are putting that money, whether it's in the Global South, and now it's in the United States.

It's being couched.

It's just transition.

Billions of dollars is earmarked for carbon capture and storage, carbon capture use and storage.

And these type of experimental...things, You know, and so now we have to spend a lot of energy just doing research, staying on top of the complexities of these issues that are being now presented to our people as we re-frame it as another environmental justice issue.

When you bring carbon into a trading system, into a market system and treat it as a commodity, one of the things that they need to determine is who owns that commodity, who owns that carbon to trade it?

It's the corporation.

The corporation ends up owning the carbon in that.

And that's why we're linking now environmental justice with the economic mandates we got in '91 and part of systems change, change that system around to a living, respectful economy that we can relate to as community rather than a destructive, extractive economy.

Christine> Can I give an example?

So, in Richmond, which is where we organized where Tom mentioned, we also said, you know, unless you stop pollution at the smokestack, you can't do this trading or whatever in and out.

And we've been like, how do you actually keep wealth in the community?

And this has been a huge thing, right.

Because we both want to be off Chevron's money, but we also think they should have given a lot more in the last 100 years that they've been polluting Richmond.

Right.

So we actually are going to do a local, city measure that says they need to give a dollar for every barrel of oil that they make in Richmond that actually goes directly back into the city fund, versus it..., they can pay it somewhere else X, Y, and Z.

Right.

And then over time, we're saying we need to actually not be dependent on the money from the fossil fuel industry.

We need to start building up the regenerative economies that we need in order to stay, to have money local.

So some of the ideas around what we would use for the local fund is like cleanup and remediation, because the quality of the land can also give you the quality, the economy that can be on there.

Right.

Like, if the land's not cleaned up, you can't put housing on it, right?

Carolyn> Right.

Christine> You can't put a playground, which is what a lot of our folks want.

And so we've been thinking about, okay, you got to like, wean yourself off for one thing and then grow off, grow up the other stream in order to actually make the community that folks... Our youth, they just want like a roller rink.

They want to not have to go to Oakland to socialize.

Right?

Like they want their town to be vibrant.

They don't want to have to have days where they can't go outside, you know.

And so there's, there's some basic things.

And Chevron is 2900 acres in Richmond.

It's waterfront property.

Right.

So then there's like what will happen?

How will we re-purpose and rezone that land?

Our community has ideas for what that could look like.

And so there's this question of if you pay... like Chevron should have to pay for how the 100 years of polluting that land, right.

And that we know that we cannot depend on that money for the sustainability of our community.

So we've been talking about what would it look like to bolster small business, you know, small businesses, community co-ops and collectives, and so that there's actually a regenerative economy and where the wealth actually stays and circulates, where the, where the impacts have happened And part of it is like part of the problem has been these relationships are so far away, you know, it's so easy to pollute some place that you have no relationship to.

If you don't love the land, if you don't understand the people, you'd be like, okay, yeah, dump it over there.

But what we're saying is like, actually, what is in our own backyard, how do we make that relationship closer?

Because the minute you're close to something, it's still very hard to harm it.

We're actually just trying to re-fix that on things that have been spread way too far that we're trying to say, okay, this is our home, and it's worth protecting for the seven generations forward.

And what are we willing to do to make that happen?

Carolyn> Beto, I see you.

Beto> Yes.

Yeah.

So on the cap and trade, I think, I know that, Christine was alluding to that, but we are all alluding to also that one of the false allusions.

Right, because those mechanisms continue to poison our communities.

We saw it in California.

We've seen it in Bakersfield, California, You know, policies around eminent domain.

You know, you own your property, but we're going to fast track and make sure we can drill in your backyard.

And you have no say on what that means.

And here we are continuing those fights to ensure that that doesn't continue to harm our communities.

When the cap and trade was passed in California, back when the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2008, you know, it was really new and it was like, whoa, what do we do?

But next time, when they wanted that extension, we said, no, you have not demonstrated anything in your modeling, where this offsets this pollution has shifted.

What money is giving back to our communities?

We didn't see any investment.

The thing was, we're going to take, money from the, the cap and trade and put it in DACs disadvantaged, communities.

That never happened.

It actually perpetuated more harm and more pollution.

Carolyn> I want to tell you about the first environmental justice protest that gained national attention back in 1982.

Dr. Ben Chavis was one of more than 500 people arrested for protesting the establishment of a PCB landfill in the primarily Black community of Warren County, North Carolina.

The event exposed a multitude of similar situations nationwide, and Dr. Chavis has continued to champion environmental justice issues in a number of capacities ever since.

Let's take a listen to his thoughts on the evolution of the movement since then.

Dr. Chavis> No.

You know, social change does not happen overnight.

Unfortunately, it is a process, sometimes a long process over several years or even over several decades.

So, the way I see the evolution of the environmental justice movement since we first started in 1982, in Warren County, North Carolina, in fact, there's just been a lot of progress.

I think the progress has probably been understated and undervalued, because you still want to pay attention to the discrimination, the disparities that still exist.

But what gives me hope and what gives me a new sense of, enthusiasm is the fact that the knowledge that we were able to make a difference.

And when you see that you can make a difference, you want to keep on making a difference.

You don't want to retire.

You don't want to say, okay, we've gotten as far as we can.

No, we have to keep pushing.

And I think that young people today, in particular millennials and generation Z, are hungering and thirsting for issues around the environment, the climate, to improve the overall quality of life.

Carolyn> And Dr Chavis has much hope for the future.

And I posed the question to our panel members this afternoon as we wrap up this conversation.

What would you say to those young people of the future about carrying EJ 30 more years forward?

Christine> Our young people actually teach me every day.

And what I've learned from them is that the antidote to hope is often, action and action with each other.

So I tell young people every day, find your gift, figure out how to apply it to the home you love.

Because I know we all have homes and communities we love, and the time to act is now and later is too late.

And that, in that love for our people, we will find a way forward.

Carolyn> Richard, what would you tell them?

Richard> Well, I think that, a lot of a little bit, adds up to a whole lot of things and a whole lot of work that we could do together.

I'll say, in response to that, what my elders or our elders, said to us in the 1960s, they ask us to never forget three things.

And so that's what I leave.

the first thing is never forget where you come from.

The second thing was always remember who was...whose shoulders you stand on, and particularly those that have given it, given up their lives to make it possible for us to be in this struggle.

And then third, was always give back to others what's been given to us.

So that's, that's what we tend to operate under in Los Angeles Institute.

Carolyn> Thank you.

Richard.

Some profound words to really apply.

Carolyn> Lessie.

Lessie> The world needs you.

The world needs your knowledge.

You have been left with, with a lot of legacy history.

Whatever you choose to do with environmental justice, give it all that you have.

Do not let anyone discourage you from your belief.

Believe in yourself through some advice from others, but having the advice, you decide about the risks that you will take.

Take those risks, if your gut tells you this is what you need to do.

Don't be afraid.

Pray and move on.

Carolyn> Tom, now one thing I do, tell our youth back home, many of them are native, of course, indigenous, is, remember who you are, and learn your language and understand what your relationship is with the sacredness of Mother Earth, and be proud and confident.

Carolyn> Beto.

Beto> Yeah.

So, I would say to the youth, you know, environmental justice and climate justice principles are so instrumental, right, in ensuring that they understand they are equal partners in all the decision making.

We are not isolating our youth from our, our years of organizing, right, is not disconnected.

So, really ensuring that they know that they have the power to continue and to continue pushing to get to the justice that we need.

We cannot do that without the youth.

They are our future.

Carolyn> Catherine.

Catherine> All major movements in the world that has led to change are led by young people, and I have all the confidence in the world that for the next 30 years, young people will lead that change.

Carolyn> Thanks so much, Catherine.

Appreciate those remarks.

I want to thank each of our panelists for sharing their insights today.

I'd also like to thank our studio audience for being with us.

And thank you for tuning in to Working towards Environmental Justice: 30 years of Federal Focus.

We appreciate your time.

Take care.

♪ (applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Narrator> Funding for Environmental Justice: 30 years of Federal Focus is provided by public information and community outreach.

And the United States Department of Energy.