[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






 
           H.R. 2021, ``ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR ALL ACT''

=======================================================================

                          LEGISLATIVE HEARING

                               before the

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                       Tuesday, February 15, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-14

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
       
       
       
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          Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
          
          
          
          
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              U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
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                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                      RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
                JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, IL, Vice Chair
   GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
                  BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Ranking Member

Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Don Young, AK
Jim Costa, CA                        Louie Gohmert, TX
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Doug Lamborn, CO
    CNMI                             Robert J. Wittman, VA
Jared Huffman, CA                    Tom McClintock, CA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Garret Graves, LA
Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Jody B. Hice, GA
Joe Neguse, CO                       Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Mike Levin, CA                       Daniel Webster, FL
Katie Porter, CA                     Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM           Russ Fulcher, ID
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM             Pete Stauber, MN
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Diana DeGette, CO                    Jerry L. Carl, AL
Julia Brownley, CA                   Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Debbie Dingell, MI                   Blake D. Moore, UT
A. Donald McEachin, VA               Yvette Herrell, NM
Darren Soto, FL                      Lauren Boebert, CO
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU        Jay Obernolte, CA
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Cliff Bentz, OR
Ed Case, HI                          Vacancy
Betty McCollum, MN
Steve Cohen, TN
Paul Tonko, NY
Rashida Tlaib, MI
Lori Trahan, MA

                     David Watkins, Staff Director
                       Luis Urbina, Chief Counsel
               Vivian Moeglein, Republican Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

                                CONTENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Tuesday, February 15, 2022.......................     1

Statement of Members:
    Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arizona...........................................     2
        Prepared statement of....................................     3
    Stauber, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Minnesota.........................................     4
        Prepared statement of....................................     6

Statement of Witnesses:
    Brower, Hon. Harry K., Jr., Mayor, North Slope Borough, 
      Utqiagvik, Alaska..........................................    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    22
    Cahn, Amy Laura, Director, Environmental Justice Clinic, 
      Vermont Law School, South Royalton, Vermont................    24
        Prepared statement of....................................    26
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    33
    Cortez, Laura, Co-Executive Director, East Yard Communities 
      for Environmental Justice, Commerce, California............     7
        Prepared statement of....................................     9
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    11
    Sheats, Nicky, Director, Center for the Urban Environment, 
      John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research, 
      Kean University, Hamilton, New Jersey......................    12
        Prepared statement of....................................    13
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    16

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Submissions for the Record by Chair Grijalva

        Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Letter of 
          Support, dated February 14, 2022.......................    91
        Anna Julia Cooper Center, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 14, 2022......................................    92
        Center for Earth Energy & Democracy, Letter of Support, 
          dated February 14, 2022................................    94
        Center for Food Safety, Letter of Support, dated February 
          14, 2022...............................................    95
        Children's Environmental Health Network, Letter of 
          Support, dated February 10, 2022.......................    96
        CleanAirNow KC, Letter of Support, dated February 8, 2022    97
        Clean Water Action, Letter of Support, dated February 14, 
          2022...................................................    98
        Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed, Letter of 
          Support, dated February 11, 2022.......................    99
        Equitable and Just National Climate Platform Co-authors, 
          Statement for the Record...............................   100
        Friends Committee on National Legislation, Statement for 
          the Record, dated March 1, 2022........................   101
        GreenLatinos, Letter of Support, dated February 14, 2022.   103
        Healthy Gulf, Statement for the Record...................   104
        Inclusive Louisiana, Statement for the Record............   105
        Interfaith Power & Light-New Mexico, Letter of Support, 
          dated February 14, 2022................................   106
        Letter of Support from 27 Organizations, dated February 
          14, 2022...............................................   107
        Letter of Support from 165+ Organizations, dated February 
          15, 2022...............................................   110
        Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Letter of 
          Support, dated February 14, 2022.......................   116
        Our Future West Virginia, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 14, 2022......................................   117
        Outdoors Alliance for Kids, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 14, 2022......................................   118
        People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources, 
          Letter of Support, dated February 8, 2022..............   120
        River Network, Letter of Support, dated February 14, 2022   121
        Silent Spring Institute, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 14, 2022......................................   122
        The Alliance for Appalachia, Statement for the Record....   124
        The Descendants Project, Statement for the Record........   126
        The Wilderness Society, Letter of Support, dated February 
          14, 2022...............................................   127
        Toxic Free North Carolina, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 14, 2022......................................   129
        Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, Statement for the 
          Record.................................................   130
        Women's Voices for the Earth, Letter of Support, dated 
          February 8, 2022.......................................   132

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Porter

        Marketwatch article, ``Oil is the hottest sector, and 
          Wall Street analysts see upside of up to 48% for 
          favored stocks,'' February 15, 2022....................   135

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Tlaib

        Detroit Free Press article, ``$175M tax break for 
          Marathon refinery buys Detroiters only 15 jobs,'' March 
          14, 2014...............................................    76

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Maloney

        Supporter List for the Justice in Power Plant Permitting 
          Act....................................................   141

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Stauber

        Op-Ed, ``Goldman Sachs to Native Alaskans: Drop Dead,'' 
          Harry Brower Jr., January 24, 2020.....................    89
                                     



 LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON H.R. 2021, TO RESTORE, REAFFIRM, AND RECONCILE 
    ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, 
                 ``ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR ALL ACT''

                              ----------                              


                       Tuesday, February 15, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., via 
Webex, the Hon. Raul M. Grijalva [Chairman of the Committee], 
presiding.
    Present: Representatives Grijalva, Napolitano, Costa, 
Sablan, Huffman, Lowenthal, Neguse, Porter, Leger Fernandez, 
Stansbury, Velazquez, DeGette, Brownley, Dingell, McEachin, 
Soto, San Nicolas, Garcia, McCollum, Cohen, Tonko, Tlaib, 
Trahan; Stauber, Young, McClintock, Graves, Radewagen, Fulcher, 
Tiffany, Rosendale, Boebert, Obernolte, and Bentz.
    Also present: Representative Maloney.

    The Chairman. Thank you very much, Heather, and thank you 
to the Committee members for being here.
    The Natural Resources Committee will now come to order.
    The Committee is meeting here today to hear testimony on 
H.R. 2021, the ``Environmental Justice For All Act.''
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
the hearing are limited to the Chair and the Ranking Minority 
Member or their designee. This will allow us to hear from our 
witnesses sooner and help Members keep to their schedule.
    Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members' 
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they 
have been submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today, or at the 
close of the hearing, whichever comes first.
    Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    I would also ask unanimous consent that Representative 
Carolyn Maloney join the hearing to ask questions of the 
witnesses.
    Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    Without objection, the Chair may also declare a recess 
subject to the call of the Chair.
    As described in the notice, statements, documents, or 
motions must be submitted to the electronic repository at 
[email protected].
    Additionally, please note that as always, Members are 
responsible for their own microphones. And as with our in-
person meetings, Members can be muted by staff only to avoid 
inadvertent background noise.
    Finally, Members or witnesses experiencing technical 
problems should inform the Committee immediately.
    I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes for my opening 
statement and then turn to the Ranking Member.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    The Chairman. Again, I want to welcome everyone to this 
hearing and thank our witnesses for testifying about one of the 
most stark and quantifiable inequities under our current laws: 
the lack of environmental justice for all.
    We are here today to discuss H.R. 2021, the ``Environmental 
Justice For All Act.'' This legislation was developed and 
shaped directly by environmental justice communities during an 
extensive public engagement process.
    The bill on today's agenda has many components, but it is 
based on a very simple principle and premise--all people have 
the right to clean air, clean water, and an environment that 
enriches their lives. For far too many across our country, 
these rights are not realized or, in fact, acknowledged.
    Today, environmental justice communities, including 
communities of color, tribal and Indigenous communities, and 
poor and working-class communities continue to be 
disproportionately burdened by pollution and harmful climate 
effects. This includes significantly greater exposure to 
polluted air, water, and landscapes, all this in EJ 
communities.
    A major factor has been the fossil fuel industry and the 
other polluting industries having a long and troubled history 
of intentionally building projects that pollute surrounding 
neighborhoods within communities of color and poor communities. 
The numbers and statistics are clear and quantifiable and 
evident, which we will hear more about today in the testimony 
from our witnesses.
    In my hometown and where I now live and grew up, all 
permitted emissions and discharges, and the groundwater 
contamination that followed, detached and created a Superfund 
site that is still an ongoing cleanup here in this community.
    We see this clear environmental injustice through less 
equitable access to environmental amenities like parks, green 
spaces, public recreation opportunities, and less Federal 
investment in clean energy and clean drinking water projects 
that serve EJ communities. Addressing these disparities also 
demands our attention and our action.
    Over the last few years, I have been proud to work with 
Representative McEachin on a comprehensive piece of legislation 
to address environmental injustice, racism, and discrimination. 
The legislation before us furthers environmental justice 
objectives in a variety of ways.
    The bill includes several provisions to ensure more 
equitable access to parks and outdoor recreation opportunities 
for underserved and poor communities. The bill requires Federal 
agencies to provide early and meaningful community involvement 
opportunities under NEPA when proposing an action affecting an 
environmental justice community and strengthens the role and 
input that tribal communities can have in their consultations 
and their opportunity to be heard under NEPA.
    The bill strengthens and restores civil rights protections 
for communities facing greater environmental hazards on the 
basis of race, color, or national origin, including through 
programs administered by the Interior Department and other 
Federal agencies under the Committee's jurisdiction.
    The bill also increases transparency, coordination, and 
accountability for Federal agencies when they are carrying out 
activities affecting the environmental justice communities.
    Today, we will hear from several witnesses who are experts 
in their fields and also experts in their lived experiences 
working with and living in environmental justice communities.
    I hope the testimony today will inform our Committee about 
the urgent need to empower communities to protect their local 
environment and realize their right to clean air, clean water, 
and healthy outdoor spaces.
    These rights are not being met for far too many 
communities, and doing something about it is what today's 
hearing is all about.
    Before I turn to Ranking Member Westerman for his opening 
statement, let me just ask my colleagues to take a moment and 
picture landfills, waste disposal sites, gas-fired power 
plants, sewage treatment plants, emissions, and discharges that 
have to be permitted by law because they fall under the 
requirements for air quality and water quality, decrepit 
infrastructure that brings heat, water, and energy to these 
communities, transportation, and the lack of recreation and 
green space for those communities to enjoy.
    I ask you to look at that, to just picture that. And now 
picture where all that is in your community, in the district 
you represent, in the state that you are from. Picture that.
    And then you will see why this piece of legislation that we 
are having a hearing about today is needed. It is real, and 
this is, I think, the comprehensive approach to addressing 
that.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]
 Prepared Statement of the Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chair, Committee on 
                           Natural Resources
    I want to welcome everyone to this hearing, and thank our witnesses 
for testifying about one of the most egregious inequities under our 
current laws: the lack of environmental justice for all.
    We're here today to discuss H.R. 2021, the Environmental Justice 
For All Act. This legislation was developed and shaped directly by 
environmental justice communities during an extensive public engagement 
process.
    The bill on today's agenda has many components, but it's based on a 
simple principle: All people have the right to clean air, clean water, 
and an environment that enriches their lives. For far too many across 
our country, these rights are still unrealized.
    Today, environmental justice communities--including communities of 
color, tribal and Indigenous communities, and low-income communities--
continue to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and harmful 
climate effects. This includes significantly greater exposure to 
polluted air, water, and landscapes in EJ communities.
    A major factor has been the fossil-fuel industry and other 
polluting industries having a long and troubled history of 
intentionally building projects that pollute surrounding neighborhoods 
within communities of color and low-income communities. The numbers and 
statistics on this are clear, which we'll hear more about in testimony 
later today.
    We also see clear environmental injustice through less equitable 
access to environmental amenities like parks, green spaces, public 
recreation opportunities, and less Federal investment in clean energy 
and clean drinking water projects that serve EJ communities. Addressing 
these disparities also demands our attention and action.
    I've been proud to work over the past few years with Representative 
McEachin on comprehensive legislation to address environmental 
injustice, racism, and discrimination. The legislation before us 
furthers environmental justice objectives in a variety of ways.
    The bill includes several provisions to ensure more equitable 
access to parks and outdoor recreational opportunities for underserved 
communities.
    The bill requires Federal agencies to provide early and meaningful 
community involvement opportunities under NEPA when proposing an action 
affecting an environmental justice community and strengthens tribal 
input opportunities.
    The bill strengthens and restores civil rights protections for 
communities facing greater environmental hazards on the basis of race, 
color, or national origin--including through programs administered by 
the Interior Department and other Federal agencies under this 
Committee's jurisdiction.
    The bill also increases transparency, coordination, and 
accountability from Federal agencies when they are carrying out 
activities affecting environmental justice communities.
    Today, we'll hear from several witnesses who are experts in their 
fields, and also experts in their lived experiences working with and 
living in environmental justice communities.
    We hope their testimony today will inform our Committee about the 
urgent need to empower communities to protect their local environment 
and realize their right to clean water, clean air, and healthy outdoor 
spaces.
    These rights are not being met for far too many communities and 
doing something about that is what today's hearing is all about.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. With that, I yield now to the Ranking Member, 
Mr. Westerman, for his opening statement.
    Sir, you are recognized.
    Mr. Stauber. Chair Grijalva, this is Stauber. I will be the 
Ranker today. Mr. Westerman could not join us.
    The Chairman. My apologies. I just noticed that. With that, 
let me turn to you for your opening statement, sir.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE STAUBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Chairman Grijalva.
    And thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to join 
us today.
    H.R. 2021, titled the ``Environmental Justice For All 
Act,'' as sponsored by the Chairman, truthfully is a 
legislative vehicle for more of the same from this Majority.
    When Americans want to get back to work, it creates more 
red tape. When Americans are getting gouged at the pump, it 
doubles down on their pain by increasing the cost of 
production. And when it claims to speak to so-called 
environmental justice, it plainly misses the mark. For 
starters, it creates more opportunities for radical special 
interest groups to do what they do best, that is, to file 
lawsuits and get their lawyers paid while keeping workers on 
the benches.
    Specifically, the bill requires Federal agencies to develop 
more reports, more studies, and more comment periods, as if the 
National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean 
Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and every other possible 
Act created does not already exist.
    Renewable energy, broadband, affordable housing, and almost 
any new infrastructure will have to clear new studies that will 
be made into 90-day studies, which inevitably will turn into 6-
month studies because every environmental group in DC is 
licking its chops at more statutes to tie up in court, billing 
by the hour.
    Meanwhile, the at-risk communities we seek to help are 
missing out on important opportunities to modernize their 
infrastructure, create jobs, and attract investment.
    This bill also creates new fees on oil, gas, and coal 
industries and creates another government payout scheme. When 
levying these new fees, it will lead to job loss and eliminate 
production on Federal lands. Therefore, even the bill's new 
revenue scheme will dry up, once again leaving communities 
reliant on affordable energy and high-wage jobs high and dry 
once again.
    And when we lose these jobs, we lose revenue to schools. We 
lose revenue and funding for law enforcement and other 
essential services, all while driving up the cost of gas.
    According to AAA, right now the average price of gas for an 
Arizonan is $3.66 a gallon, hovering above the national 
average. Instead of addressing this problem, the Majority is 
proposing to push this cost up even more.
    Meanwhile, looking abroad we have Russia empowered by 
President Biden's Nord Stream 2 gift, knocking on Ukraine's 
door.
    Mr. Chair, energy security is national security. Proposals 
like this make us less secure and hand another tool to Russia, 
who is leveraging their corner of the oil and gas market to 
push its goals.
    The Majority has also failed to invite witnesses from the 
Federal agencies that would implement this bill. So, we will 
not receive the Administration's input on this legislation or 
their analysis on whether the provisions in this bill can be 
effectively carried out.
    My guess is these agencies lack the personnel and capacity, 
but I suppose we will leave that up to our imagination.
    Last Congress, the Majority held a hearing on previous 
versions of this bill, and Republicans invited Derrick Hollie, 
the president of Reaching America, to testify. Mr. Hollie 
keenly noted that energy poverty is a huge issue for minority 
communities across our country, and he urged our Committee to 
focus on increasing access to affordable energy by making 
Federal energy projects easier to build, not more difficult.
    Since that hearing in 2020, Democrats chose to ignore his 
voice, energy prices are through the roof, saddling middle-
class American families with new questions around the dinner 
table about how they will afford everyday life.
    One of the witnesses we will hear from today is from the 
North Slope of Alaska, where President Biden continues his 
assault against American energy and recently announced plans to 
revert management of the NPR-A to the Obama administration's 
2013 Integrated Activity Plan.
    Even with the stated goal of increasing consultation, the--
--
    [Audio malfunction.]
    Mr. Stauber [continuing]. Running counter to his Executive 
Order 13175. So, then I ask which communities qualify for 
consultation under 13175, because it certainly is not Mr. 
Hollie or the Inupiat.
    Oil and gas production on the North Slope is critical to 
these communities. One project in particular, the Willow 
Project within NPR-A, would provide thousands of good paying 
jobs and crucial funding to address the needs of North Slope 
communities.
    Taxes levied on oil and gas development have enabled the 
North Slope communities to invest in public infrastructure, 
utilities, investing in education, law enforcement, fire 
fighters, emergency response and other services.
    [Audio malfunction.]
    Mr. Stauber [continuing]. So, if the Majority were serious 
about environmental justice, today's hearing would be about 
permitting reform and reliable, affordable energy.
    But instead, it is about the same topic the Majority has 
focused on in every hearing--more lawsuits, more red tape, and 
more inflation.
    I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Stauber follows:]
   Prepared Statement of the Hon. Pete Stauber, a Representative in 
                  Congress from the State of Minnesota
    H.R. 2021, titled the Environment Justice For All Act and sponsored 
by Chairman Grijalva, truthfully is a legislative vehicle for more of 
the same from this Majority.
    When Americans want to get back to work, it creates more red tape.
    When Americans are getting gouged at the pump, it doubles down on 
their pain by increasing the cost of production.
    And when it claims to speak to so-called environmental justice, it 
plainly misses the mark.
    For starters, it creates more opportunities for radical special 
interest groups to do what they do best: file lawsuits and get their 
lawyers paid while keeping workers on the benches.
    Specifically, the bill requires Federal agencies to develop more 
reports, more studies, and more comment periods, as if the National 
Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the 
Endangered Species Act, and every other possible Act created does not 
already exist.
    Renewable energy, broadband, affordable housing, and almost any new 
infrastructure will have to clear new studies that will be made into 
90-day studies, which inevitably will turn into 6-month studies, 
because every environmental group in DC is licking its chops at more 
statutes to tie up in Court, billing by the hour.
    Meanwhile, the at-risk communities we seek to help are missing out 
on important opportunities to modernize their infrastructure, create 
jobs, and attract investment.
    The bill also creates new fees on oil, gas, and coal industries, 
and creates another government payout scheme.
    When levying these new fees, it will lead to job loss and eliminate 
production on Federal lands. And therefore, even the bill's new revenue 
scheme will dry up, once again leaving communities reliant on 
affordable energy and high-wage jobs high and dry once again.
    And when we lose those jobs, we lose revenue to schools, and 
funding for law enforcement, and other essential services, while 
driving up the cost of gas.
    According to Triple A, right now the average price of gas for an 
Arizonan is $3.66 a gallon, hovering above the national average. 
Instead of addressing this problem, the Majority is proposing to push 
this cost up more.
    Meanwhile, looking abroad, we have Russia empowered by President 
Biden's Nord Stream 2 gift, knocking on Ukraine's door.
    Mr. Chair, energy security is national security. Proposals like 
this make us less secure and hand another tool to Russia, who is 
leveraging their corner of the oil and gas market to push its goals.
    The Majority has also failed to invite witnesses from the Federal 
agencies that would implement this bill, so we will not receive the 
Administration's input on this legislation or their analysis on whether 
the provisions in this bill can be effectively carried out.
    My guess is these agencies lack the personnel and capacity, but I 
suppose we will leave that up to the imagination.
    Last Congress, the Majority held a hearing on a previous version of 
this bill and Republicans invited Derrick Hollie, the President of 
Reaching America, to testify.
    Mr. Hollie keenly noted that energy poverty is a huge issue for 
minority communities across the country and he urged our Committee to 
focus on increasing access to affordable energy by making Federal 
energy projects easier to build, not more difficult.
    Since that hearing in 2020 and Democrats chose to ignore his voice, 
energy prices are through the roof, saddling American families with new 
questions around the dinner table about how they will afford every day 
life.
    One of the witnesses we will hear from today is from the North 
Slope of Alaska, where President Biden continued his campaign against 
American energy and recently announced plans to revert management of 
the NPR-A to the Obama administration's 2013 Integrated Activity Plan.
    Even with the stated goal of increasing consultation, the Biden 
administration once again ignored minority voices in opposition, and 
especially the North Slope Inupiat, running counter to his very own 
Executive Order 13175.
    So then I ask, which communities qualify for consultation under 
13175? Because it certainly is not Mr. Hollie, or the Inupiat.
    Oil and gas production on the North Slope is critical to these 
communities. One project in particular, the Willow project within NPR-
A, would provide thousands of jobs and crucial funding to address the 
needs of North Slope communities.
    Taxes levied on oil and gas development have enabled North Slope 
communities to invest in public infrastructure, utilities, education, 
law enforcement, fire fighters, emergency response and other services. 
The Trump administration understood this and worked hand in hand with 
these communities on the 2020 IAP.
    If the Majority were serious about environmental justice, today's 
hearing would be about permitting reform and reliable, affordable 
energy.
    But instead, it's about the same topic the Majority has focused on 
in every hearing: more lawsuits, more red tape, and more inflation.
    I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Stauber.
    The gentleman yields.
    As I turn to the witnesses for their testimony, let me just 
remind the witnesses that under our Committee Rules they must 
limit their oral statements to 5 minutes.
    Their entire written statement will be part of the hearing 
record.
    When we begin with the witnesses, the time will start. It 
will turn orange when you have 1 minute remaining and red when 
your time has expired.
    I recommend that Members and witnesses joining remotely use 
grid view so that they can lock in the timer on their screen.
    After your testimony is complete, please remember to mute 
yourself to avoid any background noise.
    I will allow the entire panel to testify before the Members 
can begin to question the witnesses.
    I will begin with the testimony from Ms. Laura Cortez, Co-
Executive Director with East Yard Communities for Environmental 
Justice.
    Ms. Cortez, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF LAURA CORTEZ, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EAST YARD 
  COMMUNITIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, COMMERCE, CALIFORNIA

    Ms. Cortez. Good morning, Chair Grijalva and House 
Committee on Natural Resources. My name is Laura Jazmin Cortez. 
I live on Unceded Tongva land in southeast Los Angeles. I am a 
member, organizer, and Co-Executive Director with East Yard 
Communities for Environmental Justice.
    East Yard works in communities that are overburdened with 
direct and indirect sources of pollution from Long Beach to the 
east side of Los Angeles, and as a community we work to address 
soil, air, and water quality.
    At the intersection of these types of pollution is 
environmental racism. The Environmental Justice For All Act is 
both a concrete commitment to the communities that have been 
harmed and a symbolic sign of respect to communities on the 
ground doing the work and the Committee that put this language 
together.
    I will next highlight some of the work our communities are 
doing in relation to the EJ For All Act, that passing this 
policy would uplift and support.
    In relation to cumulative impacts, there is no single evil 
villain polluter in EJ communities. What I see as one of the 
largest issues is that municipalities and agencies currently 
treat polluters on a case-by-case basis, without assessing 
cumulative impacts.
    I grew up next to railroad tracks with trains passing at 
3:00 a.m. I have always lived within 5 minutes of a refinery 
and a block away from warehouses. I attended elementary school 
next to the 710 freeway which sees 40,000 to 60,000 truck trips 
daily. My high school track is immediately next to train 
tracks. My reality is not an exception, and honestly, community 
is exposed to so much more, at the same time, all the time.
    These issues in land use and health impacts can be reduced 
through the creation of effective permitting processes. In 
relation to outdoor access for all, in a high-density area such 
as California and Los Angeles specifically, the only spaces 
that are undeveloped are brownfields. This is why we do work 
nationally with the Moving Forward Network and locally through 
the Brownfields to Healthfields work.
    There is opportunity for policy to create green spaces 
through investment in the clean up of these contaminated sites 
and through community-based processes. One example of that is 
Maywood Riverfront Park here in southeast Los Angeles, a former 
brownfield that was cleaned and developed as a community open 
space and is now a thriving social hub.
    In relation to Environmental Justice grants programs, 
Federal funding for research in our communities is needed. We 
have seen research in our communities lead to discoveries that 
challenge agencies and health thresholds through East Yard's 
Marina Pando Social Justice Research Collaborative.
    We have studied through this program lead soil 
contamination, toxic runoff into the LA River, and more. These 
studies are done by community members using academic 
methodology to study the environmental justice issues that our 
community lacks responses to.
    The outcomes of these studies are then shared through 
community events that make sure research is done by our hoods, 
for our hoods.
    In relation to NEPA, NEPA as it has been interpreted in my 
home of California through CEQA, allows for public 
participation through an environmental impact report process.
    In our communities, EIRs are often waived through negative 
declarations. When EIRs are completed because of many community 
requests, they do not accurately account for traffic 
bottlenecks, idling, housing in proximity to polluters, housing 
affordability, and green space.
    In fair and just transition, labor in my community looks 
like folks working at the ports as truck drivers, in 
refineries, waste facilities, and rendering plants, then coming 
home to more contaminated soil, air, and water.
    Therefore, environmental justice will always be linked to 
labor and a need to protect the health of workers, who are also 
our parents, uncles, sisters, and children, while ensuring that 
they have stable careers.
    EJ For All proposes a Federal Energy Transition Economic 
Development Assistance Fund that is needed to ensure a just 
transition in which workers suffering the health impacts of the 
oil and gas industry can develop the skills to work in 
healthier systems that we are working toward.
    Currently, workers feel like they have to choose between 
their health and income, but that should not be the case.
    Finally, we are full of solutions. We have the answers. We 
have been doing this work. Being an EJ community carries a 
heavy burden and responsibility to fight for ourselves and each 
other or die slowly. That is not an exaggeration.
    Passing EJ For All is that serious. Passing any policy that 
protects human health without giving loopholes to industry is 
that important. It is life and death, and we must acknowledge 
that countless EJ community leaders have worked on these types 
of solutions, and many of them are no longer with us.
    And now we have this policy as an opportunity to take EJ 
seriously. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cortez follows:]
   Prepared Statement of Laura J. Cortez, East Yard Communities for 
                         Environmental Justice
    My name is Laura Jazmin Cortez. I live on Unceded Tongva land in 
Southeast Los Angeles. I am a member, organizer, and co-director with 
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (East Yard), an 
organization created by community in Southeast and East Los Angeles to 
address pollution through self-advocacy for a dignified quality of 
life. East Yard works in communities that are overburdened with direct 
and indirect sources of pollution from Long Beach to the Eastside of 
Los Angeles. As a community we work to address air, soil, and water 
quality. At the intersection of these types of pollution is 
environmental racism. Our communities are under-resourced, and though 
our organization does great work in our community, we will continue to 
fall short of the dignity we deserve for our health if the Federal 
government does not lead the way in protecting EVERYONES health. The 
Environmental Justice for All Act is both a concrete commitment to the 
communities that have been harmed and a symbolic sign of respect to 
communities on the ground doing the work and the committee that put 
this language together. The next section highlights the work our 
communities continue to do in relation to the EJ4A Act that passing 
this policy will uplift and support.
Health Equity

     Community & scholarly institutions have developed healthy 
            relationships locally, regionally and nationally to create 
            community based research, such as our water contamination 
            program, H2Ours.\1\ H2Ours focuses on community-based 
            research to study public drinking water and learn about 
            water contaminants and water agencies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://h2Ours.org/

     Because there are so many types of industries producing 
            toxins in our communities, there is a huge need for 
            continued and ongoing research. One such industry is 
            rendering plants, of which we have five in close proximity 
            to each other and smell the odor of decomposing animal 
            carcasses daily.\2\ The foul stench of this process to 
            create cosmetics and food products can cause harm to human 
            health as well as severely limit our access to the outside 
            world, as we are forced to close our doors and windows to 
            stop the smell from permeating our homes.
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    \2\ http://www.aqmd.gov/home/news-events/community-investigations/
rendering-plants#

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Cumulative Impacts

     There is no single ``evil villain'' polluter in EJ 
            communities. What I see as one of the largest issues is 
            that municipalities and agencies currently treat polluters 
            on a case by case basis without assessing cumulative 
            impacts. I grew up next to railroad tracks with trains 
            passing at 3 am; I have always lived within 5 minutes of 
            refinery and within a block of warehouses; I attended 
            elementary school next to the 710 freeway that sees 40,000-
            60,000 daily truck trips; My high school's track was 
            immediately next to train tracks. My reality is not an 
            exception, and honestly, community is exposed to so much 
            more . . . at the same time . . . all the time.

     EJ4A has the opportunity to address our realities: that we 
            experience cumulative impacts, and municipalities, 
            agencies, states and the federal government must consider 
            the totality of toxic exposures in our communities in the 
            permitting process.

Outdoor Access for All

     Because our communities are oversaturated with numerous 
            polluters, there are few parks and recreational spaces in 
            our community. The recreational spaces that do exist are a 
            risk to community health since they are along freeways, 
            railyards and polluters. I have the privilege to live near 
            a park where I run along the Rio Hondo Riverbed. On my run 
            I pass along a train crossing, a metal plating facility, a 
            truck refrigerated unit (TRU) facility, a refuse station, a 
            refinery, and two freeways. Many more community members are 
            in close proximity to these types of polluters, without the 
            park access. We need more parks because we are deserving of 
            having safe spaces to enjoy life.

     In a high density area such as California & LA 
            specifically, the only spaces that are undeveloped are 
            brownfields. This is why we do work nationally with the 
            Moving Forward Network and locally through brownfields to 
            healthfields. There is opportunity for the policy to create 
            green spaces through investment in the clean up of these 
            contaminated sites and community based processes. One such 
            example is Maywood Riverfront Park, a former brownfield 
            that was cleaned and developed as a community open space, 
            which is now a thriving social hub.

Environmental Justice Grants Programs

     Federal funding for research in our communities is needed. 
            We have seen research in our communities lead to 
            discoveries that challenge agencies and health thresholds 
            through our Marina Pando Social Justice Research 
            Collaborative (MPSJRC).\3\ We have studied lead soil 
            contamination, toxic runoff into the LA River, and more. 
            These studies are done by community members using academic 
            methodology to study the environmental justice issues that 
            our community lacks responses to. The outcomes of these 
            studies are then shared through community events to make 
            sure research is done by our hood, for our hood.
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    \3\ http://eycej.org/programs/httpseycej-nationbuilder-
comthe_marina_pando_social_justice_ research_collaborative_mpsjrc2016/

     The federal government has an important role in developing 
            & implementing EJ projects. What we see on the ground is 
            that state, regional, and local agencies hesitate to invest 
            and implement EJ projects because they are waiting on 
            another entity to lead. EJ4A could shift how other 
            institutions invest in polluted communities, which would 
            also uplift community leadership. One such example is the 
            collaboration between LA County and East Yard to create a 
            Green Zones policy; \4\ the policy consisted of community 
            led groundtruthing and consistent communication between LA 
            County and East Yard as the policy was created. The now 
            adopted policy will stabilize land use in the area and 
            create buffers between community and polluters.
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    \4\ https://planning.lacounty.gov/greenzones

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NEPA

     NEPA, as it has been interpreted in my home of California 
            through CEQA, has the potential to protect our communities 
            from polluters. Unfortunately, that is far from the case 
            now. The policy allows for the creation of studies so we 
            can understand the harms in our communities through an 
            Environmental Impact Report (EIR). In our communities EIRs 
            are often waived through Negative Declarations. When EIRs 
            are completed due to community requests, they do not 
            reflect our lived realities: traffic bottlenecks & idling 
            are unreported, housing in proximity to polluters is 
            unaccounted for, housing affordability is not discussed, 
            local jobs cannot be implemented on federally funded 
            projects, green space is not considered.

     The CEQA/NEPA process does not consider grassroots 
            community engagement: we are expected to read 5000 page 
            reports and make comments on technical documents with no 
            assistance to understand the language and with 30 days 
            cited as sufficient time. I will highlight here that these 
            barriers do not stop the community. At East Yard we have 
            created community based committees to look at project EIRs 
            and write comment letters. However, this policy needs to be 
            amended to make community-inclusive changes.

     Tribal representation in the NEPA process must be 
            strengthened. In the dozens of EIRs we have reviewed, 
            tribal representation consists of a letter being sent to 
            the tribal institution, placing the burden of a response on 
            a few tribal representatives. We must acknowledge that we 
            are all on Native land and the burden is on us (non-Native 
            folks) to ensure due diligence and respect to the land and 
            its historic uses.

Fair and Just Transition

     EJ communities consist of a mostly working class whose 
            employment is related to toxic exposure. In my community 
            this looks like working at the ports, as truck drivers, in 
            refineries, waste facilities, and rendering plants; then 
            coming home to more contaminated soil, air, and water. 
            Therefore environmental justice will always be linked to 
            labor and a need to protect the health of workers, who are 
            also our parents, uncles, sisters, and children, while 
            ensuring we have stable careers.

     EJ4A proposes a Federal Energy Transition Economic 
            Development Assistance Fund that is needed to ensure a just 
            transition in which workers suffering the health impacts of 
            the oil & gas industry can develop the skills to work in 
            the healthier systems that we are working toward. We stand 
            firmly that we do not have to sacrifice our lives for 
            labor, and we deserve zero emissions jobs and the 
            respective improved health that comes with it.

    I absolutely love our EJ communities. We are full of solutions, we 
have the answers, we have been doing this work. Being an EJ community 
is not fun, it is not prideful; It carries a heavy burden and 
responsibility to fight for ourselves and each other or die slowly. 
This is not an exaggeration. Passing Environmental Justice for All is 
that serious. Passing any policy that protects human health without 
giving loopholes to industry is that important, it is life and death. 
We must acknowledge that countless EJ community leaders have worked on 
these types of solutions, many of them are no longer with us. And we 
now have this policy as an opportunity to take environmental justice 
seriously.

                                 ______
                                 

     Questions Submitted for the Record to Laura Cortez, East Yard 
                 Communities for Environmental Justice
             Questions Submitted by Representative McCollum
    Question 1. What challenges have EJ communities typically faced in 
accessing Federal funding to improve their environmental conditions and 
build green infrastructure?

    Answer. EJ communities do not have the resources to create an 
infrastructure to access federal funding. Beginning with applying for 
and receiving funds, there are not enough EJ non-profits in our 
communities, and municipalities are also underresourced and 
understaffed. When communities are able to learn about and have 
capacity to apply to funds, federal funding is attached to very 
detailed accounting and financial processes. Non-profits manage many 
projects and grants, thereby making it difficult to ensure the adequate 
reporting requested by federal funds.
    Additionally, the scope of federal grants frequently do not align 
to the comprehensive, holistic approach taken by community.

    Question 2. Will the Environmental Justice For All Act make a 
substantial difference in overcoming those challenges?

    Answer. EJ for All Act would create a well-rounded approach in 
their grants by including uses of research, education, outreach, 
development, and implementation of projects to address environmental 
and public health from a community lens. By creating a more robust 
scope of work for federal grants, community-based organizations find 
more benefits in applying to them and completing community based work 
that is relevant to on-the-ground issues.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Cortez.
    We are going to hear next from Dr. Nicky Sheats, Director 
of the Center for the Urban Environment of the John S. Watson 
Institute for Urban Policy and Research at Kean University.
    Dr. Sheats, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DR. NICKY SHEATS, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE URBAN 
  ENVIRONMENT, JOHN S. WATSON INSTITUTE FOR URBAN POLICY AND 
        RESEARCH, KEAN UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, NEW JERSEY

    Dr. Sheats. Thank you, Chair Grijalva, and thank you for 
inviting me here to speak. Thank you to all the members of the 
Committee for allowing me to speak to you today.
    I am going to focus on one aspect of the EJ For All Act 
that my colleague, Ms. Cortez, talked about, and that is on 
Section 7 of the EJ For All Act that addresses what is perhaps 
the pre-eminent EJ issue in our country today, and that is 
cumulative impacts.
    Let me start by giving you a definition for cumulative 
impacts. You can think of it informally as the total amount of 
pollution in the neighborhood.
    More formally, a definition we have been using here in New 
Jersey is the cumulative impacts consist of the risks and 
impacts caused by multiple pollutants, by these pollutants both 
individually and when they interact with each other and any 
social vulnerabilities that exist in the neighborhood.
    It is such a critical issue to address cumulative impacts 
because unfortunately numerous reports have found that there 
are more unwanted land uses in EJ communities, Indigenous 
communities, communities of color, and low-income communities. 
There are more unwanted land uses, including polluting 
facilities, in these communities than in other communities. 
Thus, there is more exposure to pollution by residents of these 
communities.
    And, unfortunately, in these communities there are also 
social vulnerabilities, as mentioned in the formal definition 
of cumulative impacts.
    Think of higher rates of disease, less access to health 
care, and all forms of racial discrimination. And when you put 
this together, higher exposure to pollution and social 
vulnerabilities, you get a combustible mix that results in 
increased death and illness in these communities.
    And cumulative impacts are almost certainly one reason why 
there are persistent and recalcitrant health disparities that 
exist in our country that are rooted in race and income.
    More unfortunate news about cumulative impacts is that it 
is a tough issue to address, again, for several reasons. My 
colleague mentioned one of them. One reason it is difficult to 
address is because in our country we try to address pollution 
by setting individual standards for pollutants. We go pollutant 
by pollutant. We set a standard.
    Unfortunately, one of the big problems with this is that 
the total amount of pollution in the neighborhood is not 
accounted for, so there can be detriment of health impacts to 
community residents even if no individual standard is violated.
    Another problem with cumulative impacts that has been so 
difficult to address is because of its association with race 
and income. Unfortunately, race and income are the two most 
important factors that go into deciding where unwanted land 
uses are sited, race often coming out ahead of income in 
importance in siting decisions.
    And we all know how difficult it has been for our country 
to address racial issues of any kind, and when you erase an 
integral part of an issue, like it is with cumulative impacts, 
it just makes the issue that much harder to address.
    Let me give you some good news. The EJ community has been 
successful in moving issues like cumulative impacts from the 
margins to the mainstream of environmental policy-making 
discussions.
    But we have not been successful in obtaining significant 
policy victories, and that is where the EJ For All Act comes 
in. The Act says that under certain circumstances, applications 
for pollution permits should be denied based on cumulative 
impacts, and this gives hope to EJ communities across the 
country that the elevated levels of pollution that many of 
these communities suffer, it gives them hope that there will be 
a policy that will actually reduce the pollution in their 
community.
    I want to end, Chair Grijalva, by saying I am personally 
grateful, and I cannot speak for all of my EJ colleagues, but I 
think they are grateful to you and your colleagues on the 
Natural Resources Committee for strongly considering and 
recommending adoption of a policy that is a cumulative impacts 
policy in the center of the EJ For All Act that, if adopted, 
will result in measurable reductions in pollution in 
environmental justice communities and, therefore, will also 
result in reducing illness and death in of-color communities 
and low-income communities all across the country.
    Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you this 
morning. I think I look forward to questions. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Sheats follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Nicky Sheats, Ph.D., Esq., Director, Center for 
 the Urban Environment, John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and 
Research at Kean University and Member of the New Jersey Environmental 
                            Justice Alliance
    My name is Dr. Nicky Sheats, Esq., and I am the Director of the 
Center for the Urban Environment of the John. S. Watson Institute for 
Urban Policy and Research at Kean University.\1\ I also work closely 
with and am a member and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the New 
Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance.\2\ In these comments I focus on 
the portion of the Environmental Justice Act For All Act that 
incorporates a cumulative impacts policy into the legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The mission of the Center for the Urban Environment is to 
support the environmental justice community on both a local and 
national level on substantive issues and on building organizational 
capacity.
    \2\ The NJEJA mission statement reads as follows: ``The New Jersey 
Environmental Justice Alliance is an alliance of New Jersey-based 
organizations and individuals working together to identify, prevent, 
and reduce and/or eliminate environmental injustices that exist in 
communities of color and low-income communities. NJEJA will support 
community efforts to remediate and rebuild impacted neighborhoods, 
using the community's vision of improvement, through education, 
advocacy, the review and promulgation of public policies, training, and 
through organizing and technical assistance.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Section 7 of the Environmental Justice For All Act \3\ addresses 
what is arguably the most important issue in the field of environmental 
justice (EJ): cumulative impacts. Informally, cumulative impacts can be 
thought of as the total amount of pollution in a community or how to 
address multiple sources of pollution in a community. More formally, in 
New Jersey the EJ community has frequently used the following 
definition for cumulative impacts:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Environmental Justice For All Act, H.R. 2021, 117th Cong., 2nd 
Sess. Section 7 (2021).

        ``The risks and impacts caused by multiple pollutants, both 
        individually and when they interact with each other and any 
        social vulnerabilities that exist in a community. The 
        pollutants are usually emitted by multiple sources that are 
        sited within a community.'' \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ For similar formal definitions of cumulative impacts see 
Cumulative Impacts: Building a Scientific Foundation, California 
Environmental Protection Agency, at 3 (2010); Ensuring Risk Reduction 
In Communities With Multiple Stressors: Environmental Justice and 
Cumulative, Risks/Impacts, National Environmental Justice Advisory 
Council, at 5 (2004).

    Cumulative impacts has been a difficult problem to resolve for at 
least two reasons. One reason is that our country attempts to regulate 
pollution by setting standards for individual pollutants.\5\ The 
problem with this pollutant-by-pollutant approach is that it does not 
take into account the total amount of pollution in a community and 
therefore detrimental health impacts can occur in a community's 
population even if no individual standard is violated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ See National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, supra note 
4, at 11; Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment, U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, at 1-2 (2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another reason cumulative impacts has been such a difficult problem 
to resolve is its association with race and income. Here, an example 
from New Jersey is instructive. In 2009 the New Jersey Department of 
Environmental Protection (NJDEP) produced two figures that demonstrated 
a relationship between cumulative impacts, race and income in the 
state.\6\ Using nine indicators,\7\ NJDEP assigned a cumulative impacts 
score to every census block group \8\ in New Jersey. In this context, 
cumulative impacts can be thought of as a very rough estimate of the 
total amount of pollution in a community. NJDEP then graphed the 
cumulative impacts scores against the number of people Of Color living 
in these communities (the census block groups) and the number of 
impoverished residents in each community. Separate graphs were produced 
for each of these two demographic categories, but results were similar. 
As the number of either Of Color or low-income residents increased in a 
block group, the level of cumulative impacts also increased. These very 
troubling figures provide evidence that the amount of pollution in New 
Jersey communities is connected to the residents' skin color and income 
and violates all norms of equity and fairness that the state and our 
country very proudly promote. Race has always been a particularly 
difficult issue in our society to solve and the fact that it is 
integral to cumulative impacts is one reason this EJ issue is 
particularly difficult to solve.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ The figures are contained in a technical report and power point 
which are both entitled ``A Preliminary Screening Method to Estimate 
Cumulative Environmental Impacts.'' The figures can be found at page 3 
of the report and slide 5 of the power point, which can be accessed at 
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/ej/docs/ejc_screeningmethods_pp20091222.pdf 
and http://www.state.nj. us/dep/ej/docs/
ejc_screeningmethods20091222.pdf, respectively.
    \7\ The indicators were (National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA)) 
cancer risk, NATA diesel, NJDEP Benzene estimate, Traffic All, Traffic 
trucks, Density of Major Regulated sites, Density of Known 
Contaminated, Density of Dry Cleaners and Density of Junkyards.
    \8\ A census block group is a portion of a census tract that is 
typically constructed to contain between 600 and 300 people. See Census 
Glossary at https://www.census.gov/programs_surveys/geography/about/
glossary.html#par_textimage_4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It is important to note that New Jersey is not the only area of the 
country where there is evidence of a disproportionate amount of 
pollution in communities Of Color and low-income communities, i.e., EJ 
communities. In fact, several investigations that found evidence of 
more unwanted land uses in EJ communities than in other communities 
helped start the grassroots EJ movement.\9\ Since then, other studies 
have confirmed the finding of disproportionate siting \10\ and also 
produced evidence of an elevated exposure to pollution in EJ 
communities. This is perhaps especially true for air pollution \11\ 
where vehicular traffic \12\ also contributes to the pollution from 
stationary sources. The association between race, income and pollution 
sources, and pollution exposure, that exists in our country is one 
reason why cumulative impacts is such a critical EJ issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ The two reports were: Toxic Wastes and Race in the United 
States: A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic 
Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites, United 
Church of Christ (1987); and ``Siting Of Hazardous Waste Landfills And 
Their Correlation With Racial And Economic Status Of Surrounding 
Communities'', General Accounting Office (1983); Another influential 
report that focused on unequal enforcement of environmental violations 
and unequal clean-up times of polluted sites was M. Lavelle & M. Coyle, 
Unequal protection: the racial divide on environmental law, National 
Law Journal (September 21, 1993).
    \10\ For example, see Robert D. Bullard et al., Toxic Wastes and 
Race at Twenty 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle 
Environmental Racism in the United States, United Church of Christ 
(2007); and Paul Mohai & Robin Saha, Racial Inequality in the 
Distribution of Hazardous Waste: A National-Level Reassessment, 54 
Social Problems 343 (2007).
    \11\ See C.W. Tessum et al., PM2.5 polluters 
disproportionately and systemically affect people of color in the 
United States, Science Advances, Vol. 27 (no. 18)(2021); C.W. Tessum et 
al., Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial-
ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure, Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (2019); Michael Ash et al., 
Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries 
and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods, Political 
Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2009); 
Manuel Pastor et al., The air is always cleaner on the other side: 
Race, space, and ambient air toxics exposures in California, 27 Journal 
of Urban Affairs 127 (No. 2)(2005); Douglas Houston et al., Structural 
disparities of urban traffic in Southern California: implications for 
vehicle related air pollution exposure in minority and high poverty 
neighborhoods, 26 Journal of Urban Affairs 565 (No. 5)(2004); Manuel 
Pastor et al., Waiting to Inhale: The Demographics of Toxic Air Release 
Facilities in 21st-Century California, 85 Social Science Quarterly 420 
(No. 2)(2004); Michael Jarrett et al., A GIS-environmental justice 
analysis of particulate air pollution in Hamilton, Canada, 33 
Environment and Planning A 955 (No. 6)(2001); D.R. Wernette and L.A. 
Nieves, Breathing Polluted Air, 18 EPA Journal 16 (1992).
    \12\ David Reichmuth, Air Pollution from Cars, Trucks, and Buses in 
the US: Everyone is Exposed, But the Burdens are not Equally Shared, 
Union of Concerned Scientists (2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The ultimate concern with the disproportionate siting of polluting 
facilities and disproportionate exposure to pollution in EJ communities 
is that they have contributed to health disparities in our nation which 
are rooted in race and income.\13\ Therefore, if the country at least 
begins to address these very problematic issues it is reasonable to 
hope for a decline in these disparities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ For information on health disparities see Health, United 
States, 2012: With Special Feature on Emergency Care, National Center 
for Health Statistics (2013); Rachel Morello Frosch et al., 
Understanding the Cumulative Impacts of Inequalities In Environmental 
Health: Implications for Policy 30 Health Affairs 879, 880-881 (2011); 
N. Adler & D. Rehkopf, US disparities in health: descriptions, causes, 
and mechanisms, 29 Annu Rev Public Health 235 (2008); William Dressler, 
Race and Ethnicity in Public Health Research: Models to Explain Health 
Disparities, 34 Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 231 (2005); Roberta Spalter-Roth, 
Race, Ethnicity, and the Health of Americans, American Sociological 
Association Series on How Race and Ethnicity Matter, Sydney S. Spivack 
Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy (2005); George 
Mensah, State of disparities in cardiovascular health in the United 
States, 111 Circulation 1233 (No. 10)(2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    One of the successes of the EJ grassroots movement has been moving 
EJ issues from the margins to the mainstream of environmental 
policymaking discussions. However, even though at times extensive 
support for EJ has been expressed by environmental policymakers,\14\ 
significant policy victories have been slow in coming. Adoption of the 
cumulative impacts policy contained in the Environmental Justice For 
All Act would be one such victory. The Act addresses cumulative impacts 
by requiring that any pollution permit requested pursuant to the Clean 
Air or Clean Water Act should be denied if there is not a reasonable 
certainly of no harm to the relevant community due to cumulative 
impacts.\15\ The relevant community is the one that would be affected 
if the pollution permit would be granted.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ For example, see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's EJ 
program that is involved in a number of activities. Their website can 
be accessed at https://www.epa.gov/environmental justice/factsheet-
epas-office-environmental-justice.
    \15\ Environmental Justice For All Act, H.R. 2021, 117th Cong., 2nd 
Sess. Section 7 (2021).
    \16\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It should also be observed that the Act would positively impact 
another federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),\17\ 
that is important to cumulative impacts. The previous Administration 
removed a portion of the NEPA regulations which required cumulative 
impacts analyses be included in environmental reviews performed 
pursuant to the legislation.\18\ The EJ community is hopeful that the 
current Administration will restore this requirement to the NEPA 
regulations.\19\ Among other things, the Environmental Justice Act For 
All would place additional community involvement requirements into 
NEPA.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 4321 et seq.
    \18\ See CEQ, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Update to the 
Regulations Implementing the Procedural Provisions of the National 
Environmental Policy Act, 85 Fed. Reg. 1684, 1699, 1707-1708, 1728 
(Sec. 1508.1(g)(2))(Jan. 10, 2020). Also see comments submitted by the 
New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance on the topic: New Jersey 
Environmental Justice Alliance, Comments on CEQ's Proposed Changes to 
the Regulations That Implement Procedural Provisions of the National 
Environmental Policy Act, Docket ID No. CEQ-2019-0003, Notice of 
Proposed Rulemaking, 40 CFR Parts 1500, 1501, 1502, 1503, 1504, 1505, 
1506, 1507, and 1508, prepared by Nicky Sheats (March 10, 2020).
    \19\ See New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, Comments on 
National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations Revisions, 
Docket No. CEQ-2021-002, prepared by Nicky Sheats (November 22, 2021).
    \20\ See Environmental Justice For All Act, H.R. 2021, 117th Cong., 
2nd Sess. Section 14 (2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I applaud the Environmental Justice For All Act for converting 
words into action by including a cumulative impacts policy, that if 
adopted, would reduce pollution, decrease illness and save lives in 
communities, particularly communities Of Color and low-income 
communities. This Act would significantly benefit EJ communities in the 
United States and move us closer to a just society for all of our 
nation's residents.

                                 ______
                                 

Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Nicky Sheats, Director of the 
 Center for the Urban Environment at the John S. Watson Institute for 
               Urban Policy and Research, Kean University
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. Dr. Sheats, I wanted to ask you about cumulative 
impacts in the context of the National Environmental Policy Act, or 
NEPA. While NEPA has long required cumulative impact analysis for 
proposed actions, it does not require a Federal agency to choose a 
course of action that avoids harmful cumulative impacts for an EJ 
community. On top of that, many polluting projects permitted under 
other Federal laws are actually exempt from NEPA review and its 
procedures for analyzing cumulative impacts.

    (1a). Do you think EJ communities might benefit if Federal agencies 
did NEPA reviews for federally permitted or funded projects that are 
currently exempt from NEPA review?

    Answer. Yes, I do believe that communities would benefit if 
projects which are now exempt from the procedural requirements of NEPA 
would be subject to NEPA review because it would provide valuable input 
from communities affected by these projects. This community input could 
be critical for at least two reasons. First, in a number of cases it 
would undoubtedly yield changes in the projects that all stakeholders, 
including the project proponents, would consider to be improvements. 
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it would also produce changes in 
the projects that would make them more protective to the health of the 
communities in which they would be located. It must be kept in mind 
that many of these projects can produce detrimental impacts on 
communities and the projects will be in existence for decades, if not 
longer. Given these two facts communities should be involved in project 
development as much as possible and in as many projects as possible.

    (1b). And do you think EJ communities might also benefit if Federal 
agencies were directed to choose a course of action under NEPA that 
avoids further harm to overburdened EJ communities?

    Answer. Requiring federal agencies to choose a course of action 
under NEPA that would avoid harming communities would put more 
``teeth'' into NEPA and be more protective of communities. Currently 
NEPA is mostly procedural and does not mandate that particular actions 
be implemented. Directing the avoidance of harm to communities would 
potentially require some actions that would be protective of community 
health.
    An existing course of action that should more often be given 
serious consideration is the take no action alternative.\1\ It appears 
to the environmental justice advocacy community that this alternative 
is rarely considered and there could be situations in which a project 
could cause harm to the affected community and where the no action 
alternative would be the best option.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ 40 CFR Sec. 1501.9(e)(2); See also Final Guidance For 
Incorporating Environmental Justice Concerns in EPA's NEPA Compliance 
Analyses, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at 42 (April 1998).

             Questions Submitted by Representative Dingell
    Question 1. How have NEPA protections successfully been used to 
protect vulnerable communities from some of the worst impacts of 
industrial and extractive activity?

    Answer. NEPA has ensured public participation in projects that 
could have detrimental impacts on communities and remain in these 
communities for decades and possibly longer. At hearings and in 
comments conducted and accepted due to NEPA regulations,\2\ community 
voices have been heard and provided input into the design and 
implementation of projects that would have the potential to impact the 
lives of community residents. Without NEPA these projects would proceed 
with little or no community participation or input.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ See A Citizen's Guide to the NEPA--Having Your Voice Heard, 
Council On Environmental Quality (December 2007).

    Question 2. How would strengthening NEPA and community input 
opportunities under the Environmental Justice For All Act impact 
ordinary Americans' ability to have a voice in major projects like 
pipelines or extractive activity that directly impacts their 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
communities?

    Answer. The EJ For All act contains several new requirements that 
would result in community members having more information and a better 
understanding of the impact of federal action on their communities. One 
such requirement would be a community impact report that would provide 
some detail on the effects of a federal action on a community. It would 
also mandate additional requirements though NEPA regarding hearings, 
the length of comment periods, notice and translation of documents 
pertaining to federal actions.\3\ These additional procedural 
protections should put communities in a better position to participate 
in NEPA reviews of all types of projects including pipelines and other 
projects that could be harmful to EJ communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ See The Environmental Justice For All Act, H.R. 2021, 117th 
Congress, 1st Session, Section 14 (March 18, 2021).

    Question 3. How would comprehensive legislation like the 
Environmental Justice For All Act address some of the shortcomings of 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
current Federal protections for at-risk communities?

    Answer. During my oral testimony to the Natural Resources 
Committee, I concentrated on the cumulative impacts portion of the EJ 
For All Act \4\ and I do so again in this document. The EJ For All Act 
would for the first time on a federal level require that, under certain 
circumstances, an application for a pollution permit under the Clean 
Air Act or Clean Water Act be denied. This would provide significant 
protection from additional polluting facilities in overburdened EJ 
communities, i.e., communities Of Color and communities with low-
income, that has long been sought by these communities. By providing 
this type of protection the EJ For All Act would become a frontline 
protection against creating, perpetuating, or exacerbating 
disproportionate pollution burdens in EJ communities. However, the EJ 
For All Act would not be a silver bullet for elevated pollution levels 
in EJ communities and the federal government should still develop and 
adopt more laws and regulations to protect these communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Id. at Section 7.

             Questions Submitted by Representative McCollum
    Question 1. As someone working to implement the Justice40 
Initiative, how will the Environmental Justice For All Act help ensure 
equitable access to Federal opportunities to restore, conserve, and 
build resilience to support environmental and public health in all 
communities?
    Answer. At the risk of being accused of acting in a way that is 
excessively single-minded, let me return to the section of the EJ For 
All Act that incorporates cumulative impacts into the legislation.\5\ 
For decades the EJ grassroots movement has insisted that at some point 
our society must begin denying applications for pollution permits in 
communities that already have more than their fair share of polluting 
facilities and other unwanted land uses. The EJ advocacy community, and 
EJ residential communities, have become extremely frustrated at what 
seems to be a refusal to actively prevent an inequitable geographic 
distribution of unwanted and detrimental land uses in communities. The 
cumulative impacts section of the EJ for All Act could be the beginning 
of changing this disturbing situation on a federal level. If it is 
eventually adopted, the bill would be a significant step toward 
addressing EJ concerns over the dipropionate siting of polluting 
facilities in EJ communities and toward supporting ``environmental and 
public health in all communities.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Id.

    Question 2. Your testimony notes that cumulative impacts of 
pollutants has been a difficult problem to resolve due to its 
association with race and income. What are some of the key findings 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
from the research you've done to highlight this issue?

    Answer. My ``research'' type of work typically involves helping the 
EJ advocacy community develop the best possible public policy from an 
EJ perspective. Much of this policy addresses issues that directly 
involve race and income. For example, one policy recommendation on 
which I've spent a significant amount of time is what has come to 
become known as ``mandatory emissions reductions.'' This recommendation 
advocates that climate change mitigation policy should not only be used 
to fight climate change but to also reduce the disproportionate amount 
of toxic pollution in EJ communities.\6\ The most important elements of 
the policy would require power plants located in EJ communities, or 
whose toxic air pollution emissions significantly impacts an EJ 
community, to reduce their emissions. These mandatory reductions would 
occur no matter what type of mitigation policy the plants are subject 
to. The most likely definition of an EJ community under this type of 
policy would be based on race and income. Even if the communities being 
protected by this policy would be ``overburdened'' communities instead 
of EJ communities, race and income would most likely still be an 
important criterion used to identify the safeguarded communities. Thus, 
this policy directly ``highlights'' race and income as crucial issues 
to be addressed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ See Nicky Sheats, Achieving Emissions Reductions For 
Environmental Justice Communities Through Climate Change Mitigation 
Policy, 41(2) William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review 377 
(winter 2017); New Jersey Environmental Justice Climate Change and 
Energy Policy Platform, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance 
(2017).

    Question 3. What can we be doing at the Federal level to help 
combat the disproportionate exposure to multiple types of pollution 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
found in low-income communities and communities of color?

    Answer. There are two types of policies that would address 
cumulative impacts and disproportionate pollution loads in EJ 
communities. One type would use the concept of cumulative impacts 
directly to address this issue. An example of this is the cumulative 
impacts policy contained in section seven of the EJ For All Act.\7\ It 
explicitly uses the concept of cumulative impacts to tackle the issue 
itself. The other type of policy that will be needed to address 
cumulative impacts are strategies that will reduce the different types 
of pollution that compose the disproportionate pollution loads 
connected with this issue. An example of this is discussed in the 
question immediately above: climate change mitigation policy from an EJ 
perspective. Power plants release air pollution which is often part of 
the elevated pollution loads that negatively impact EJ communities.\8\ 
The mandatory emissions reduction policy explained above, which would 
force plants located in EJ communities to reduce their emissions, would 
address the air pollution from these facilities that is affecting 
community residents. Congress should adopt the EJ For All Act that 
includes the cumulative impacts policy and develop additional 
legislation that would address the varying types of pollution that 
impact EJ communities. It could begin the work on additional 
legislation by adopting the mandatory emissions reductions 
recommendation. But, of course, Congress shouldn't stop there, it 
should also create policy and legislation that specifically addresses 
water pollution and solid waste hazards in EJ communities. These 
different polices, when combined with the cumulative impacts policy in 
the EJ For All Act, would go a long way in creating a coherent EJ 
cumulative impacts policy on the federal level and reducing 
dipropionate pollution loads in communities Of Color and communities 
with low-income across the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Environmental Justice For All Act, supra note 15, at Section 7.
    \8\ See Sheats, supra note 18.

              Questions Submitted by Representative Cohen
    Question 1. Could you describe how the screening tool that you are 
working on with the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council 
to identify communities that need help due to risks and impacts caused 
by pollution will be helpful to policymakers?

    Answer. The Economic and Climate Justice Screening Tool that the 
Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is developing is part of the 
Biden's Administration Justice40 Initiative.\9\ This Initiative 
requires that 40% of the benefits produced by federal investments in 
the environment and other areas go to ``disadvantaged'' 
communities.\10\ The screening tool will be used to identify 
disadvantaged communities that will be eligible to receive Justice40 
benefits. An initial version of the screening tool has been released to 
the public and is being beta tested.\11\ Input gathered from the public 
will be incorporated into the tool in an effort to refine and improve 
its performance. CEQ intends for improvement of the tool to be an 
ongoing and iterative process.\12\ (145)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ See Executive Order 14008: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home 
and Abroad, Sec. 223(a) (January 27, 2021).
    \10\ Ibid.
    \11\ See The Economic and Climate Justice Screening Tool website 
located at: https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/about#3/33.47/-
97.5.
    \12\ See The Economic and Climate Justice Screening Tool website at 
https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/public-engagement regarding 
public input into the construction and operation of the screening tool, 
and the author of these comments has attended several meetings with CEQ 
during which the Council stated its intention to make input into the 
tool an iterative process.

    Question 2. Are there any current tools or technology available 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
that can be used to measure the cumulative impact of a future project?

    Answer. There are several states and scholars that have developed 
cumulative impacts and other types of EJ screening tools.\13\ But 
perhaps the tool that has faced the most examination and vetting is the 
one developed by the state of California, which is called 
CalEnviroscreen.\14\ This screening tool develops an overall cumulative 
impacts score for California census tracts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ For example, the states of Minnesota and Michigan have 
developed, are developing, or it has been recommended that they develop 
a cumulative impacts tool and, of course, EPA has EJ screen, which 
provides demographic and pollution-related information to communities. 
For a good discussion of these tools and activities around cumulative 
impacts in these jurisdictions see Laura Grier et al., Assessing the 
State of Environmental Justice in Michigan, A report submitted in 
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of 
Science, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of 
Michigan (May 2019). Faber and Krieg also developed an EJ screening 
tool they applied to communities in Massachusetts. See D. Faber and E. 
Krieg, Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards: Environmental Injustices 
in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 110 Environmental Health 
Perspectives 277 (supplement 2) (April 2002).
    \14\ See CalEnviroScreen website which can be accessed at https://
oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    New Jersey adopted a groundbreaking cumulative impacts and EJ law 
in 2020 \15\ and proposed regulations \16\ to implement the law were 
issued by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in 
early June of this year. The regulations detail how to conduct an EJ 
analysis mandated by the law that takes into account cumulative 
impacts. It is likely that this analysis developed by New Jersey will 
be highly scrutinized for possible utilization in other states and 
perhaps even on the federal level.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ N.J.S.A. 13:1D-157, et. seq.
    \16\ The proposed regulations were published in the New Jersey 
Register on June 6, 2022, and a courtesy copy can be accessed on the 
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection website at https://
www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/proposal-20220606a.pdf.

    Question 3. Could you elaborate on any effect that considering a 
project's cumulative impact would have on its design and implementation 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)?

    Answer. Because the concept of cumulative impacts takes into 
consideration the contribution of multiple sources to the total amount 
of pollution in a community, a cumulative impacts analysis identifies 
sources of pollution, including relatively small ones, that might be 
ignored by more traditional types of analyses that examine the impacts 
of individual sources in isolation.\17\ A cumulative impacts analysis 
would also look at the combined impact that multiple sources and 
pollutants would have on a community as opposed to isolated individual 
impacts.\18\ Additionally, a cumulative impacts analysis would also 
incorporate social vulnerabilities that exist in Of Color communities 
and communities with low-income.\19\ These social vulnerabilities could 
make the impacts of pollution more harmful in EJ communities than in 
other communities that suffer from fewer social and economic 
issues.\20\ Again, more traditional types of pollution and 
environmental analyses would most likely ignore these vulnerabilities. 
Since a cumulative impacts analysis should address the impact of the 
total amount of pollution in a community, as well as relatively small 
sources of pollution and social vulnerabilities that could intensify 
the impact of combined pollution sources, mechanisms to eliminate or at 
least mitigate these problematic aspects of a project could be 
incorporated into the project design and implementation. Therefore, 
consideration of cumulative impacts should result in a project that is 
less harmful to a community than a project that is designed and 
implemented using more traditional analyses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ A definition for cumulative impacts that is often used by the 
New Jersey EJ community is: The risks and impacts caused by multiple 
pollutants, both individually and when they interact with each other 
and any social vulnerabilities that exist in a community. The 
pollutants are usually emitted by multiple sources that are sited 
within a community. For other formal definitions see Cumulative 
Impacts: Building a Scientific Foundation, California Environmental 
Protection Agency, at 3 (2010); Ensuring Risk Reduction In Communities 
With Multiple Stressors: Environmental Justice and Cumulative, Risks/
Impacts, National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, at 5 (2004).
    \18\ Id.
    \19\ Id.
    \20\ See Rachel Morello Frosch et al., Understanding the Cumulative 
Impacts of Inequalities In Environmental Health: Implications for 
Policy 30 Health Affairs 879, 880-881 (2011).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor.
    The Chair now recognizes Mayor Harry K. Brower, the Mayor 
of North Slope Borough in Alaska.
    Mr. Mayor, welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Is the Mayor connected? Mr. Mayor, you probably need to 
unmute.
    I can hear you, sir. Mayor Brower, welcome and you are 
recognized for 5 minutes, sir.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. HARRY K. BROWER, JR., MAYOR, NORTH SLOPE 
                   BOROUGH, UTQIAGVIK, ALASKA

    Mr. Brower. Thank you, Chairman Grijalva and members of the 
Committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the 
Environmental Justice For All Act.
    This legislation contains many good ideas that are worth 
pursuing, but parts of this legislation could have serious 
negative consequences for the people it is intended to protect.
    My name is Harry Brower, Jr. I live in Utqiagvik, Alaska, 
and I serve as the Mayor of the North Slope Borough. I am a 
whaling captain and a former Chairman of Alaska Eskimo Whaling 
Commission.
    The Borough is a county-level government. It covers the 
entire northern region of Alaska, an area about the size of 
Wyoming. Nearly 80 percent of the Borough's 10,000 residents 
are Alaska Natives.
    The Borough is a unique example of Native people creating a 
municipal government to advance the self-determination of an 
entire Native group, the Inupiat people of our region. In 1971, 
when the Alaska Native land claims were settled by Congress, we 
were denied the ability to select areas of our traditional 
lands that had oil and gas potential.
    The Federal Government and the state of Alaska had already 
claimed that land. Our Inupiat leaders countered this injustice 
by establishing the North Slope Borough, giving our people the 
ability to tax oil and gas infrastructure in our region and to 
use that tax revenue to provide benefits to our communities.
    Today, 95 percent of the tax revenue that supports the 
Borough comes from taxes on oil and gas property in our region. 
These oil and gas tax revenues support our health clinics, 
schools, tribal college, water and sewer infrastructure, fire 
departments, search and rescue services, and other essential 
services in all our communities.
    We understand that many Federal decisions have had 
disproportionate negative impacts on disadvantaged communities. 
We have had firsthand experience with this on the North Slope.
    The impulse to right this historic wrong is good. But I am 
concerned that well-intended legislation, like this bill, could 
empower outside special interest groups to use Federal courts 
to defeat the interests of communities and elected leaders.
    Many non-government organizations claim to represent the 
interests of disadvantaged communities. In reality, it is the 
elected leaders of disadvantaged communities that represent 
disadvantaged communities.
    Unfortunately, when our decisions and our perspectives do 
not match up with what some people want us to say, our voices 
are suddenly silenced, or perhaps worse, other groups claim to 
speak for us. This is not the proper way to promote 
environmental justice for our communities.
    We faced this reality again recently. For years, the 
Borough worked closely with the Bureau of Land Management as a 
cooperating agency to develop a new National Petroleum Reserve-
Alaska Integrated Activity Plan. They developed the IAP in part 
due to the requests from the Borough for BLM to reconsider its 
management of the NPR-A.
    The Borough's participation on behalf of four Alaska Native 
communities within the NPR-A was substantial. For example, we 
cooperated with BLM in the development of various management 
alternatives and reviewed and commented on the adequacy of the 
environmental analysis. The final management plan was released 
in 2020. It reflected our input and had our support.
    At least 10 environmental organizations wrote to the new 
Administration last year asking BLM to reject the new plan. 
They claimed environmental justice demanded this result because 
Alaska Native communities who live within the region rely on 
its resources. But none of our communities signed that letter. 
None of our tribal governments signed that letter. None of our 
elected leaders signed that letter.
    With no notice to the Borough, in January, BLM announced 
that it was selecting a new preferred alternative for 
management of the NPR-A. By adopting the ``no action'' 
alternative, BLM ignores the input and desires of the Borough, 
our communities, and the people who most directly rely on the 
resources of the NPR-A.
    We are talking today about legislation that would allow 
organizations to use environmental justice to defeat Federal 
decisions in court. While well intended, I feel that there will 
be negative unintended consequences.
    The Chairman. Mr. Mayor.
    Mr. Brower. Yes.
    The Chairman. Mr. Mayor, if I may, I have let people go 
somewhat over, the witnesses, but we are approaching 2 minutes, 
sir, and I hate to insist, but I think we would like you to 
wrap it up as soon as possible, sir.
    Mr. Brower. Well, let me just say, Chairman Grijalva, I am 
grateful for you to making environmental justice a priority. I 
have some concerns with this legislation, but I hope that we 
can work with you, Congressman Young, and with the members of 
the Committee to advance these important goals in a way that 
will be beneficial to our Alaska Native communities.
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Brower follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Harry Brower, Jr., Mayor, North Slope Borough, 
                                 Alaska
    Chairman Grijalva and Members of the Committee: Thank you for 
inviting me to speak to you about the Environmental Justice For All 
Act. This legislation contains many good ideas that are worth pursuing. 
But it is my view that parts of this legislation could have serious 
negative consequences for the people it is intended to protect.
    My name is Harry Brower, Jr. I live in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and I 
serve as the Mayor of the North Slope Borough.
    I have served as Mayor of the Borough since 2016. I previously 
served as Deputy Director of the Borough's Department of Wildlife 
Management. I am a whaling captain and the former Chairman of the 
Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.
    The North Slope Borough is a county-level government. It covers the 
entire northern region of Alaska, an area about the size of Wyoming.
    Nearly 80% of the Borough's 10,000 residents are Alaska Native, and 
our communities are the Inupiat villages of Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk, 
Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Point Hope, Point Lay, Utqiagvik, and Wainwright.
    The Borough is a unique example of Native people creating a 
municipal government to advance the self-determination of an entire 
Native group, the Inupiaq people of our region. In 1971, when the 
Alaska Native land claims were settled by Congress, we were denied the 
ability to select areas of our traditional land that had oil and gas 
potential. The federal government and the State of Alaska had already 
claimed that land. Our Inupiat leaders countered this injustice by 
establishing the North Slope Borough, giving our people the ability to 
tax oil and gas infrastructure in our region and to use that tax 
revenue to provide benefits to our communities.
    In a speech he gave in 1976, Eben Hopson--the first Mayor of the 
Borough and the founder of the Inuit Circumpolar Council--talked about 
the discovery by the U.S. Navy of natural gas near Utqiagvik, which was 
called Barrow at that time. The federal government had created the 
Naval Petroleum Reserve in 1923 and, within the Reserve, the Navy 
established a research facility near Point Barrow. The Navy's drilling 
led to the discovery of natural gas in 1949, and a gas field was 
developed near Barrow. Natural gas was used to heat federal buildings 
like the hospital, the Bureau of Indian Affairs school, and the Naval 
Arctic Research Laboratory. But the Navy did not allow the community of 
Barrow to use the gas from the federal lands to heat their homes.
    In his speech, Eben Hopson spoke about the long, frustrating 
struggle to get permission to hook our homes in Barrow to gas mains 
that crisscrossed Barrow. The federal government refused to let our 
people use the natural gas that came from our own backyard to heat our 
homes. It took an act of Congress in 1963 to allow the Native people of 
Barrow to buy their own natural gas back from the federal government.
    Today, 95% of the tax revenue that supports the North Slope Borough 
comes from taxes on oil and gas property in our region.
    These oil and gas tax revenues support our health clinics, schools, 
tribal college, water and sewer infrastructure, fire departments, 
search-and-rescue services, and other essential services in all of our 
villages.
    We understand that many federal decisions have had disproportionate 
negative impacts on disadvantaged communities. We have had first-hand 
experience with this on the North Slope.
    The impulse to right these historic wrongs is good. But I am 
concerned that well-intended legislation, like this bill, could empower 
outside special interest groups to use the federal courts to defeat the 
interests of communities and elected leaders.
    Many NGOs claim to represent the interests of disadvantaged 
communities. In reality, it is the elected leaders of disadvantaged 
communities that represent disadvantaged communities.
    To be clear, I support the general objectives of this legislation. 
We should empower disadvantaged communities. We should review federal 
policy through the lens of environmental justice. But I am concerned 
that some sections of this legislation will unintentionally give power 
to special interest groups that often wrongly attempt to wear the 
mantle of environmental justice.
    It seems like every ``Arctic'' oil and gas project--even if it has 
had 10 years of environmental review--ends up in court. As the Mayor of 
the North Slope Borough, I have to use community resources to defend 
the decisions of the federal government--decisions that we support--to 
allow responsible resource development in our region of the country. I 
urge the Committee to be careful about creating new layers of review 
and new opportunities for litigation. For example, the National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) already requires an extensive analysis 
of the impacts of federal decisions on our communities, including 
impacts on community health, the environment, and our cultural 
resources.
    Our people have always debated where and how to develop oil and gas 
in a responsible way in our region. These are not easy decisions. We 
take our role as stewards of our ancestral lands very seriously. We 
work closely with project developers and with the federal government to 
ensure that the evaluation of proposed development projects 
incorporates our knowledge and perspectives to minimize and mitigate 
potential negative impact on our resources. We have challenged resource 
development in court when it was the right thing to do for our 
communities.
    Unfortunately, when our decisions and our perspectives do not match 
up with what some people want us to do or say, our voices are suddenly 
silenced. Or perhaps worse, other groups claim to speak for us. This is 
not the proper way to promote environmental justice for our 
communities.
    We faced this reality again recently. For several years, the 
Borough worked closely with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as a 
cooperating agency to develop a new National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska 
(NPR-A) Integrated Activity Plan (IAP). BLM developed the IAP in part 
due to a request from the Borough for BLM to reconsider its management 
of the NPR-A.
    The Borough's participation on behalf of four Alaska Native 
communities within the NPR-A was substantial. For example, we 
cooperated with BLM in the development of various management 
alternatives and reviewed and commented on the adequacy of the 
environmental analysis. The final management plan that was released in 
2020 reflected our input and had our support.
    At least ten environmental organizations wrote to the new 
Administration last year asking BLM to reject the new NPR-A management 
plan. They claimed ``environmental justice'' demanded this result 
because ``Alaska Native communities who live within the region rely on 
its resources.'' But, none of our communities signed that letter. None 
of our tribal governments signed that letter. None of our elected 
leaders signed that letter.
    With no notice to the North Slope Borough, in January, BLM 
announced that it was selecting a new ``preferred alternative'' for 
management of the NPR-A. By adopting the ``No Action'' alternative, BLM 
ignores the input and desires of the Borough, our communities, and the 
people who most directly rely on the resources of the NPR-A.
    After we dedicated years of work on the NPR-A IAP, the federal 
government reached this decision without consulting with us first. For 
the first time ever, the Borough--a cooperating agency that represents 
a community whose population is 80 percent indigenous--had to formally 
request consultation with the BLM on a project. This is not a problem 
that will be solved with more litigation. It is a problem that can be 
solved through more meaningful consultation between the federal 
government and the impacted local communities.
    We are talking today about legislation that will allow 
organizations to use ``environmental justice'' to defeat federal 
decisions in court. While well intentioned, I fear that there will be 
negative, unintended consequences. I have just watched outside special 
interest groups successfully use their power and influence to convince 
federal decision makers to overturn a decision that had the support of, 
and would benefit, our local communities. This is not ``environmental 
justice.'' It is a self-serving effort to use our communities to 
support someone else's agenda.
    When we look at federal policy today--federal policy that governs 
oil and gas development on our traditional lands--I, as an elected 
leader, must ask this question on behalf of my community: When Congress 
prohibits oil and gas development in our region, even when all of our 
local elected leaders support that development, are the actions of the 
federal government today, executed in the name of environmental 
justice, really any different than they were in the 1940s or 1950s when 
the government didn't allow us to access the natural gas under our own 
feet to heat our homes?
    The federal government often says it wants to work with our 
communities, but the reality is that it often does so when it is 
convenient for the government and when our perspectives amplify the 
views of the day. This is not a partisan view. It is a reality that has 
been a reality for a very long time.
    I am concerned that this legislation could give more power to 
people who are not from our communities, who are not elected to 
represent our communities, and who don't have to find a way to survive 
in our communities. Instead, environmental justice should be promoted 
by listening to and respecting the desires of those who are actually 
living in impacted communities.
    Chairman Grijalva, I am grateful to you for making environmental 
justice a priority. I have some concerns with this legislation, but I 
hope that I can work with you, with Congressman Young, and with the 
Members of the Committee to advance these important goals in a way that 
will be beneficial to our Alaska Native communities.
    Quyanaqpak for the opportunity to speak with you today.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Thank you for your comments, sir, and we 
appreciate the time and your service.
    Let me now--our final witness is Ms. Amy Laura Cahn, 
Director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the Vermont Law 
School.
    Ms. Cahn, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF AMY LAURA CAHN, DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE 
      CLINIC, VERMONT LAW SCHOOL, SOUTH ROYALTON, VERMONT

    Ms. Cahn. Thank you and good morning, Chair Grijalva, 
Ranking Member, members of the Committee, and my fellow 
witnesses.
    My name is Amy Laura Cahn, and I am the Director of the 
Environmental Justice Clinic at the Vermont Law School. I 
appreciate the opportunity to testify today.
    For too long, this nation has denied people of color, 
Indigenous communities and Tribal Nations, and low-income 
communities the right to a healthy environment. Our nation has 
saddled the environmental justice communities with the burden 
of proving harm and neglect and discrimination with little 
redress in the face of a mountain of evidence.
    Environmental racism is segregation imprinted on our 
landscape. Racially discriminatory housing, land use, and 
transportation policies mean that environmental justice 
communities breathe disproportionately more air pollution. 
Black Americans, in particular, are exposed to more pollution 
from all major emission sources, including waste, energy, 
industrial agriculture, transportation, and construction.
    Race remains the strongest predictor of hazardous waste 
siting across the United States. Residents of historically 
Black communities contend with degraded air and water quality 
from landfills, such as Arrowhead, a 974-acre site adjacent to 
Uniontown, Alabama, permitted to receive up to 15,000 tons of 
commercial and industrial waste per day from 33 states.
    And the ever-expanding Stone's Throw Landfill, which 
continues to displace Tallassee, Alabama residents and 
threatens to turn this community into yet another example of 
Black land loss.
    Oil and gas and petrochemical production also 
disproportionately harm environmental justice communities at 
every stage of their life cycle.
    The racial disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic have laid 
bare just how profoundly the energy and environmental policy 
decisions of the past have failed communities of color creating 
sacrifice zones with climate change now a threat multiplier.
    And environmental justice communities bear the burden of 
proof. For years residents of Uniontown and Tallassee have 
collected pollution data, documented health impacts, filed open 
record requests, marshalled turnout, filed public comments and 
civil rights complaints, and advanced solutions that respond to 
community needs, with too little response and too few available 
resources or remedies.
    Environmental protections that respond to environmental 
racism are scant, underenforced, and as the last administration 
has shown us, easy to roll back and even easier to ignore. And 
environmental justice communities have not been able to depend 
on civil rights enforcement to fill this gap.
    We, and Members of this Congress in particular, have the 
power to shift this burden. H.R. 2021 fills a long-standing gap 
in protection for air and water quality. Neither the Clean Air 
Act nor the Clean Water Act account for cumulative impacts of 
multiple sources or types of pollution on individual bodies and 
whole communities.
    As the EPA's Office of Inspector General stated in 2020, it 
is often easier for a community that has seven facilities to 
get an eighth approved than for a community that has no 
existing facilities to get one.
    The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a 
decision by the Commonwealth of Virginia to permit the 
construction of a compressor station associated with the 
Atlantic Coast Pipeline, stating that environmental justice is 
not merely a box to be checked.
    That decision relied on state law and policy mandating 
analysis of disproportionate health impacts on the 
predominantly Black community of Union Hill.
    The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National 
Environmental Policy Act all fall short of such substantive 
remedies currently.
    H.R. 2021 would shift the burden onto regulators and 
polluters, requiring a hard look at the distribution of 
polluting facilities and action to prevent harm to already 
overburdened communities.
    And H.R. 2021 restores communities the right to challenge 
environmental discrimination.
    In 2001, residents of Camden, New Jersey showed the power 
of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a briefly 
successful challenge to a permitting process that failed to 
consider the impacts of a cement processing facility in an 
already overburdened community of color, the U.S. Supreme 
Court's decision in Alexander v. Sandoval stopped that case in 
its tracks, barring non-Federal parties from bringing disparate 
impact lawsuits and placing enforcement solely in the hands of 
Federal agencies.
    Still, Title VI should be one of the most salient tools to 
remedy the harms created by environmental racism and prevent 
future injustice.
    Yet, in the absence of a private right of action, long-
standing deficiencies in civil rights enforcement and oversight 
enable recipients of Federal funding to permit facilities that 
exacerbate racially disproportionate pollution burdens.
    Approved transportation projects that split communities of 
color in half and deny equitable participation of people of 
color and people with limited English proficiency in siting and 
permitting decisions. H.R. 2021 would restore to communities 
and the courts the power to ensure that discrimination does not 
occur without consequences.
    So doing, H.R. 2021 would begin to shift the burden of 
proof and transform how we address environmental racism and 
prepare for the climate crisis.
    Thank you so very much for the opportunity to testify.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cahn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Amy Laura Cahn, Visiting Professor and Director, 
   Environmental Justice Clinic Vermont Law School, South Royalton, 
                                Vermont
    I am a Visiting Professor and Director of the Environmental Justice 
Clinic at Vermont Law School. We practice a community-based lawyering 
approach to advance civil rights and environmental and climate justice.

    On January 20, 2021, in issuing Executive Order 13985, President 
Biden called out the ``unbearable human costs of systemic racism.'' \1\ 
Among those costs is a pattern of sacrifice zones throughout this 
nation where Communities of Color, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, and 
low-income communities bear disproportionate environmental and climate 
harms, while being denied access to environmental benefits and climate 
solutions.\2\ I will speak today on the impacts of that unjust 
distribution of burdens and benefits--created and perpetuated by gaps 
in our legal system.
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    \1\ Exec. Order No. 13985, 86 FR 7009 (Jan. 20, 2021).
    \2\ See e.g. Dorceta E. Taylor, Toxic Exposure: Landmark Cases in 
the South and the Rise of Environmental Justice Activism, in Toxic 
Communities: Environmental-Racism, Industrial Pollution, and 
Residential Mobility 6 (New York University Press 2014) (highlighting 
major environmental racism cases in the South).

        Section 2 of the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021 
        or the Act) finds that ``[a]ll people have the right to breathe 
        clean air, drink clean water, live free of dangerous levels of 
        toxic pollution, and share the benefits of a prosperous and 
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        vibrant pollution-free economy.''

        The bill further finds that ``[t]he burden of proof that a 
        proposed action will not harm communities, including through 
        cumulative exposure effects, should fall on polluting 
        industries and on the Federal Government in its regulatory 
        role, not the communities themselves.''

    For far too long, this nation has denied People of Color, 
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, and low-income communities--
environmental justice communities--the right to a healthy environment. 
Our nation has saddled environmental justice communities with the 
burden of proving harm, neglect, and discrimination--with little 
redress in the face of a mountain of evidence. H.R. 2021 would fill 
those gaps and transform how we address environmental racism and 
prepare for a just transition in the face of the climate crisis.
Environmental racism is segregation imprinted onto our landscapes.

    The legacies of de jure and de facto segregation are imprinted on 
our landscapes. Racially discriminatory housing, land use, and 
transportation policies have resulted in environmental justice 
communities breathing higher concentrations of harmful air 
pollutants,\3\ including from transportation \4\ and chronically 
substandard housing where multiple asthma triggers and lead hazards in 
paint, dust, soil, and water endanger residents of all ages.\5\ Black 
Americans, in particular, are exposed to more pollution from all major 
emission sources, including waste, energy, industrial agriculture, 
vehicles, and construction.\6\ These disparities exist nationally and 
across states, urban and rural areas, and all income levels.\7\
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    \3\ See, e.g., Lara P. Clark et al., National Patterns in 
Environmental Injustice and Inequality: Outdoor NO2 Air Pollution in 
the United States, 9 PLOS One e94431, 2 (2014), www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC3988057/pdf/; Marie Lynn Miranda et al., Making the 
Environmental Justice Grade: The Relative Burden of Air Pollution 
Exposure in the United States, 8 Int'l J. Envtl. Res. Pub. Health 1755, 
1768-69 (2011), www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137995/pdf/
ijerph-08-01755.pdf; Ihab Mikati, et al., Disparities in Distribution 
of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status, 
American Journal of Public Health 108, 480-485 (2018), https://doi.org/
10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297.
    \4\ See e.g. Union of Concerned Scientists, Inequitable Exposure to 
Air Pollution in California: Fact Sheet (February 2019), https://
www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/02/cv-air-pollution-CA-
web.pdf; Inequitable Exposure to Air Pollution from Vehicles in the 
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic: Fact Sheet, 1 (June 2019), https://
www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/06/Inequitable-Exposure-
to-Vehicle-Pollution-Northeast-Mid-Atlantic-Region.pdf.
    \5\ See, e.g., Jeremy L. Mennis & Lisa Jordan, The Distribution of 
Environmental Equity: Exploring Spatial Nonstationarity in Multivariate 
Models of Air Toxic Releases, 95 Annals Soc'y Am. Geog'rs 249 (2005); 
Russ Lopez, Segregation and Black/White Differences in Exposure to Air 
Toxics in 1990, 110 Envtl. Health Persp. 289 (2002); see also Jayajit 
Chakraborty & Paul A. Zandbergen, Children at Risk: Measuring Racial/
Ethnic Disparities in Potential Exposure to Air Pollution at School and 
Home, 61 J. Epidem. Cmty. Health 1074, 1074 (2007). 16 See e.g. Robert 
Bullard, Addressing Urban Transportation Equity in the United States, 
31 Fordham U.L.J. 1183 (2004); Stephanie Pollack et al., The Toll of 
Transportation, Northeastern University Dukakis Center for Urban & 
Regional Policy (2013); Brian S. McKenzie, Neighborhood Access to 
Transit by Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty in Portland, OR, 12 City & Cmty 
134-155 (2013).
    \6\ Christopher W. Tessum, et al., PM2.5 polluters 
disproportionately and systemically affect people of color in the 
United States, Science Advances, Vol. 27, no. 18, (Apr. 28, 2021); see 
also Tabuchi & Popovich, People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. 
The Sources Are Everywhere, NYTimes, Apr. 28, 2021.
    \7\ Id.
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    Race remains the strongest predictor of hazardous waste siting 
across the United States.\8\ Eighty percent of the nation's 
incinerators are in low-income communities and/or communities of color 
like Saugus, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; and Trenton, New 
Jersey. Residents of historically Black communities like Uniontown and 
Tallassee, Alabama, contend with the degraded air and water quality 
from Arrowhead Landfill, a 974-acre site permitted to receive up to 
15,000 tons of commercial and industrial waste per day from 33 states, 
and the ever-expanding Stone's Throw Landfill, which continues to 
displace Tallassee community members and threatens to turn this 
historical community into yet another example of black land loss. In 
the words of Perry County (Alabama) Commissioner Benjamin Eaton, ``if 
the air smells bad, you know it's bad.''
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    \8\ Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D.; Paul Mohai, Ph.D.; Robin Saha, Ph.D.; 
Beverly Wright, Ph.D., Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007, xii 
(2007).
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    The impacts of the fossil fuel industry are also particularly 
stark. At every stage of its life cycle, oil and gas production 
disproportionately harms environmental justice communities.\9\ More 
than 1 million Black people live within a one half-mile radius of 
natural gas facilities \10\ and Black and Latino/a people make up 
nearly two-thirds of those living within three miles of the dirtiest 
refineries.\11\ The proliferation of toxic facilities, mines, and 
fossil-fuel infrastructure has taken an irreparable toll on Indigenous 
land, cultural resources, and the health and well-being of Indigenous 
and Tribal communities.\12\
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    \9\ NAACP, Fumes Across the Fence-Line, 1, 6 (Nov. 2017) https://
naacp.org/resources/fumes-across-fence-line-health-impacts-air-
pollution-oil-gas-facilities-african-american.
    \10\ Id.
    \11\ Ben Kunstman et al., Envtl. Integrity Project, Environmental 
Injustice and Refinery Pollution: Benzene Monitoring Around Oil 
Refineries Showed More Communities at Risk in 2020, 14-16 (Apr. 28, 
2021), https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/
Benzene-report-4.28.21.pdf.
    \12\ Renee McVay, Envtl. Def. Fund, Natural Gas Waste on the Navajo 
Nation: Updated analysis of oil and gas methane emissions shows growing 
problem (2021), https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/content/
NavajoEmissionsReport2021.pdf.; Kyle Whyte, The Dakota Access Pipeline, 
Environmental Injustice, and U.S. colonialism, Red Ink: Int'l J. 
Indigenous Literature, Arts, & Humanities (Apr. 2017), https://
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2925513; R. Emanuel & D. 
Wilkins, Breaching Barriers: The Fight for Indigenous Participation in 
Water Governance, Water (2020), https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/8/
2113/htm; U.N. Special Rapporteur, End of Mission Statement by the 
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, 
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz of her visit to the United States of America 
(Mar. 3, 2017), https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/
DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21274 &LangID=E.
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    Sources of pollution come to environmental justice communities, 
rather than the other way around \13\ and residential zip code remains 
the strongest predictor of life expectancy overall.\14\ As communities 
of color breathe air pollution caused by white peoples' 
consumption,\15\ segregated housing and land use patterns now put 
environmental justice communities most at risk from extreme 
temperatures,\16\ flooding,\17\ and other extreme weather impacts of 
climate change, while inequitable resource distribution obstructs 
recovery from extreme weather.\18\ Environmental and climate impacts 
dovetail--heat increases the impacts of degraded air quality in 
historically redlined neighborhoods \19\ and flooding compounds the 
``toxic threat'' of unremediated and uncontained Superfund sites.\20\
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    \13\ See Paul Mohai & Robin K. Saha, Which Came First, People or 
Pollution? Assessing the Disparate Siting and Post-Siting Demographic 
Change Hypotheses of Environmental Injustice, 10 Envtl. Res. Letters 
15-16 (Nov. 2015).
    \14\ Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, Amelia Bertozzi-Villa, Rebecca W. 
Stubbs, Chloe Morozoff, Johan P. Mackenbach, Frank J. van Lenthe, Ali 
H. Mokdad, Christopher J. L. Murray, Inequalities in Life Expectancy 
Among US Counties, 1980 to 2014: Temporal Trends and Key Drivers, JAMA 
Intern. Med. (Jul. 1, 2017).
    \15\ Christopher W. Tessum, et al., Inequity in Consumption of 
Goods and Services Adds to Racial-Ethnic Disparities in Air Pollution 
Exposure, PNAS (Mar. 11, 2019).
    \16\ See e.g. Marilyn Montgomery and Jayajit Chakraborty, Assessing 
the Environmental Justice Consequences of Flood Risk: A Case Study in 
Miami, Florida, 10 Environmental Research Letters (2015); Stacy 
Seicshnaydre et al., Rigging the Real Estate Market: Segregation, 
Inequality, and Disaster Risk, The Data Center (2018).
    \17\ See e.g. Bill M. Jesdale, Rachel Morello-Frosch and Lara 
Cushing, The Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Heat Risk-Related Land Cover 
in Relation to Residential Segregation, 121 Environmental Health 
Perspectives 811-817 (2013); Jackson Voelkel et al., Assessing 
Vulnerability to Urban Heat: A Study of Disproportionate Heat Exposure 
and Access to Refuge by Socio-Demographic Status in Portland, Oregon, 
15 Int J Environ Res Public Health (2018).
    \18\ See generally, Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright, Race, 
Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to 
Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (2009); 
Rachel Morello Frosch, Manuel Pastor, Jim Sadd, and Seth Shonkoff, The 
Climate Gap: Inequalities in How Climate Change Hurts Americans & How 
to Close the Gap (2009); Gustavo A. Garcia-Lopez, The Multiple Layers 
of Environmental Injustice in Contexts of (Un)natural Disasters: The 
Case of Puerto Rico Post-Hurricane Maria, 11 Environmental Justice 101-
108 (2018); USGCRP, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United 
States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II (2018) available 
at https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/NCA4_2018_FullReport.pdf.
    \19\ Daniel Cusick, Past Racist ``Redlining'' Practices Increased 
Climate Burden on Minority Neighborhoods, E&E News (Jan. 21, 2020).
    \20\ David Hasemyer and Lisa Olsen, A growing toxic threat--made 
worse by climate change, Inside Climate News (Sept. 24, 2020).
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The impacts of environmental racism are dire and deadly.

    This legacy of environmental racism has led to disparities in 
illness and death based on race, ethnicity, and income, including 
disproportionate levels of lead poisoning, asthma, diabetes, heart 
disease, respiratory illness, cancer, and now COVID-19.\21\
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    \21\ See, e.g., Jyotsna S. Jagai et al., The Association Between 
Environmental Quality and Diabetes in the U.S., Journal of Diabetes 
Investigation (Oct. 2019) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
PMC7078099/, Olga Khazan, A Frightening New Reason to Worry About Air 
Pollution, The Atlantic (July 5, 2018) https://www.theatlantic.com/
health/archive/2018/07/a-frightening-new-reason-to-worry-about-air-
pollution/564428; Anthony Nardone et al., Associations between 
historical residential redlining and current age-adjusted rates of 
emergency department visits due to asthma across eight cities in 
California: an ecological study, Lancet Planet Health (Jan. 4, 2020); 
New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates, 
N.Y. Times (Apr. 7, 2020) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/
air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html; Claudia Persico & Kathryn 
Johnson, The effects of increased pollution on COVID-19 cases and 
deaths, J. Envtl. Econ. Mgmt. (Feb. 2021), https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069621000140.
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    The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare just ``how profoundly the 
energy and environmental policy decisions of the past have failed 
communities of color.'' \22\ Racial disparities of COVID-19 infection, 
hospitalization, and deaths emerged early in the pandemic, and 
voluminous research now links air pollution exposure to those 
outcomes.\23\
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    \22\ The Biden Plan to Secure Environmental Justice And Equitable 
Economic Opportunity (n.d.) https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-
plan.
    \23\ See e.g. Wu, X. et al., Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality 
in the United States: Strengths and limitations of an ecological 
regression analysis, Sci. Advances (2020), https://
projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm. See also Pallavi Pant, COVID-19 and 
Air Pollution: A summary of analyses, resources, funding opportunities, 
call for papers & more, https://docs.google.com/document/d/
1UTQvW_OytC37IatMNR5qJK7qKfSylNpI2fT3pdteVZA/edit.
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    That environmental injustices impact the same communities most 
harmed by COVID-19 is not a coincidence. It is the cumulative--and 
often catastrophic--impacts of discriminatory decision-making, poverty, 
and industrial pollution that disproportionately and adversely impact 
health in environmental justice communities,\24\ with climate change 
functioning as a threat multiplier.\25\
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    \24\ Rachel Morello-Frosch et al., Understanding the cumulative 
impacts of inequalities in environmental health: implications for 
policy, Health Aff (Millwood) 30(5):879-87 (May 2011) https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21555471/.
    \25\ H. Orru et al., The Interplay of Climate Change and Air 
Pollution on Health, 4 Current Envtl. Health Report 504, 504 (2017).
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Inequitable distribution of resources compounds harms and stymies 
        community-driven solutions.

    Over decades, historic disinvestment has also pulled resources from 
communities of color to more affluent white communities.\26\ Such 
inequities persist in the distribution of Federal investments into 
improved water quality and air quality, clean and renewable energy, and 
climate-resilient infrastructure. As a result, environmental justice 
communities are far less likely to benefit from environmental and 
social determinants of health that mitigate environmental burdens, 
including:
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    \26\ Danielle M. Purifoy & Louise Seamster, Creative extractions: 
Black towns in White Space, Sage Journals (2020).

  1.  Access green and open spaces \27\ and other resources for 
            recreation and healthy, active living; \28\
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    \27\ Jenny Rowland-Shea et al., The Nature Gap: Confronting Racial 
and Economic Disparities in the Destruction and Protection of Nature in 
America, Ctr. for Am. Progress (July 21, 2020), https://
www.americanprogress.org/article/the-nature-gap/; Robert Garcia & Erica 
Flores Baltodano, Free the Beach! Public Access, Equal Justice, and the 
California Coast, 2 Stan. J. C.R. & C.L. 143 (2005); Chona Sister et 
al., Got Green? Addressing Environmental Justice in Park Provision, 75 
GeoJournal 229 (2010); Jennifer Wolch et al., Parks and Park Funding in 
Los Angeles: An Equity-Mapping Analysis, 26 Urb. Geography 4 (2005); 
Ming Wen et al., Spatial Disparities in the Distribution of Parks and 
Green Spaces in the USA, 45 Supp. 1 Annals Behav. Med. 18 (2013); 
Dustin T. Duncan et al., The Geography of Recreational Open Space: 
Influence of Neighborhood Racial Composition and Neighborhood Poverty, 
90 J. Urb. Health 618 (2013).
    \28\ Penny Gordon-Larsen et al., Inequality in the Built 
Environment Underlies Key Health Disparities in Physical Activity and 
Obesity, 117 Pediatrics 417 (2006); Lisa M. Powell et al., Availability 
of Physical Activity-Related Facilities and Neighborhood Demographic 
and Socioeconomic Characteristics: A National Study, 96 Am. J. Pub. 
Health 1676 (2006); Lisa M. Powell et al., The Relationship Between 
Community Physical Activity Settings and Race, Ethnicity, and 
Socioeconomic Status, 1 Evidence-Based Preventive Med. 135 (2004).

  2.  Access to clean drinking water and sanitation; \29\
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    \29\ (Leila M. Harris et al., Revisiting the Human Right to Water 
From an Environmental Justice Lens, 3 Pol., Grps., & Identities 660 
(2015)).

  3.  Access to affordable and clean transportation; \30\
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    \30\ See e.g. Robert Bullard, Addressing Urban Transportation 
Equity in the United States, 31 Fordham U.L.J. 1183 (2004); Stephanie 
Pollack et al., The Toll of Transportation, Northeastern University 
Dukakis Center for Urban & Regional Policy (2013); Brian S. McKenzie 
Neighborhood Access to Transit by Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty in 
Portland, OR, 12 City & Cmty 134-155 (2013).

  4.  Access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate 
            food,\31\ including the land to securely grow one's own 
            food;
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    \31\ See e.g. Kimberly Morland et al., Neighborhood characteristics 
associated with the location of food stores and food service places, 22 
Preventative Med. 23-29 (Jan. 2002); L. Powell L et al., Food Store 
Availability and Neighborhood Characteristics in the United States, 44 
Preventive Med. 189-195 (2007); Thomas A. LaVeist, Segregated Spaces, 
Risky Places: The Effects of Racial Segregation on Health Inequalities, 
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (2011). See also Alison 
Hope Alkon & Julian Agyeman eds., Cultivating Food Justice: Race, 
Class, and Sustainability 89, 93 (2011).

  5.  Access to healthy and resilient homes and schools; \32\ and
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    \32\ Paul Mohai et al., Air Pollution Around Schools Is Linked to 
Poorer Student Health and Academic Performance, 30 Health Affs. 852 
(2011).

  6.  Access to energy security,\33\ clean energy and energy efficiency 
            resources,\34\ and the benefits of energy transition 
            opportunities and a just transition for fossil-fuel 
            dependent communities.\35\
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    \33\ Diana Hernandez, Understanding `energy insecurity' and why it 
matters to health, Social Science & Medicine, 167 (2016) https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.029.
    \34\ Tony G. Reames, Targeting Energy Justice: Exploring Spatial, 
Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Disparities in Urban Residential 
Heating Energy Efficiency, 97 Energy Pol'y 549 (2016).
    \35\ Sanya Carley and David M. Konisky, The justice and equity 
implications of the clean energy transition, Nat Energy 5, 569-577 
(2020).

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Environmental justice communities bear the burden of proof.

    In the absence of comprehensive environmental justice laws, 
environmental justice communities must rely on a patchwork of statutes, 
regulations, and executive orders insufficient to address structural 
inequality. Environmental protections that respond directly to the 
impact of environmental racism are scant,\36\ underenforced, and, as 
the last Administration has shown us, easy to roll back and even easier 
to ignore.\37\ Nor can environmental justice communities depend on 
civil rights enforcement to fill this gap.\38\
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    \36\ Brenda Mallory and David Neal, Practicing on Uneven Ground: 
Raising Environmental Justice Claims under Race Neutral Laws, 45 
Harvard Env't L. R. 295, 299 (2021).
    \37\ See e.g., Jose Toscano Bravo, Amy Laura Cahn, Jeannie 
Economos, and Rachel Stevens, Federal Dereliction of Duty: 
Environmental Racism Under Covid-19 (Sept. 2021) https://
www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2021-08/Federal-Dereliction-of-
Duty-Full-Report.pdf.
    \38\ See, e.g., Deloitte Consulting LLP, Final Report: Evaluation 
of the EPA Office of Civil Rights (Order # EP10H002058) 1-2 (noting 
EPA's failure to ``adequately adjudicate[] Title VI complaints . . . . 
has exposed EPA's Civil Rights programs to significant consequences 
which have damaged its reputation internally and externally.''); 
Kristen Lombardi et al., Environmental Justice Denied: Environmental 
Racism Persists, and the EPA is One Reason Why, Ctr. for Pub. 
Integrity, (2015) (noting EPA ``the civil-rights office rarely closes 
investigations with formal sanctions or remedies,'' so EPA's Office of 
Civil Rights ``appeared more ceremonial than meaningful, with 
communities left in the lurch.''); U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights, 
Environmental Justice: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency's 
Compliance and Enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 12,898, at 2 
(2016) (``U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights Environmental Justice Report'') 
(``The [United States Commission on Civil Rights], academics, 
environmental justice organizations, and news outlets have extensively 
criticized EPA's management and handling of its Title VI external 
compliance program.''); see also Marianne Engelman Lado, No More 
Excuses: Building A New Vision of Civil Rights Enforcement in the 
Context of Environmental Justice, 22 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 281, 
295-300 (2019).
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    For years, residents in environmental justice communities like 
Uniontown and Tallassee have collected pollution data, documented 
health impacts, filed open records requests, disseminated know your 
rights information, marshaled turnout for public meetings, filed public 
comments and civil rights complaints, and advanced just and equitable 
solutions that respond to community needs--with too little response and 
too few available resources or remedies from the federal government.
    We--and members of this Congress, in particular--have the power to 
shift this burden.
H.R. 2021 strengthens NEPA and the voice of environmental justice 
        communities on major federal projects.

    The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been essential in 
the fight against environmental racism, requiring Federal agencies to 
involve potentially affected parties in deliberations about projects 
with significant environmental effects and consider potential 
environmental, economic, and public health impacts on environmental 
justice communities.\39\ NEPA ensures that the public's input is 
evaluated and considered prior to expenditures of public resources--
including whether no action is the best option. Though often requiring 
litigation to enforce,\40\ NEPA operates from the principle that, when 
those most affected are consulted at every stage, better decisions are 
made.
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    \39\ The White House, Memorandum for the Heads of All Departments 
and Agencies, Re: Executive Order on Federal Actions to Address 
Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income 
Populations (Feb. 11, 1994).
    \40\ See e.g. Ellen M. Gilmer, Dakota Access Pipeline Loses Appeal, 
Fueling Shutdown Fight, Bloomberg Law (Jan. 26, 2021).
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    The 2020 Trump Rule eviscerated key environmental justice 
provisions while prohibiting the climate impacts of a project from 
consideration in a NEPA analysis. The White House Council on 
Environmental Quality has embarked on a phased rulemaking intended to 
course correct. However we get there, now is the time for a stronger 
NEPA.
    The Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) \41\ directs over a trillion 
dollars toward major projects involving highways and bridges, railways, 
and energy and water infrastructure projects, including funding for 
climate resilience, workforce development, and Superfund remediation. 
Many of these projects could benefit environmental justice communities; 
all will require robust input from surrounding residents and 
stakeholders. Yet, the IIJA also weakened NEPA by increasing state 
authority to exclude projects from NEPA review and making permanent the 
FAST Act, which imposes unnecessarily tight timelines for project 
review and authorization.\42\ These provisions undercut CEQ's efforts 
to restore NEPA and the Administration's commitments to prioritize 
environmental justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \41\ H.R. 3684, 117th Cong. Sec. 11312(a) (2021).
    \42\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 4370m.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Section 14 of H.R. 2021 requires federal agencies to provide early 
and more robust community involvement opportunities under NEPA when 
proposing an action that can affect a defined environmental justice 
community. In this critical moment, H.R. 2021 re-centers environmental 
justice in the NEPA process, bolstering agencies' responsibilities to 
assess harmful impacts, engage environmental justice communities, and 
consult with Indigenous and Tribal leadership in a manner intended to 
better honor Indigenous sovereignty, land, and sacred sites.
H.R. 2021 fills a long-standing gap in protections for air and water 
        quality.

    As the EPA's Office of Inspector General stated in 2020, ``[t]here 
is no precise threshold to determine when a community is overburdened[, 
which] means that it is often easier for a community that has seven 
facilities to get an eighth facility approved than for a community that 
has no existing facilities to get one approved.'' \43\ Limited as they 
are to establishing standards for and regulating individual pollutants, 
neither the Clean Air Act \44\ nor the Clean Water Act \45\ provide a 
mechanism to account for the cumulative impacts of multiple sources and 
uses of pollution on individual bodies and whole communities. Thus, 
environmental permits are routinely issued that allow regulated 
entities to increase levels of pollution without evaluating or 
accommodating adverse, cumulative, or disparate impacts on the 
surrounding community.\46\ The lack of air and water quality monitoring 
to understand baseline pollution levels in environmental justice 
communities compounds this problem.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \43\ Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Fiscal 
Year 2022 at 28 (Nov. 12, 2021) https://www.epa.gov/system/files/
documents/2021-11/certified_epaoig_20211112-22-n-0004.pdf.
    \44\ Marie L. Miranda et al., Making the Environmental Justice 
Grade: The Relative Burden of Air Pollution Exposure in the United 
States, 8 Int. J. Env't. Rsch. and Public Health, 1755, 1755 (2011).
    \45\ Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1251(a).
    \46\ Id. at Sec. 1251(e).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently opined that 
``[e]nvironmental justice is not merely a box to be checked,'' \47\ 
reversing a decision by the Commonwealth of Virginia to permit the 
construction of a compressor station associated with the Atlantic Coast 
Pipeline project. That decision relied on state environmental justice 
and energy law and policy that mandated analysis of the potential for 
disproportionate health impacts on the predominantly Black community of 
Union Hill. Even with a robust environmental justice analysis that 
considers direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts, NEPA still only 
offers a procedural framework, falling short of such substantive 
remedies.\48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \47\ Friends of Buckingham v. State Air Pollution Control Bd., 947 
F.3d 68, 93 (4th Cir. 2020).
    \48\ Id. at 310.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Section 7 of H.R. 2021 requires the consideration of cumulative 
environmental impacts in permitting decisions under the Clean Air Act 
and the Clean Water Act and provides that permits not be issued if 
projects are unable to demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm to 
human health after consideration of cumulative impacts. This bill would 
finally shift the burden onto regulators and polluters, requiring a 
hard look at the distribution of polluting facilities and action to 
protect already-overburdened environmental justice communities.
H.R. 2021 restores to communities the right to challenge environmental 
        discrimination.

    Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 \49\ prohibits recipients 
of federal funding from discrimination based on race, color, or 
national origin, either through intentional discrimination or through 
actions that, while neutral on their face, have a disproportionate and 
adverse impact. Title VI applies broadly to recipients of funding from 
the family of environmental, agricultural, natural resource, land 
management, energy, and disaster recovery agencies. As such, Title VI 
should be one of the most salient tools to remedy the harms created by 
racial segregation and prevent future injustice as we respond to the 
impacts of the climate crisis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \49\ 42 U.S.C. 2000d (1964) et seq.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In 2001, residents of the Waterfront South community in Camden, New 
Jersey, showed the power of Title VI in a briefly successful challenge 
to a permitting process that failed to consider the cumulative health 
and environmental impacts of siting a cement processing facility in an 
already-overburdened community of color.\50\ The U.S. Supreme Court's 
decision in Alexander v. Sandoval \51\ stopped the Waterfront South 
case in its tracks, barring any non-federal parties from bringing 
disparate impact lawsuits and placing enforcement against disparate 
impact discrimination solely in the hands of federal agencies.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \50\ S. Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Dep't of Env't 
Prot., 145 F. Supp. 2d 446, 503 (D.N.J.), opinion modified and 
supplemented, 145 F. Supp. 2d 505 (D.N.J. 2001), rev'd, 274 F.3d 771 
(3d Cir. 2001).
    \51\ Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 292 (2001).
    \52\ Id. at 293.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Title VI mandates that every federal agency ensure compliance by 
its funding recipients and investigate complaints of discrimination, 
authorizing agencies to effectuate compliance by terminating or 
refusing grant funding or ``any other means authorized by law.'' In the 
absence of a private right of action, severe and long-standing 
deficiencies in civil rights enforcement and oversight have enabled 
funding recipients to permit waste and fossil fuel facilities and 
infrastructure that exacerbate racially disproportionate pollution 
burdens, approve transportation projects that split communities of 
color, and deny equitable participation of people with limited English 
proficiency in siting and permitting decisions.
    Federal agency response to and resolution of complaints have 
historically been subject to delay, requiring litigation to enforce 
agency deadlines. Agencies, funding recipients, and the communities 
they are mandated to protect from discrimination lack comprehensive 
guidance on civil rights compliance. Complainants with firsthand 
knowledge have been systematically sidelined from the investigation and 
resolution of civil rights complaints. Agencies have refused to assert 
jurisdiction over complaints or make findings of discrimination, much 
less wield their power to withhold or delay funding, sending a message 
to funding recipients that compliance is optional.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \53\ See supra n. 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The unjust distribution of environmental, health, and climate 
burdens and benefits constitutes a massive failure of our nation's 
civil rights enforcement infrastructure. $1.2 trillion in 
infrastructure investments is now heading out the door, potentially 
outpacing a clear directive on how the Justice40 Initiative should 
shape the equitable distribution of expenditures \54\ and with 
insufficient mechanisms to ensure accountability in recipient decision-
making and implementation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \54\ Jean Chemnick, How states could topple Biden's Justice40 
goals, E&E News (Feb. 4, 2022) https://www.eenews.net/articles/how-
states-could-topple-bidens-justice40-goals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Sections 4, 5, and 6 of H.R. 2021 would restore the right of 
individuals to legally challenge discrimination--including 
environmental discrimination--prohibited under Title VI. This would 
restore to communities--and the courts--the power to ensure that 
discrimination does not occur without consequence.
H.R. 2021 directs critical resources to address environmental racism 
        and facilitate a just transition.

    Stronger legal tools will create greater accountability and more 
equitable outcomes by addressing policy, planning, permitting, and 
enforcement decisions that perpetuate harm to environmental justice 
communities. These systemic changes are necessary, but not sufficient. 
H.R. 2021 directs critical resources for capacity building, training, 
research, programming, and tangible environmental benefits and puts 
structures in place so that environmental justice communities and 
fossil-fuel-dependent communities can be in the lead to proactively 
address conditions on the ground.
    The Principles of Environmental Justice, drafted at the First 
People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, responded 
directly to the conditions of environmental racism. These principles 
are rooted in holistic vision, self-determination, repair and redress, 
and a core belief that all people have the right to a healthy 
environment that enriches life. The Principles reflect the need to 
center in policymaking decisions the communities most impacted by 
environmental risks and harms and too long marginalized from the 
decisions that have shaped their health, welfare, and well-being.
    The Environmental Justice for All Act responds to that call--
through an inclusive, transparent, and community-driven process and 
with substantive protections that respond to community needs, fill gaps 
in our laws, and shift resources to where they are most needed.

                                 ______
                                 

    Questions Submitted for the Record to Amy Laura Cahn, Visiting 
   Professor and Director, Environmental Justice Clinic, Vermont Law 
                    School, South Royalton, Vermont
              Questions Submitted by Representative Cohen
    Question 1. We sometimes hear that new policies to address 
environmental injustice of the type you described in your opening 
statement are not needed because we have NEPA, the Clean Water Act, 
Clean Air Act, and other laws. Can you respond to that point of view?

    Answer. As stated in written testimony submitted for the February 
15, 2022, hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding 
H.R. 2021, the Environmental Justice for All Act, in the absence of 
comprehensive environmental justice laws, environmental justice 
communities currently rely on a patchwork of statutes, regulations, and 
executive orders insufficient to address structural inequality. 
Environmental protections that respond directly to the impact of 
environmental racism are scant \1\ as ``the major environmental 
statutes do not address the prospect that their benefits and burdens 
might turn out to be unequally distributed in ways that add to 
cumulative disadvantage[,] nor [do they] provide measures to avert 
disparate impact[.]'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ See Brenda Mallory & David Neal, Practicing on Uneven Ground: 
Raising Environmental Justice Claims under Race Neutral Laws, 45 
Harvard Env't L.R. 295, 299 (2021).
    \2\ Jedediah Purdy, The Long Environmental Justice Movement, 44 
Ecology L.Q. 809, 825 (2018).

    The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) \3\ remains essential 
in the fight against environmental racism, requiring federal agencies 
to involve potentially affected parties in deliberations about projects 
with significant environmental effects and to consider potential 
environmental, economic, and public health impacts on environmental 
justice communities.\4\ NEPA requires that all federal agencies ``study 
and disclose'' the environmental impact of any major federal action 
that significantly affects the environment.\5\ The NEPA assessment 
process requires public engagement with ``affected communities 
submitting comments during the NEPA process and seeking judicial review 
if the agency fails to complete the process correctly[.]'' \6\ NEPA 
additionally mandates consultation with Indigenous Peoples and Tribal 
Nations--a requirement also subject to judicial review.\7\ Moreover, in 
implementing NEPA and pursuant to Executive Order 12898, Federal Action 
to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income 
Populations (E.O. 129898), federal agencies conduct environmental 
justice analyses ``to determine whether a project will have a 
disproportionately adverse effect on minority or low income 
populations.'' \8\ In essence, NEPA ensures that the input of affected 
communities is evaluated and considered prior to expenditures of public 
resources--including when no action is the best option. Though often 
requiring litigation to enforce,\9\ NEPA operates from the principle 
that, when those most affected are consulted at every stage, better 
decisions are made.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Pub. L. No. 91-190, 83 Stat. 852 (codified as amended at 42 
U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 4321-4347).
    \4\ The White House, Memorandum for the Heads of all Departments 
and Agencies, Re: Executive Order on Federal Actions to Address 
Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income 
Populations (Feb. 11, 1994).
    \5\ Wyatt G. Sassman, Community Empowerment in Decarbonization: 
NEPA's Role, 96 Wash. L. Rev. 1511, 1516 (2021).
    \6\ Id. at 1517.
    \7\ NEPA Evaluation of Cultural Resources, Tribal Values, and 
Environmental Justice: Lessons from Standing Rock Indian Tribe, et al. 
v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Dakota Access Pipeline 
Controversy, 2017 No. 5 RMMLF-INST 13A, 13A-12, 13A-13 (Nov. 2, 2017).
    \8\ Id. at 13A-25.
    \9\ See e.g. Ellen M. Gilmer, Dakota Access Pipeline Loses Appeal, 
Fueling Shutdown Fight, Bloomberg Law (Jan. 26, 2021).

    However, while the requirements of public participation, 
government-to-government Tribal consultation, and analysis of potential 
impacts on environmental justice communities may serve a preventative 
function by elevating key concerns and enhancing analysis, enforcement 
of NEPA remains limited in scope to procedural violations. Even legal 
challenges seeking more searching environmental justice analysis have 
fallen short,\10\ much less providing environmental justice communities 
a tool to address environmental racism head-on. As stated in a recent 
article co-authored by Brenda Mallory, now chair of the White House 
Council on Environmental Quality Chair, and David Neal, a senior 
attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Mallory and Neal, supra n. 1 at 307.

        any judicial victory under NEPA would at most require 
        additional analyses or the consideration of alternatives, which 
        can only indirectly lead to substantive relief. Environmental 
        justice claims under NEPA, a race-neutral environmental law, 
        are inherently process-oriented and are not a substitute for 
        claims for substantive protections for communities of color 
        that are threatened with new sources of industrial pollution or 
        who have experienced disproportionate, cumulative pollution 
        from existing sources.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ Id.

    The Clean Water and Clean Air Acts do not fill the substantive gap 
left by NEPA. As the EPA's Office of Inspector General stated in 2020, 
``[t]here is no precise threshold to determine when a community is 
overburdened[, which] means that it is often easier for a community 
that has seven facilities to get an eighth facility approved than for a 
community that has no existing facilities to get one approved.'' \12\ 
Limited as they are to establishing standards for and regulating 
individual pollutants, neither the Clean Air Act \13\ nor the Clean 
Water Act \14\ provide a mechanism to account for the cumulative 
impacts of multiple sources and uses of pollution on individual bodies 
and whole communities. These environmental statutes, along with the 
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act \15\ and others, operate under a 
``cooperative federalism framework'' \16\ with implementation delegated 
to states--as with the Clean Air Act, through which federal agencies 
set ``health-based standards, and the states determin[e] how to meet 
those standards[.]'' \17\ However, federal delegation to states has not 
been paired with mechanisms to ``compel or even strongly encourage 
state agencies'' to proactively address environmental justice--as 
evidenced by the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act relative 
to ``the circumstances that resulted in the contamination of Flint's 
drinking water supply with lead.'' \18\ Thus, environmental permits are 
routinely issued that allow regulated entities to increase levels of 
pollution without evaluating or accommodating adverse, cumulative, or 
disparate impacts on the surrounding community. Without federal 
statutory mandates designed to address these inequities, residents of 
environmental justice communities cannot even rely on citizen suit 
provisions provided for in many environmental statutes. The lack of air 
and water quality monitoring to understand baseline pollution levels in 
environmental justice communities only compounds the problem.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Fiscal 
Year 2022 at 28 (Nov. 12, 2021) https://www.epa.gov/system/files/
documents/2021-11/certified_epaoig_20211112-22-n-0004.pdf.
    \13\ Marie L. Miranda et al., Making the Environmental Justice 
Grade: The Relative Burden of Air Pollution Exposure in the United 
States, 8 Int. J. Env't. Res. and Public Health, 1755, 1755 (2011).
    \14\ 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1251(a).
    \15\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6901 et seq.
    \16\ Rachael E. Salcido, Retooling Environmental Justice, 39 UCLA 
J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 1, 23-24 (2021).
    \17\ Id.
    \18\ David Konisky, ``Flint, Federalism, and Environmental Justice 
in the United States,'' MIT Press Blog (Feb. 16, 2016).
    \19\ U.S. GAO, Air Pollution: Opportunities to Better Sustain and 
Modernize the National Air Quality Monitoring System (Nov. 12, 2020), 
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-38.

    The absence of explicit, substantive protections does not mean that 
federal agencies cannot or should not take affirmative steps to address 
the inequitable distribution of burdens and benefits that stem from 
environmental racism. In fact, since 1994, E.O. 12898 has mandated that 
federal agencies ``identif[y] and address[. . .] disproportionately 
high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, 
policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income 
populations . . . to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by 
law.'' Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental 
Justice has described EO 12898 as ``groundbreaking'' yet ``limited'' 
\20\--and the executive order remains underenforced.\21\ Presidential 
administrations have made commitments to tackling environmental justice 
enforcement to varying degrees,\22\ with actions taken pursuant to 
executive orders \23\ issued at the start of the Biden Administration a 
notable and holistic example.\24\ In truth, however, even when 
administrations lean into every opportunity to address environmental 
racism, discretionary authority is time-limited.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\ Adam Mahoney, What Biden Could Learn From Bill Clinton's 
Unfinished Work on Environmental Justice, Grist (Feb 24, 2021), https:/
/grist.org/politics/joe-biden-environmental-justice-executive-order-
bill-clinton/.
    \21\ See e.g. William C.C. Kemp-Neal J.D., Environmental Racism: 
Using Environmental Planning to Lift People Out of Poverty, and Re-
Shape the Effects of Climate Change & Pollution in Communities of 
Color, 32 Fordham Envtl. L. Rev. 295, 320 (2021)(citing Sandra G. 
O'Neil, Superfund: Evaluating the Impact of Executive Order 12898, 
115.7 Envtl. Health Perspectives 1087, 1089 (July 2007), https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pme/artieles/PMC1913562).
    \22\ See e.g. Plan EJ 2014: Legal Tools, U.S. EPA (Sep. 2011), 
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-02/documents/ej-legal-
tools.pdf; Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in 
Regulatory Analysis, EPA (June 2016), https://www.epa.gov/sites/
production/files/2016-06/documents/ejtg_5_6_16_v5.1.pdf.
    \23\ Exec. Order No. 13,985, 86 Fed. Reg. 7,009 (Jan. 20, 2021); 
Exec. Order No. 13990, 86 FR 7037 (Jan. 20, 2021); Exec. Order No. 
14008, 86 FR 7619 (Jan. 20, 2021).
    \24\ See generally Federal Environmental Justice Tracker, Harvard 
Environmental & Energy Law Program (n.d.) (designed to provide up-to-
date information on the Biden administration's environmental justice 
commitments, and progress made on those commitment).

    Environmental justice protections remain easy to roll back \25\ and 
even easier to ignore.\26\ Addressing environmental racism requires 
legislation to convey to federal agencies, regulated industries, 
federal funding recipients, and affected communities a consistent 
understanding of expectations, obligations, and mechanisms for 
accountability and an unwavering national commitment to environmental 
justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ Amy Patronella & Saharra Griffin, Communities of Color Bear 
the Brunt of Trump's Anti-Environmental Agenda, Ctr. for Am. Progress 
(Feb. 27, 2020), https://www.amerieanprogress.org/issues/green/news/
2020/02/27/480820/eommunities-color-bear-brunt-trumps-anti-
environmental-agenda/.
    \26\ See e.g., Jose Toscano Bravo, Amy Laura Cahn, Jeannie 
Economos, and Rachel Stevens, Federal Dereliction of Duty: 
Environmental Racism Under Covid-19 (Sept. 2021), https://
www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2021-08/Federal-Dereliction-of-
Duty-Full-Report.pdf.

    Question 2. Why is it so important to make sure that the disparate 
environmental impacts experienced by communities of color are addressed 
through the amendments to the Civil Rights Act proposed by the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Environmental Justice For All Act?

    Answer. As stated in written testimony submitted for the February 
15, 2022, hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding 
H.R. 2021, Environmental Justice for All Act, environmental justice 
communities have not been able to depend on civil rights enforcement by 
federal agencies to fill the gap in environmental law.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \27\ See, e.g., Deloitte Consulting LLP, Final Report: Evaluation 
of the EPA Office of Civil Rights (Order #EP10H002058) 1-2 (noting 
EPA's failure to ``adequately adjudicate[] Title VI complaints . . . . 
has exposed EPA's Civil Rights programs to significant consequences 
which have damaged its reputation internally and externally.''); 
Kristen Lombardi et al., Environmental Justice Denied: Environmental 
Racism Persists, and the EPA is One Reason Why, Ctr. for Pub. 
Integrity, (2015) (noting EPA ``the civil-rights office rarely closes 
investigations with formal sanctions or remedies,'' so EPA's Office of 
Civil Rights ``appeared more ceremonial than meaningful, with 
communities left in the lurch.''); U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights, 
Environmental Justice: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency's 
Compliance and Enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 12,898, at 2 
(2016) (``U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights Environmental Justice Report'') 
(``The [United States Commission on Civil Rights], academics, 
environmental justice organizations, and news outlets have extensively 
criticized EPA's management and handling of its Title VI external 
compliance program.''); see also Marianne Engelman Lado, No More 
Excuses: Building A New Vision of Civil Rights Enforcement in the 
Context of Environmental Justice, 22 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 281, 
295-300 (2019).

    Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 \28\ prohibits recipients 
of federal funding from discrimination based on race, color, or 
national origin, either through intentional discrimination or through 
actions that, while neutral on their face, have a disproportionate and 
adverse impact. Title VI applies broadly to recipients of funding from 
the family of environmental, agricultural, natural resource, land 
management, energy, and disaster recovery agencies. As such, Title VI 
should be one of the most salient tools to remedy the harms created by 
racial segregation and prevent future injustice as we respond to the 
impacts of the climate crisis. However, the U.S. Supreme Court's 
decision in Alexander v. Sandoval \29\ has barred any non-federal 
parties from bringing disparate impact lawsuits and placed enforcement 
against disparate impact discrimination solely in the hands of federal 
agencies.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \28\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000d (1964) et seq.
    \29\ Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 292 (2001).
    \30\ Id. at 293.

    Title VI mandates that every federal agency ensure compliance by 
its funding recipients and investigate complaints of discrimination, 
authorizing agencies to effectuate compliance by terminating or 
refusing grant funding or ``any other means authorized by law.'' In the 
absence of a private right of action, severe and long-standing 
deficiencies in civil rights enforcement and oversight have enabled 
funding recipients to permit the siting of waste and fossil fuel 
facilities and infrastructure that exacerbate racially disproportionate 
pollution burdens, approve transportation projects that split 
communities of color, and deny equitable participation of people with 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
limited English proficiency in siting and permitting decisions.

    Federal agency response to and resolution of complaints have 
historically been subject to delay, requiring litigation to enforce 
agency deadlines.\31\ Agencies, funding recipients, and the communities 
they are mandated to protect from discrimination lack comprehensive 
guidance on civil rights compliance.\32\ Complainants with firsthand 
knowledge have been systematically sidelined from the investigation and 
resolution of civil rights complaints.\33\ Agencies that refuse to 
assert jurisdiction over complaints or make findings of discrimination, 
much less wield their power to withhold or delay funding, send a 
message to funding recipients that compliance is optional.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \31\ Court Declares that EPA Failed To Protect Civil Rights, Yale 
Law School (April 3, 2018) https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/court-
declares-epa-failed-protect-civil-rights.
    \32\ See generally Comment Letter: Environmental Justice and Civil 
Rights with Appendices to Administrator Regan (w/ Appendices) (Title VI 
Alliance, November 2021) https://www.prrac.org/letter-to-administrator-
regan-et-al-re-enviro-justice-and-civil-rights-with-appendices-11-24-
21/.
    \33\ Id. at 15-16.

    A 2019 comment letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 
Development (HUD) submitted by Earthjustice (2019 Earthjustice letter) 
on behalf of residents of Flint, Michigan, and Tallassee and Uniontown, 
Alabama, among others, highlights mechanisms by which the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has circumvented Title VI 
enforcement.\34\ The 2019 Earthjustice letter called attention to 
barriers to disparate impact claims brought by communities under Title 
VI to reveal the danger of an analogous approach promulgated under the 
Fair Housing Act by HUD under the Trump Administration.\35\ The 
resultant lack of oversight over funding recipients, paired with a 
systematic marginalization of complainants from the investigation and 
resolution of complaints, has tangible impacts on environmental justice 
communities. As stated in the 2019 Earthjustice letter:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \34\ See Attachment A, Letter from Earthjustice et al. to Office of 
General Counsel, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Re 
Docket No. FR-6251-P-01: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Reinstatement 
of HUD's Discriminatory Effects Standard (Aug. 21, 2021).
    \35\ HUD's Implementation of the Fair Housing Act's Disparate 
Impact Standard, 84 Fed. Reg. 42,854 (proposed Aug.19, 2019) (to be 
codified at 24 C.F.R. pt. 100).

        [T]he U.S. Government and experts have recognized that 
        environmental discrimination is a significant problem in this 
        country and has been for decades.\36\ In recognition of that 
        problem, EPA enacted regulations in 1973 codifying that 
        discrimination can be proven through a disparate impact 
        analysis. Those regulations provide that a recipient of federal 
        funds may not directly or indirectly use criteria or methods of 
        administering its program, or choose a site or location of a 
        facility, that has ``the effect'' of excluding individuals, 
        denying them benefits, or otherwise subjecting them to 
        discrimination because of race, color, national origin, or 
        sex.\37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \36\ See generally Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of 
Christ, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report 
on the Racial and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Communities with 
Hazardous WasteSites (1987); U.S. Gov't Accounting Office, Siting of 
Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Race and Economic 
Status of Surrounding Communities (GAO/RCED-83-168), 3-4 (1983), http:/
/archive.gao.gov/d48t13/121648.pdf; Mikati et al., supra note 22, at 
480-85 (concluding that at local, state and national level, non-whites 
are burdened by environmental harms disproportionately to Whites). For 
an annotated bibliography of articles documenting environmental 
discrimination, see Luke W. Cole & Sheila R. Foster, From The Ground 
Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice 
Movement, 167-83 (2001).
    \37\ See 40 C.F.R. Sec. 7.35(b), (c).

        Yet, EPA has woefully failed to hold recipients of federal 
        funds accountable for discriminatory acts and policies, which 
        has subjected the agency to repeated criticism from multiple 
        sources.\38\ For example, EPA's Office of Civil Rights, now 
        called the External Civil Rights Compliance Office, has 
        rejected or dismissed a majority of the hundreds of Title VI 
        complaints it has received.\39\ A 2015 Center for Public 
        Integrity investigative study showed that even where there was 
        a reason to believe a recipient of federal funding had a 
        discriminatory policy, the Office of Civil Rights failed to 
        conduct an investigation.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \38\ See supra n. 27.
    \39\ See U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights Environmental Justice Report, 
supra note 27, at 40; see also Yue Qiu & Talia Buford, Decades of 
Inaction, Ctr. for Pub. Integrity (Aug. 3, 2015), https://
publicintegrity.org/environment/decades-of-inaction/.
    \40\ U.S. Comm'n on Civil Rights Environmental Justice Report, 
supra note 27, at 40 (citing Kristen Lombardi et al., Environmental 
Justice Denied: Environmental Racism Persists, and the EPA is One 
Reason Why, Ctr for Pub. Integrity (2015), http://
www.publicintegrity.org/2015/08/03/17668/environmental-racism-persists-
and-epa-one-reason-why.

        [O]ver time, EPA has informally applied needlessly heightened 
        standards . . . when conducting a disparate impact analysis. As 
        a result, . . . EPA has repeatedly concluded that no 
        discrimination--or ``insufficient evidence of 
        discrimination''--exists under a disparate impact analysis in 
        situations where a sensical and unencumbered application of the 
        disparate impact standard would have led to the opposite 
        conclusion. Indeed, in the 46 years since EPA's Title VI anti-
        discrimination regulations became effective, EPA has only once 
        concluded that a prima facie case of alleged discrimination 
        under the disparate impact framework was established.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \41\ See Marianne Engelman Lado, supra note 27, at 303-05; 
Agreement between the California Department of Pesticide and Regulation 
& the U.S. EPA, Aug. 24, 2011, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/
files/2016-04/documents/title6-settlement-agreement-signed.pdf.

    The 2019 Earthjustice letter details EPA's repeated failures to 
enforce the Title VI obligations of the Michigan Department of 
Environmental Quality [MDEQ], despite long-standing harmful conditions 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
in Flint, Michigan:

        As the recent lead-in-water crisis has brought into stark 
        relief, the community of Flint, Michigan has long suffered from 
        environmental and civil rights injustices. Flint is a majority 
        African American community with a poverty rate nearly three 
        times the national average, ranking near last in various public 
        health metrics compared to other areas of Michigan.\42\ Decades 
        of redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and harassment 
        have led to the racially segregated Flint of today--the city 
        has been labeled the most segregated non-Southern city in the 
        country.\43\
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    \42\ Flint Water Advisory Task Force, Final Report at 15 (Mar. 
2016), https://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/
FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf (``Flint Water Advisory 
Task Force Final Report'').
    \43\ Peter J. Hammer, The Flint Water Crisis: History, Housing and 
Spatial-Structural Racism, Testimony Before Michigan Civil Rights 
Commission Hearing on Flint Water Crisis (July 14, 2016), https://
www.michigan.gov/documents/mdcr/Hammer_PPt_for_MCRC_Flint_07-14-
16_552224_7.pdf.

        For decades, community activists have fought back against the 
        disproportionate burdens that state permitting agencies have 
        placed on the people of Flint.\44\ In 1992, the St. Francis 
        Prayer Center submitted a complaint to EPA, alleging that 
        [MDEQ] violated the civil rights of the people of Flint in the 
        permitting of a wood-burning incinerator in their 
        community.\45\ Just four years later, when MDEQ permitted 
        another polluting facility in Flint--the Select Steel steel 
        mill--the Prayer Center submitted another civil rights 
        complaint to EPA contesting the disproportionate burdens faced 
        by Flint residents.\46\ While it took EPA just a few months to 
        issue the findings of its investigation into the Select Steel 
        complaint, EPA did not issue findings on the 1992 complaint 
        until 2017--a quarter-century later. In both cases, EPA 
        discounted allegations of disparate impacts under arbitrary 
        standards . . .\47\
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    \44\ See Emily L. Dawson, Lessons Learned from Flint, Michigan: 
Managing Multiple Source Pollution in Urban Communities, 26 Wm. & Mary 
Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 367, 367 (2001).
    \45\ Letter from Father Phil Schmitter and Sister Joanne 
Chiaverini, St. Francis Prayer Center, to Mr. Valdas Adamkus, Regional 
Administrator, Region 5, U.S. EPA (Dec. 15, 1992) enclosing letters 
dated Dec. 15, 1992, to Mr. Herb Tate, Environmental Equity, US EPA and 
Mr. William Rosenberg, U.S. EPA.
    \46\ Letter from Father Phil Schmitter and Sister Joanne 
Chiaverini, St. Francis Prayer Center, to Ms. Diane E. Goode, Director, 
Office of Civil Rights, U.S. EPA (June 9, 1998).
    \47\ Letter from Lilian S. Dorka, Dir., External Civil Rights 
Compliance Office, U.S. EPA, to Heidi Grether, Dir., Michigan 
Department of Environmental Quality (Jan. 19, 2017), https://
www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/final-genesee-
complaint-letter-to-director-grether-1-19-2017.pdf; EPA, Office of 
Civil Rights, Investigative Report for Title VI Administrative 
Complaint File No. 5R-98-R5 (1998) (``Select Steel Investigative 
Report'').

        [In Select Steel,] EPA recognized that the facility would emit 
        pollutants such as lead and volatile organic compounds into the 
        air, but nevertheless closed the complaint on the basis that 
        the alleged harms were not sufficiently ``adverse'' because 
        modeling showed that the airshed would remain in attainment 
        with National Ambient Air Quality Standards.\48\ Thus, EPA 
        concluded, it need not review whether the effect of the siting 
        was disparate because, in EPA's eyes, the effect was 
        insignificant--even though there is no safe level of lead 
        exposure, and volatile organic compounds are also harmful. In 
        essence, EPA determined that harm from pollution that was 
        deemed ``acceptable'' under environmental laws categorically 
        could not result in a violation of civil rights law.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \48\ See Select Steel Investigative Report, at 16.
    \49\ Id. at 27.

        Indeed, EPA's injection of undefined ``significance'' into a 
        disparate impact assessment can lead and has led to disastrous 
        consequences. EPA's Select Steel investigation found that in 
        Genesee County, the county where Flint is located, 8% of 
        children already had elevated blood lead levels (above the 
        then-CDC level of 10 microg/dL) and that African-American 
        children there were four times more likely to have very high 
        blood lead levels (over 15 microg/dL) than white children,\50\ 
        making the addition of a known lead-emitting facility a source 
        of dangerous impacts disparately suffered by the community. Yet 
        EPA shrugged off the facility's impact on blood lead levels as 
        ``de minimis.'' \51\ So too did EPA disregard the lead 
        emissions from the Genesee power plant, about which the 
        community had complained starting in 1992. Decades later, the 
        Flint Water Advisory Task Force found that MDEQ bore ``primary 
        responsibility'' for the Flint Water Crisis that began in 2014 
        due, in part, to its ``cultural shortcomings that prevent it 
        from adequately serving and protecting the public health of 
        Michigan residents.'' \52\ Had EPA scrutinized--and potentially 
        rectified--these ``cultural shortcomings'' of MDEQ in the 
        1990s, instead of letting them fester for decades, the Flint 
        water crisis may have been abated or avoided.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \50\ Select Steel Investigative Report, at 32.
    \51\ Id. at 31.
    \52\ Flint Water Advisory Task Force Final Report, supra note 42, 
at 28.

        [With respect to the 1992 permit hearings, EPA eventually 
        found] that MDEQ had engaged in intentional discrimination in 
        its handling of the 1992 permit hearings. But by the time EPA 
        made this finding in 2017, it was too little too late, and EPA 
        had long lost the opportunity to address the policies and 
        practices of MDEQ that would eventually help cause the 
        disastrous Flint water crisis.\53\
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    \53\ See Marianne Engelman Lado, supra n. 27 at 292.

    EPA's 2017 determination remains the agency's only formal finding 
of discrimination to date. With this finding, EPA ordered MDEQ to (1) 
improve its public participation program to reduce risk of future 
disparate treatment, (2) improve its foundational non-discrimination 
program, and (3) establish an appropriate process to address 
environmental complaints.\54\ Two additional Title VI complaints 
regarding public participation for permitting in Genesee County 
resulted in EPA entering into resolution agreements with both MDEQ--now 
the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy 
(``EGLE'')--and the county to ensure non-discriminatory public 
participation.\55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \54\ Talia Buford, Rare Discrimination Finding by EPA Civil Rights 
Office, The Center for Public Integrity (Jan. 25, 2017), https://
publicintegrity.org/environment/rare-discrimination-finding-by-epa-
civil-rights-office/.
    \55\ External Civil Rights Compliance Office., U.S. Envtl. Prot. 
Agency, In Reply to: Complaint No. 17RD-16-R5 (2019), https://
www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-12/documents/resolution_ 
letter_and_agreement_for_complaint_17rd-16-r5.pdf.

    As evidenced in the context of a 2021 draft air permit for a hot 
mixed asphalt plant in Flint, Michigan, EGLE's permitting processes 
still lack adequate public participation processes and remain deficient 
in the analysis of the permitting decision's adverse impact on classes 
protected by Title VI.\56\ Despite having the authority to undertake a 
cumulative risk assessment, and despite calls by the public and EPA 
Region 5 for such a study, EGLE has to date refused to do so.\57\ This 
is not simply EGLE's failing; it is symptomatic of EPA's civil rights 
enforcement program.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \56\ Mich. Dep't of Env't, Great Lakes, and Energy, Proposed 
Project Summary: AJAX Materials Corporation--Flint, Genesee County, 
Michigan, 1 (July 2021). http://www.deq.state.mi.us/aps/downloads/
permits/PubNotice/APP-2021-0019/APP-2021-0019PPS.pdf.
    \57\ U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Detailed Permit Comments Ajax 
Materials Corporation PTI APP-2021-0019 (2021); Ron Fonger, EPA 
Recommends Further Study Before Genesee Township Asphalt Plant Gets 
Permit, Michigan Live (Sept. 16, 2021), https://www.mlive.com/news/
flint/2021/09/epa-recommends-further-study-before-genesee-township-
asphalt-plant-gets-permit.html.
    \58\ Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Report No. 
20-E-0333, Improved EPA Oversight of Funding Recipients' Title VI 
Programs Could Prevent Discrimination (2020).

    The Earthjustice letter also profiles the impact of an 
``arbitrarily imposed[,] onerous[,] and ill-defined `causality'' 
requirement' '' \59\ to disparate impact claims that has led the EPA to 
disregard legitimate allegations of the disproportionate impacts born 
by predominately Black communities in Uniontown and Tallassee, Alabama.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \59\ 2019 Earthjustice Letter at 11.

    The 2019 Earthjustice letter illustrates the situation in 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uniontown, Alabama, as follows:

        Uniontown, Alabama, is a city of fewer than 3,000, where 88% of 
        its residents are African American, and residents have a median 
        household income of $13,800.\60\ Once thriving with local 
        businesses, it is now known for its environmental 
        contamination. A cheese plant, a catfish mill, and a sewage 
        lagoon are all located nearby, but those sites are dwarfed by 
        Arrowhead Landfill, a municipal solid waste landfill. 
        Arrowhead, which sits on what was once a plantation, is 
        authorized to receive up to 15,000 tons of commercial and 
        industrial waste per day from 33 states. After the largest coal 
        ash spill to date occurred in majority white Roane County, 
        Tennessee in 2008, the coal ash was dredged up and shipped more 
        than 300 miles and dumped at the Arrowhead Landfill. As a 
        result, today the landfill site holds 4 million tons of this 
        coal ash, whose contents contain toxins such as mercury and 
        arsenic that are known to cause cancer, neurological damage, 
        and other detrimental health effects . . .\61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \60\ American Community Survey 5-year estimates from Census 
Reporter Profile Page for Uniontown, AL, U.S. Census Bureau (2017), 
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0177904-uniontown-al/.
    \61\ See, e.g., Environmental Integrity Project, Coal's Poisonous 
Legacy: Groundwater Contaminated by Coal Ash Across the U.S., 9-11, 
(Mar. 4, 2019), https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/
National%20Coal%20Ash%20Report%203.4.19.pdf; Kristen Lombardi, Thirty 
Miles from Selma, a Different Kind of Civil Rights Struggle, Ctr. for 
Public Integrity (Aug. 5, 2015), https://publicintegrity.org/
environment/thirty-miles-from-selma-a-different-kind-of-civil-rights-
struggle/.

        In 2013, dozens of residents of Uniontown, Alabama filed a 
        complaint with EPA, alleging that the renewal of the permit [by 
        the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM)] for 
        the Arrowhead Landfill and the permit modification, allowing an 
        increase of its size by two-thirds, adversely and disparately 
        impacted the surrounding, primarily African American, 
        community. Even before the expansion, the permit authorized 
        15,000 tons of waste per day, twice the amount permitted at the 
        next largest landfill in Alabama at the time.\62\ And the 
        landfill had already received and held 4 million tons of coal 
        ash. The Complaint alleged impacts related to odors, increased 
        population of flies and birds, increased noise from heavy 
        machinery, increased emission of fugitive dust, illnesses, 
        contaminated water, believed degradation of a community 
        cemetery, and decline of property values, about which many 
        community members had previously complained.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \62\ Uniontown Complaint, at 7-8.
    \63\ Uniontown Complaint; Uniontown Closure Letter.

        Residents had submitted a study showing health impacts, and the 
        record contained evidence that there had been an increase in 
        flies and birds. Even without such evidence, straightforward 
        logic compels a conclusion that renewing (the equivalent of 
        granting) a permit for an enormous landfill, containing toxic 
        coal ash and other industrial waste, causes adverse harms to 
        the surrounding community. And once a finding of 
        disproportionate adverse impact is made, the question shifts to 
        the justification for the action and whether there is a less 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        discriminatory alternative for achieving the objective.

        Yet EPA used the cloak of ``causality'' in 2018 to find no 
        prima facie case of discrimination. EPA ignored record evidence 
        by residents that there had been an increase in pests and a 
        decrease in quality of life--which should have been sufficient 
        evidence of adverse harm on its own. And even though ADEM 
        allowed Arrowhead to use ``alternates'' for daily cover of the 
        landfill, such as coal ash, in violation of state law requiring 
        soil cover, EPA concluded it was ``unable to identify any 
        functions'' related to that decision that could result in the 
        alleged increased populations of flies and birds . . .\64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \64\ Letter from Lilian S. Dorka, Dir., U.S. EPA, External Civil 
Rights Compliance Office, Office of Gen. Counsel, to Marianne Engelman 
Lado, Yale Law Sch., Envtl. Justice Clinic 15 (Mar. 1, 2018).

        At bottom, EPA indicated that the absence of ``scientific proof 
        of a direct link'' compelled it to conclude that there was no 
        evidence that [ADEM's] permitting decisions caused any impact 
        to the community. But the action of ADEM--approving the renewal 
        and modification of the permit--clearly caused the adverse 
        impacts; absent the permit, the facility would not be 
        operating, or absent the permit terms ADEM had set, the 
        facility would be operating with different conditions and 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        requirements.

        EPA's determinations that causation could not be established 
        with respect to other parts of the Uniontown complaint were 
        similarly far-fetched. The complainants alleged that they 
        believed the permits interfered with the ability of community 
        members to visit the cemetery because of loud nearby equipment 
        and an acrid odor.\65\ EPA nonsensically determined that 
        causation could not be established because the cemetery was not 
        within the operational boundaries of the landfill. But sound 
        and odor do not stop at operational boundaries. EPA further 
        stated that it decided that ``it would not investigate 
        substantively the alleged harm of diminution of property 
        values'' and, as a result, concluded that there ``is 
        insufficient evidence in the record to suggest that ADEM's 
        permitting actions themselves resulted in a sufficiently 
        significant harm with regard to property values.'' \66\ Of 
        course, if an agency not only fails to recognize that the 
        decision to permit the facility directly causes adverse 
        impacts, but also refuses to investigate or consider evidence 
        of an obvious harm, it can and will find no causation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \65\ Id. at 16.
    \66\ Id. at 18.

    As outlined in the 2019 Earthjustice letter, EPA employed a similar 
approach in response to civil rights complaints filed by residents of 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tallassee, Alabama:

        Located just north of the civil rights landmarks of Tuskegee 
        University, the majority African-American community members of 
        Ashurst Bar/Smith outside of Tallassee, Alabama have lived off 
        their land for generations, some owning property in the area 
        since the end of the Civil War. This unbroken lineage of Black 
        landownership makes Ashurst Bar/Smith unusual in the State, 
        since many Black communities could not own land in Alabama 
        until the passage of [Title VI].\67\ But the ever-expanding 
        Stone's Throw Landfill immediately next to the community 
        continues to displace community members and threatens to turn 
        this historical community into yet another unfortunate example 
        of black land loss.\68\ The Ashurst Bar/Smith Community 
        Organization (``ABSCO'') has fought against the expansion and 
        negative impacts from the landfill at the local, county, and 
        federal level. They submitted a civil rights complaint to EPA 
        in 2003 concerning a permit modification that allowed further 
        expansion of the landfill, but when EPA finally issued findings 
        on its investigation in 2017, it disregarded the community's 
        disparate impact allegations . . .\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \67\ See, e.g., Roy W. Copeland, In the Beginning: Origins of 
African American Real Property Ownership in the United States, 44 J. 
Black Studies, 646, 646-47 (Oct. 2013).
    \68\ See Ctr. for Social Inclusion, Regaining Ground: Cultivating 
Community Assets & Preserving Black Land at 6(2011), http://
www.centerforsocialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Regaining-
Ground-Cultivating-Community-Assets-and-Preserving-Black-Land.pdf.
    \69\ Letter, Tallassee Waste Disposal Center Expansion/Impact on 
the Ashurst Bar/Smith Community (Sept. 3, 2003) (sender and recipient 
redacted) (``Tallassee Complaint'') (attached to this letter as 
Attachment 3); Letter to Karen D. Higginbotham, Dir., U.S. EPA Office 
of Civil Rights (Dec. 8, 2003) (sender redacted); Letter from Lilian S. 
Dorka, Dir., External Civil Rights Compliance Office, U.S. EPA Office 
of Gen. Counsel, to Marianne Engelman Lado et al., Visiting Clinical 
Professor of Law, Yale Law Sch. at 2-3 (Apr. 28, 2017), https://
www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-05/documents/06r-03-
r4_closure_recipient_redacted.pdf (``2017 Tallassee Closure Letter'').

        In its closure letter, as it did with Uniontown, EPA 
        systematically discounted the various harms alleged in the 
        complaint under the assertion that there was ``insufficient 
        evidence in the record to show a causal link'' between the 
        permit modification and the alleged harm.\70\ For example, the 
        2003 ABSCO complaint raised the ``alternate'' daily cover issue 
        also raised in the Uniontown complaint: ABSCO alleged that 
        ADEM's grant of a waiver from the statutory requirement to use 
        daily soil cover caused harm to the community by increasing 
        exposure to rodents, wild dogs, and other pests, and the record 
        contained evidence that community members had observed 
        increases in these pests since the 2003 modification.\71\ EPA 
        acknowledged that it was ``possible'' that the permit 
        modification increased these pests, but, despite the record 
        evidence and without further investigation, inexplicably 
        concluded that it ``could not establish a causal link between 
        the 2003 permit modification and any changes in animal 
        population numbers.'' \72\ Yet after ABSCO filed a new Title VI 
        complaint regarding ADEM's renewal of the landfill's permit in 
        2017, EPA did a more searching review and found that the 
        evidence did ``establish a causal connection'' between the 
        alleged harms stemming from the landfill's failure to use 
        proper daily soil cover, but EPA steadfastly refused to make a 
        finding of disparate impact . . .\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \70\ Letter from Lilian S. Dorka, Dir. External Civil Rights 
Compliance Office, Office of Gen. Counsel, U.S. EPA, to Marianne 
Engelman Lado et al., Visiting Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law Sch. 
(Apr. 28, 2017).
    \71\ 2017 Tallassee Closure Letter, supra note 35, at 11.
    \72\ Id. at 11-12.
    \73\ Letter from Lilian S. Dorka, Dir., External Civil Rights 
Compliance Office, U.S. EPA Office of Gen. Counsel, to Marianne 
Engelman Lado et al., (Dec. 10, 2018) at 20. In its second analysis, 
EPA found that ADEM's failure to adequately enforce daily cover 
requirements of the permit did cause harm, but nevertheless failed to 
find disproportionality based on a faulty analysis of only 3 of the 
state's 32 municipal solid waste landfills. Id.

    Residents of Uniontown and the Ashurst Bar/Smith community outside 
of Tallassee continue to contend with the impacts of the Arrowhead and 
Stone's Throw landfills, in combination with other challenges. A recent 
article co-authored by myself, Jan-Michael Archer, and Benjamin Eaton 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
describes current conditions in Uniontown.

        Residents worry daily about exposures to carcinogenic air 
        pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and 
        lead, plus ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic 
        compounds and other hazardous air pollutants. They know that if 
        the air smells bad, likely it is also bad for them to breathe. 
        The water is bad, too. Studies have found lead and arsenic in 
        Uniontown's drinking water. It carries a foul aroma and causes 
        rashes on peoples' skin. Improperly treated sewage . . . enters 
        nearby creeks from an outdated wastewater treatment system, as 
        it has for decades. Community members endure a litany of health 
        issues, and health care is hard to find from the few rural 
        clinics available.\74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \74\ Amy Laura Cahn, Jan-Michael Archer, and Benjamin Eaton, 
Alabama Landfill Fight Tests EPA's Enviro Justice Promises, Law 360 
(Feb. 15, 2020) https://www.law360.com/articles/1465095/alabama-
landfill-fight-tests-epa-s-enviro-justice-promises.

    ABSCO President Ron Smith details current conditions for 
communities adjacent to the Stone's Throw landfill in Tallassee. Like 
Uniontown residents, residents of the Ashurst Bar-Smith community 
continue to experience cumulative impacts on health and welfare and a 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
lack of enforcement by ADEM.

        There is constant industrial traffic, day and night, and the 
        school bus driver has for years had to take extra precautions 
        for students entering the bus because the drivers ignore the 
        bus stop signs. Nuisance animal populations are thriving and 
        are a concern for safety, especially packs of wild dogs and 
        coyotes, while vultures encircle resident homes and yards. 
        Residents near the landfill complain of foul-smelling and ill-
        colored tap water and water from the tap is contaminated to the 
        point that in one case it failed the test for use in home 
        dialysis. Surface and ground waters have been contaminated and 
        are currently impacting and threatening the health and welfare 
        of 50,000 citizens in three counties. The air is unbearably 
        foul, especially during adverse atmospheric conditions, causing 
        respiratory problems and forcing families who can afford it to 
        move off their land. Those who remain cannot enjoy their 
        property. Overall, there is no monitoring of the community's 
        health or provisions for health care. Yet, when the community 
        opposed the siting and/or expansion of the landfill in public 
        hearings, responses from EPA funding recipient ADEM are 
        sarcastically degrading.\75\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \75\ Email from Ron Smith to Amy Laura Cahn (Feb. 22, 2022).

    The conditions described flow from a systematic failure to enforce 
Title VI. The impacts of the heightened standards imposed by EPA are 
exacerbated by the lack of rights of complainants from affected 
communities who are at best consulted and at worst sidelined to the 
point that investigations, resolution agreements, and remedies ignore 
community needs and lived realities--or there is no remedy at all. 
Sections 4, 5, and 6 of H.R. 2021 would restore the right of 
individuals to legally challenge discrimination--including 
environmental discrimination--prohibited under Title VI. This would 
restore to communities--and the courts--the power to ensure that 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
discrimination does not occur without consequence.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Thank you. Let me thank all the witnesses for 
their thoughtful and informed testimony.
    Let me begin the questioning. The Members are limited to 5 
minutes, and we will begin with myself. I will turn to Mr. 
Stauber for his questions. Then we will alternate back and 
forth. Let me begin.
    Dr. Sheats, one of the pushbacks in discussing the 
Environmental Justice For All Act or the topic in general is 
that this is not the time, that we should leave things as is 
because of the economy, jobs, national security, energy 
independence, economic growth; that all these supersede and 
need to be protected, so we leave things as is for EJ 
communities and frontline communities or we do nothing at all. 
That seems to be the tone.
    Can you, Dr. Sheats, give some examples of economic 
consequences of continuing to burden environmental justice 
communities with the disproportionate share of our nation's 
pollution?
    Those economic consequences don't get talked about, but 
please, if you don't mind, sir.
    Dr. Sheats. Well, I think you are right, Chair Grijalva. 
Those economic consequences are not discussed enough, and the 
consequences are the health consequences to the residents of 
people in communities of color and low-income communities.
    And I think that being able to breathe without developing 
some life-threatening disease probably trumps everything else 
because if you are not around, if you are dead, or if you are 
ill all the time, nothing else matters too much.
    So, what we have done so far, and you are talking about the 
associated economic consequences, is think about the pressure 
that ill people put on our health system and the cost of caring 
for these people.
    Even though in our communities they tend not to have as 
much health care as in other communities, this is still 
imposing costs on our society.
    Now, the ultimate costs are being borne by folks in these 
communities because they are the ones getting ill, and what we 
are saying is that these people should not be sacrificed 
anymore. It is not fair and it is unconscionable.
    And I have to say I don't think there is a contradiction 
between trying to make people healthy and trying to improve our 
environment and economic growth. I think if you make 
communities healthier, you will find people and industry want 
to be in these communities more because they are good places to 
be.
    Nobody wants to be somewhere where it is hard to breathe or 
where the water is contaminated, and we have clean industry now 
that can come into these communities and not increase pollution 
but that can improve the economic outlook of these communities 
and improve the economic outlook of our country.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Ms. Cahn, let me ask you about the ability to take legal 
action for communities, particularly around the issue of 
environmental justice that was lost to the Alexander v. 
Sandoval Supreme Court decision back in 2001.
    Why is it important to restore the right to challenge 
disparate impact discrimination in court?
    How effective have Federal agencies been in enforcing the 
prohibition against disparate impact relative to the issue of 
environmental justice and what the legislation attempts to 
address?
    If you could, Ms. Cahn, if you could maybe speak to that 
point.
    Ms. Cahn. Of course, and thank you so much.
    In short, Federal agencies have not been responsive and not 
been effective in enforcing civil rights in the environmental 
justice context, and the barriers to that are numerous.
    The response time and the resolution time--these complaints 
have been subject historically to delay and even requiring 
litigation to enforce agencies' own deadlines. Agencies and the 
funding recipients themselves in the communities they are 
mandated to protect lack guidance on civil rights compliance, 
and complainants, often the ones with the firsthand knowledge 
about the harms created by environmental discrimination, have 
been systemically sidelined from investigation and resolutions.
    And then the resolutions themselves are often not enforced 
by the agencies who are funding recipients perpetuating 
discrimination.
    So, barriers upon barriers stand in the way of communities 
seeking redress from the Federal agencies who are mandated to 
enforce Title VI.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    And my time has expired.
    Let me now recognize Mr. Stauber for 5 minutes, sir.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Chair Grijalva, and thank you for 
the witnesses testifying today.
    First, I want to yield 30 seconds back to the Chairman. I 
have a question.
    Did you or your office send a letter to Secretary Haaland, 
urging her to suspend work on the master development plan for 
the Willow Project?
    Mr. Chair?
    The Chairman. I believe it was in discussion state, but if 
we did, it was in the context of--I believe that letter was 
either being developed or was already sent.
    Mr. Stauber. OK. My question then will be to Mayor Brower.
    Mayor Brower, in the spirit of environmental justice and 
consultation, were you consulted on drafting that letter?
    Mr. Brower, are you still with us, Mayor?
    [No response.]
    The Chairman. Can we move on to another witness? We can 
return as soon as the good Mayor is on.
    Mr. Stauber. My questions are to Mr. Brower. Is he on?
    The Chairman. Mr. Brower?
    Mr. Brower is available for your questions, Mr. Stauber.
    Mr. Stauber. Oh, he is. OK, good.
    The Chairman. Mayor, you need to unmute your equipment 
there so that you can respond to Mr. Stauber's questions.
    Mr. Stauber. Boy, I cannot wait until we can meet in 
person.
    Mr. Mayor, are you on?
    The Chairman. He continues to be muted.
    Mr. Mayor, you need to unmute so that we can continue.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, do you have any Jeopardy music?
    The Chairman. No. I mean, you just said earlier you are 
dying to see us in person. I don't know if I am ready for the 
full warm fuzzies, but you know, we will start to----
    Mr. Stauber. I always enjoy full meetings with you, Mr. 
Chair.
    The Chairman. Mr. Stauber, I think the Mayor is available 
now if you would like to direct your question.
    Mr. Stauber. Great. Thank you.
    Mayor Brower, I just want to say in the spirit of 
environmental justice and consultation, were you consulted on a 
drafting of a letter that requested the suspension of work on 
the master development plan for the Willow Project?
    Mr. Brower. No, we were not. North Slope Borough was not 
consulted.
    Mr. Stauber. So, you were not consulted on a project in 
your community.
    Mayor Brower, you sent a letter to my colleague at the end 
of January calling on him to meet with you and the Indigenous 
Peoples of the North Slope of Alaska before taking the 
position.
    Did that meeting take place?
    Mr. Brower. No.
    Mr. Stauber. Have you heard anything in response to your 
letter?
    Mr. Brower. Not at this time.
    Mr. Stauber. OK. Can you describe how the Willow Project 
will build on the economic development in your district?
    Mr. Brower. The benefits would be numerous to the income 
that would be generated from this project, and the items that I 
mentioned earlier in my comments in regard to the health 
communities, the fire departments, and the search and rescue 
that are within the North Slope Borough. Those kinds of 
benefits would be identified through the needs of the North 
Slope Borough.
    Mr. Stauber. In your testimony, would it be correct that 
you said 95 percent of your investments in your community are 
paid through the taxes of the oil and gas industry?
    Mr. Brower. Yes, you are right.
    Mr. Stauber. OK. And what would you say to those who claim 
to support Native consultation but pick and choose which 
projects to consult on and which people to be consulted?
    Mr. Brower. In regard to consultation, we made our attempts 
to invite the leaders of the Administration, the Biden 
administration, to no results. We made attempts to identify 
that the potential processes that need to be identified were 
not.
    Mr. Stauber. Right. So, I want to be clear. You are the 
mayor of the community, the community in which the Willow 
Project will be put forward, and in the spirit of environmental 
justice and consultation, you as the community leader were 
never consulted on the project, on the master development plan 
for the Willow Project.
    Mr. Chair, this is very concerning when we have folks 
coming up talking about environmental justice and consultation 
and you have a community that was never consulted on the master 
development plan for the Willow Project. It is very concerning.
    I think it is kind of hypocritical that you can pick and 
choose who you consult with, and it is disappointing.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Stauber.
    There is no inconsistency in that letter and the Members 
who signed it, none whatsoever with this hearing. What 
reinforcement there is to re-enforce the National Environmental 
Policy Act, NEPA, and the Endangered Species Act, and the 
public process attended to that.
    This was flawed from the beginning. To disclose the true 
impacts we were asking the Interior Department to do is a 
legitimate thing.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, would you yield?
    The Chairman. The community that you are referencing, sir, 
under NEPA has a full opportunity to be involved in that. So, 
this right of disclosure, this right of everybody knowing, this 
right of taking a flawed process, and saying this is the 
opportunity to correct that.
    Mr. McClintock. A point of order, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. There is no inconsistency.
    Mr. Stauber. On whose time is the Chairman speaking?
    The Chairman. And the approval of a flawed process by 
anybody still does not take the importance of having full 
disclosure in the NEPA process. That is only fair.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair. May I respond, Mr. Chair?
    The Chairman. Of course.
    Mr. Sablan. Chairman Grijalva, can we move on please?
    Mr. Stauber. The mayor of the community has said he was not 
consulted. The mayor of community in question, which is where 
the Willow Project will be taking place, and the investments in 
the community, was never consulted.
    Mr. Huffman. It was a letter.
    Mr. Stauber. That was my point of questioning. Never 
consulted.
    And I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much for that back-and-forth.
    Let me now recognize Mrs. Napolitano for 5 minutes.
    Representative, you are recognized.
    Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    To Ms. Laura Cortez, I am close to east L.A., but can you 
speak more to the drinking water studies that your organization 
has led with members of the community?
    Ms. Cortez. Sure. Thank you.
    With our community, one of the big issues, I think, that I 
have learned with water quality--because I am also a community 
member who was completely unaware of some of the water issues 
happening in our hood--education is a big, big issue starting 
with the idea of understanding where your water comes from, how 
water is exploited from other areas and taken, a lot of times 
those are Indigenous communities whose water we are taking.
    So, those are things that we learned together, and then 
understanding our water reports in terms of our water quality. 
I am not sure if any of you all look at your water reports, but 
they are very technical, very complex, and that is something 
that we learned as a community, want to understand the 
pollutants, the thresholds, how our notice is given.
    Every city, every water company is completely different 
which creates a lot of complication in terms of being able to 
understand when there are issues and, therefore, advocate for 
improved water quality.
    How can we advocate for something where the system is 
created so we do not understand them.
    So, with that, we have been able to make collaborations 
with universities to be able to take community members to 
understand the process of what contaminants are in water, how 
they have health impacts, and how we can start advocating to 
that.
    Is that the jurisdiction of a water company? Is that the 
jurisdiction that is a regional municipality?
    We need to understand these different agencies, these 
different pollutants, these different health impacts, so that 
is something that we continue to work on with our community 
members from east L.A. down.
    I know there was a recent policy that passed on PFAS, 
looking at some of our contaminants there, but there are so 
many, including lead, mercury, nickel, that are in our water 
that we need to continue to address.
    Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much.
    I think you are doing well, but I think really we need to 
talk, Ms. Cortez. I am much versed on water, and I am sure that 
the water companies maybe need to have more information 
disseminated to the general public they serve because it 
behooves them.
    Dr. Sheats, today too many environmental justice 
communities, especially tribal, live without safe and reliable 
water supplies and basic water infrastructure.
    One of the barriers that has led to this historic inequity 
is the Federal funding. Can recent investments passed maybe 
remedy or try to remedy some of these issues?
    Dr. Sheats. Thank you for the question. I am not expert on 
water issues, but let me say this. I think that the Biden 
administration's initiative, Justice40 Initiative, really holds 
out some hope that benefits and investments leading to benefits 
will flow to communities to address all types of issues, 
including the water issue that you bring up.
    So, hopefully, when this initiative is fully implemented, 
developed and implemented, communities that are suffering from 
lack of water quality or access to water will be helped through 
it.
    Mrs. Napolitano. Well, there are too many things that have 
bothered all of us that in the past we have ignored, such as 
all the illnesses that are borne in water and the air, and I 
think the environmental justice community has the right to 
bring them to court so that we can try to prevent them or 
remedy them with the pollutants and make sure that our 
communities are safe and safeguarded.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields.
    Let me now turn to the Dean of the House, Mr. Young. You 
are recognized, sir.
    Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I hope you 
understand it is awfully early in the morning for the Mayor and 
myself. You guys have a nice, leisure morning. We have to be up 
at 4 a.m. to have this hearing. I just want to remind you of 
that. There is a little bit of a difference when we have these 
Zoom meetings.
    But thank you for having the hearing and, Mr. Mayor, thank 
you for being here and for your testimony. I think it is 
crucially important to recognize that there is a pick and 
choose by certain people within the Congress when you take a 
listen to the one side and won't listen to the other side. Yet, 
you say you have consultation.
    And for that, my opposite side of this, there is no 
consultation, the people in the area, especially the Willow 
Project and the North Slope. There is no consultation, Mr. 
Chairman, with all due respect.
    Sent a letter? Big deal. You haven't sat down and talked to 
anybody. You haven't had a meeting with anybody. They have 
asked for a meeting, and I suggest respectfully if we are going 
to do this correctly, make sure you consult with everyone that 
are Indigenous people who are directly affected by actions of 
the Congress. I think that is very important.
    Mr. Mayor, just out of curiosity, how much money do you 
think you have received?
    And what have you used it for from the industry itself?
    How has it affected your society up there?
    Mr. Brower. Thank you, Congressman Young.
    It is near the $400 million, and that is what we are 
banking on, the taxes that we receive from the industry. It is 
subject to the Borough's operations.
    Mr. Young. You have used it for water. We just heard about 
water, drinking potable water.
    Mr. Brower. Yes.
    Mr. Young. You have used it for waste.
    Mr. Brower. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Young. You have used it for education. You have done 
everything right with the money, and yet people say, ``Oh, we 
are going to help the poor, the Indigenous people.'' Yet, they 
don't want you to receive the money. This is what I don't 
understand.
    There is such hypocrisy here. There is no justice in this, 
and I do believe you have used the money correctly.
    I go there. I know what I am talking about. I have seen the 
improvement over when I first went there back in the early 
1960s. You didn't have a whole lot. You did have natural gas, 
which was good, but I do believe you handled this well.
    You are still going half way on a subsistence livelihood. 
You are a whaling captain, are you not, Mr. Mayor?
    Mr. Brower. Yes, I am, Congressman. Thank you.
    Mr. Young. Did you have a strike this year?
    Mr. Brower. Yes, we landed a whale.
    Mr. Young. Good. That sounds good.
    Well, anyway, Mr. Chairman, I understand these hearings. I 
just wish everybody would play on a level playing field. If we 
are going to talk about consultation and justice, even though 
you may disagree with them, you have to consult with them. That 
is the fairness doctrine. That goes for the whole Congress.
    And if we are going to deal with people of Indigenous rank, 
do not pat them on the head and say we are going to take care 
of you and then take it away. That is wrong.
    With that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Young.
    And we will have that opportunity, sir, and I take your 
recommendation seriously. We will have that opportunity when we 
talk about the RESPECT Act and all its ramifications and to the 
topic that we are talking about today.
    So, I appreciate your comments and look forward to that 
discussion in the very near future.
    Let me now turn to Mr. Cohen, Representative. You are 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and any 
members of the Committee that yielded to me because I have a 
packed day, and I am sure everybody else does, too, but it is a 
packed day, including a funeral. So, it is a busy, busy, packed 
day.
    I want to thank you for having this hearing on this 
important subject. It is something that strikes close to my 
heart and to my community's. We have several African American 
inner-city communities that have been the site of much 
industrial pollution and industrial development over the years.
    Recently, there was an attempt to put a pipeline from an 
oil company----
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, excuse me. Somebody has to mute. 
Somebody is interrupting our speaker.
    The Chairman. I think it is the Mayor. If somebody would 
communicate that. I had to ask him to unmute this time. So, if 
somebody would advise the Mayor to mute, I would appreciate 
that.
    Mr. Cohen, please continue. I am sorry.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you, Mr. Stauber for making note of that.
    They tried to put a pipeline through a minority community, 
and they had the nerve to say it was the path of least 
resistance, the least resistance because the poor community, 
which happens to be African American, which had been used for 
so many years as places where industrial sites located that put 
off lots of pollutants, and that community or those communities 
had four times the cancer rates of anyplace else in the city.
    They had not had the voices to stand up. This year, in what 
was an historic moment with the grassroots support plus Vice 
President Gore who got involved and my office and others, this 
pipeline did not go through. It was stopped, and that was 
wonderful.
    But normally that doesn't happen, and industrial pollutants 
go to places of least resistance, just like was said in that 
situation.
    There was a Senator I served with, a Republican Senator in 
Tennessee, a State Senator named Donovan, a fine gentleman, and 
he told me, which was nothing unique, the NIMBY statement, 
``not in my backyard.'' And that is where I learned it.
    Every place, they don't want it in their back yard, and the 
powerful people, the wealthy people, the people that have 
voices because of political contributions or other powers that 
they might have to extend benefits on elected officials either 
during or after office, they don't get the pollutants in those 
areas in their neighborhoods because they have a stronger 
voice. And it has gone on forever.
    So, we need to have this environmental justice for the 
future and to make up somewhat for the past, so I appreciate 
this hearing.
    Let me ask first--Dr. Sheats, and I appreciate your 
testimony, the Byhalia Pipeline was a prime example of 
cumulative impact. Were this to be built, communities that were 
already at greater health risk would have had one more 
potential source of pollutants. How would this bill have 
affected the cumulative impact of projects?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, I think it would be subjected to a 
cumulative impacts review, application for the permit, and if 
that review showed that the cumulative impact, standard and the 
EJ For All Act, that if due to cumulative impacts there is not 
a reasonable certainty of no harm to the community in which a 
facility or pipeline would go through, if there is not a 
reasonable certainty of no harm, then the application would be 
denied. So, there is a level of protection there through 
cumulative impact analysis.
    Mr. Cohen. And have you seen a history of pollutant plants 
that emit pollutants, oil or other industrial types, being put 
in minority communities, both White and Black, throughout this 
country?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, there is, and those are the studies I 
referred to, yes, there is a history of all types of polluting 
facilities being disproportionately sited in communities of 
color, and not just poor communities of color, in communities 
of color and low-income communities of all colors, so including 
low-income White communities. There is a history of that.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    Ms. Cahn, you are an expert on environmental justice in the 
context of civil rights law. Can you provide a real-world 
example of how the current application of the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 under the Supreme Court Sandoval decision does not 
fully protect the rights of communities suffering from 
discrimination?
    Ms. Cahn. Yes. Thank you for this opportunity in 43 
seconds.
    I spoke of the communities in Uniontown and Tallassee, 
Alabama in particular, both of whom have gone on more than one 
occasion to the EPA filing civil rights complaints about the 
disproportionate impact of the siting of those landfills on 
those historically Black communities.
    In particular, the Uniontown landfill holds 4 billion tons 
of coal ash that actually were carted in from a disaster 
outside of the state and is now impacting that community in a 
negative way, along with a cheese plant, a catfish plant, and a 
whole host of issues related to insufficient water and 
sanitation services.
    So, the community itself is dealing with its own set of 
cumulative impacts and has failed to get redress from EPA by 
filing complaints.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Cahn.
    Thank you to all of the members of the Committee that 
allowed me to go a little early. We will submit the remainder 
of our questions in writing.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. I appreciate it, Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    Let me now recognize Representative McClintock.
    Sir, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Chairman.
    I have to admit that I joined this hearing largely out of 
curiosity over how the leftist Majority can turn anything, even 
natural resources policy, into a racial issue.
    The fact is the American people of all races, ethnicities, 
religions, and origins have suffered severely over the last 
year because of leftist policies that are driving the most 
alarming increase in crime and homelessness wherever they have 
taken control, reckless spending that is driving the worst 
inflation Americans have suffered in 40 years, mass migration 
across our borders that threatens the prosperity, the social 
services, and the safety of every community in our country.
    And when it comes to the subject matter of this Committee, 
their foolish policies have also done enormous damage to the 
quality of life of Americans when it comes to resources policy.
    Think about this. The first day the left took control of 
the White House, Mr. Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline, 
sending thousands of workers into unemployment. It denied the 
American economy some 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day coming 
into American energy markets. He ordered a halt to oil and gas 
leases on Federal land. He suspended oil drilling leases in 
Alaska.
    In the last years of the Trump administration, we had 
achieved something that all of us thought was impossible during 
most of our lifetimes. We had achieved American energy 
independence, including some of the lowest energy prices in 
decades.
    The Democrats managed to reverse that achievement in a 
matter of months. Oil prices increased 69 percent last year, 
gasoline prices up nearly 40 percent, and this bill would add 
still more cost to American energy production, ultimately paid 
by Americans at the gas pump and in their skyrocketing utility 
bills.
    In his opening statement, Mr. Stauber complained that local 
gasoline is going for, I believe he said $3.66 a gallon. I 
would invite him to come here to California where leftist 
policies have already pushed the average gasoline price across 
California today to $4.70 a gallon.
    I might also touch on the tolls on our forests here in the 
Sierra Nevada. It has been taken by years of leftist 
environmental prohibitions of forest management, prohibitions 
that have resulted in catastrophic overgrowth of our forests.
    The price of lumber hit an all-time high in May of last 
year. That drives higher housing costs, while our Federal 
forests are effectively abandoned to neglect and catastrophic 
fire.
    Meanwhile, America has become the second largest importer 
of lumber in the world, including $4.5 billion of imported 
lumber from Canada, while our forests sit idle.
    These conditions are the stark and unmistakable effect of 
the resources policies that the left has imposed on our 
economy. The suffering they impose affect every race, every 
community, and every family in our country, but none suffer the 
resulting increases in energy prices, housing prices, and 
transport prices more than the poor, regardless of their race 
or where they happen to live.
    I would suggest that maybe, just maybe, we ought to be 
focusing on these policies before they do more harm to every 
American of every race.
    As this hearing makes crystal clear, the Democrats seem to 
be incapable of doing so because they are unable to see beyond 
a person's race. How sad, how sad for them and how sad for our 
country.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields.
    I would agree with Mr. McClintock. I think that the issue 
of race and economic status should not be a criterion for 
having to legislate, but when it is a factor in how decisions 
are made, then we need to correct that imbalance and make it 
not about race.
    Again, that is where I think legislation like the one 
before us, Mr. McClintock, has to play a role because powerful 
decisions involve race and the corrective action involves a 
protection so that it is not about race.
    But having said that, let me yield to you, sir, because I 
took time and that is not fair. Mr. McClintock?
    Mr. McClintock. Well, I have nothing more to say, Mr. 
Chairman. The facts speak for themselves very clearly. The 
American people can see that very clearly. They are feeling it 
every day as they go to the gas station, as they pay their 
utility bills, as they search for affordable housing.
    These policies are driving terrible suffering across the 
land. Please stop it.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. McClintock.
    On that note, let me now turn to the gentleman from 
California, Mr. Costa. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for holding this hearing. I think it is important.
    I would like to focus on two areas, on water in rural areas 
in America, and I will draw on some examples, my home where I 
have lived all my life and grown up out on a farm and depended 
on well water for our supply.
    Senator Padilla and I worked very hard on the bipartisan 
infrastructure package to ensure that we had money for clean 
drinking water. We have communities like Alpaugh and Fairmead. 
They aren't towns, but they don't have the wherewithal, the 
resources to implement the level of clean drinking water that 
they need and deserve.
    There are others, many communities that make up the valley 
that have similar situations. Small towns like Dos Palos, we 
are helping them with USDA and the State and they have a little 
better situation.
    But how do you see communities throughout rural America 
benefiting with the great social and economic disparities from 
this $52 billion for clean drinking water?
    I don't know if, Laura Cortez, you would like to speak to 
that or Laura Cahn.
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I can share briefly. Thank you for that 
question, Representative.
    I do not live in a rural area. So, I will start there, and 
I do not know where you are living, so I am learning a lot, and 
I appreciate that.
    I think one of the opportunities that I see that I think 
does not get highlighted enough during this hearing so far is 
the idea of we are opening doors for alternative and 
sustainable energy.
    That is the idea when we are talking about a just and fair 
transition. So, when we talk about the rural areas, I hope, we 
can look at different areas of exploring more sustainable, 
healthier ways to do this work.
    I think although this is not directly related to water----
    Mr. Costa. Right, and you are talking about energy, and I 
appreciate that, but I am talking about water here.
    I want to defer to the Chairman, but let me just make a 
personal comment. Just as important as clean drinking water is 
to these rural communities so is a water supply for these rural 
communities that produce food. I have had significant drought 
conditions right now and in the past, but we have had 30, 40 
percent, as much as half the communities unemployed because of 
a zero water allocation.
    And water is critical to our production of food. It is a 
national security issue, and I think that needs to be taken 
into account, the same in terms of the economic and social 
disparities that occur.
    Mr. Chairman, I will defer and allow you the balance of my 
2 minutes.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Sheats, to just follow up on some things. Do you think 
EJ communities might benefit if the Federal agencies did NEPA 
reviews for federally permitted or funded projects that are 
currently right now exempt from that NEPA review?
    Would that be a benefit to include those for EJ 
communities?
    And I think the corollary question is, if Federal agents 
were directed to choose a course of action under NEPA that 
avoids further harm to overburdened EJ communities. Those are 
currently not part of that process, and I just want to ask you 
your reaction to that.
    Dr. Sheats. I think communities would benefit if they could 
weigh in on infrastructure decisions that currently they cannot 
weigh in on. After all, you are talking about structures or 
activities that will be in their communities for decades and 
have an impact on their communities.
    So, certainly they should be allowed to voice their opinion 
on these types of projects.
    And I think the whole process would be better, the projects 
would be better, if they are allowed to weigh in because they 
know their communities best. They know what will impact their 
communities the most so they can make the best suggestions on 
how to mitigate any harms that the project might cause.
    The Chairman. And the question, Ms. Cortez, one of the 
things that you have heard at the hearing, and we hear all the 
time, is that we hear the refrain that stronger environmental 
protections for all communities are going to kill jobs, they 
are going to inflict economic harm.
    Is that a choice we have, the choice being economic 
prosperity and continuing to burden EJ communities with a 
higher share of our nation's pollution and the damaging public 
health effects by that?
    How do you respond to that refrain?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I think it is really narrow-minded to 
think about jobs only, particularly when we are working those 
jobs also, right? So, it is really important to know that in my 
community, as an example, we have folks who are truck drivers, 
who are port workers, who do work in these refineries, who are 
our families and our neighbors, who are having the health 
issues.
    Most of them understand that, but risk that because of a 
job. And in talking to these folks, it is very clearly 
understood that if there was an alternative, that we would love 
to transition to that alternative.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you.
    The Chairman. I have run out of time, and I apologize, but 
I don't know if we are going to have a second round or not. It 
depends on the will of the Committee.
    But let me now turn to the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. 
Graves, whom I recognize for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank the witnesses for joining today.
    Ms. Cortez, I appreciate your testimony about the NEPA 
process and the documents being 5,000 pages in some cases and 
that just not being helpful because nobody has the time or 
expertise to sit around and read that type of documentation.
    Do you think that that results in a better outcome for the 
environment when you have documents that like that effectively 
serve as an impediment for public participation or 
understanding?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you for that question.
    One of the big issues is not that the document is so big, 
because we think the studies are needed, but that they are 
difficult to understand, that there is no support to be able to 
analyze these things with community.
    And, oftentimes, in my community they are done as a check 
box. It is done, put it out, 30 days, close it up, with no 
expectation or outreach to community to be able to really 
understand and weigh in on that analysis.
    Mr. Graves. Thank you.
    And look, I agree with you that I think that the NEPA 
process is very difficult to participate in and digest, and we 
actually have legislation trying to help to fix that.
    Ms. Cahn, your testimony points to a NAACP document, 
``Fumes Across the Fence Line,'' and it says that more than a 
million people live within a half mile of natural gas 
facilities.
    Can you provide a little more context for this statistic?
    And what is that, sort of in relation to the overall 
population living within that radius?
    Ms. Cahn. Thank you for that question. I appreciate it.
    I would say as a starting point, I think that the study 
stands for itself. But I'm happy to supply a written response 
that puts that----
    Mr. Graves. OK. I would appreciate that, Ms. Cahn, and I 
would like to put a little bit more detail in there because I 
think that it potentially was a bit misleading.
    Nationally, about 2 percent of the population living within 
a half mile of all the gas facilities are African American. In 
my home state of Louisiana, it is about 5 percent.
    So, I think it is important to put that in context 
because--and, Mr. Chairman, I have to tell you this is, once 
again, incredibly disappointing by sort of the disposition of 
this hearing, that everything is being done because folks are 
intentionally trying to discriminate against a certain 
population.
    I don't buy it. I haven't done the math. I am going to take 
a quick guess that I am in the top three of every single person 
on this Zoom right now or Webex right now that have a higher 
number or percentage of African Americans living within a mile 
away.
    From where I live, I will bet you that I have more oil and 
gas and chemical facilities within a few miles from my house 
than anybody else here.
    I don't believe that I am being discriminated against.
    Somebody was talking earlier about Virginia and six to 
seven facilities that are easier to permit than another one. 
Let me tell you why there are so many facilities where I live. 
I am at the bottom of the Mississippi River. It is one of the 
easiest ways, the safest ways to transport goods, so people 
want to be by the river. That is why they are here.
    We also have a lot of the raw materials, resources, and 
energy supplies. That is why they are here. It is not an intent 
to discriminate against certain people.
    If you want to talk about discrimination, let's do that, 
Mr. Chairman. My home state of Louisiana, we have lost 2,000 
square miles of our coast, and as the last hearing I 
participated in, you had somebody try to come in and say that 
offshore oil and gas production was discriminatory when the 
facts showed that the closest community, Grand Isle, was .9 
percent African American, .9.
    People come and make up all of this stuff about racism. 
Yes, we have lost 2,000 square miles of our coast, and this 
Committee, in fact, Mr. Chairman, you yourself along with all 
of the other Democrats on the Committee have opposed efforts to 
try to protect these communities.
    Is that discrimination because we are Cajun? I don't 
understand.
    And I think it is a total disservice for all of you to be 
here suggesting that all of this is being done intentionally 
because folks are racist. I don't believe that. I don't, and I 
don't think it is good for our country to keep driving this 
wedge.
    There are problems, yes. There are environmental problems, 
absolutely. There are racial problems. There are economic 
problems. Let's just be candid and address those and stop all 
of this driving divisiveness in this country and in this 
Committee and trying to force people to believe that they are 
discriminated against.
    Like I said, I have more chemical, oil, and gas plants 
within a few miles of my house than any of you, and I am not 
out here yelling about discrimination. There is a fit there. I 
chose to live here.
    Mr. Chairman, I am going to follow up with a number of 
questions for the record, but I think it is just dangerous 
trajectory for us to continue to force this conspiracy of 
racism on all of these decisions. It is not going to yield 
results.
    Let's work on things that will actually solve problems for 
communities of color, for economically distressed communities 
and others and stop voting against trying to protect and 
sustain the people that we represent in South Louisiana like 
you have all done.
    It is just disingenuous to hear you sit here and act like 
there are suddenly problems for other communities.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields.
    Let me now turn to the original co-sponsor of this 
legislation and a partner for about 2 years-plus in bringing 
this legislation together through a long process.
    With the indulgence of others and to be fair, I am going to 
extend Mr. McEachin's time as I recognize him so that if there 
is a concern, we can balance that extension to the other side 
at any point.
    Let me now recognize Mr. McEachin. Representative, you are 
recognized for I will not give you a magic minute, but at least 
10 minutes, I guess.
    Mr. McEachin. I will try not to use all the time. Thank 
you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Committee's indulgence, and 
I appreciate the opportunity to work with you these past few 
years on this very important legislation.
    I will say to the previous speaker that he hit the nail 
right on the head. He chooses to live where he lives. He has 
the resources to move or not move. In many cases, individuals 
who are in EJ communities don't have those resources, don't 
have those opportunities, don't have those choices, and that is 
the concern we have.
    And look. Whether he wants to believe it is intentional or 
not intentional, we don't have to delve into that debate. What 
is, is. These communities exist. They are uniform in that they 
are discriminated against from the standpoint that they are 
disenfranchised, poor, Indigenous, brown, or African American.
    Now, again, whether it is intentional or not is not the 
point. The point is what are we going to do as a country, as a 
nation, to lift these communities up, to empower them to fix 
their problems and to move our country forward.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you for the 
opportunity to have worked with you. I have to tell you that 
when I was listening to the Ranking Member say all the bad 
things about our legislation, I kept waiting for him to 
introduce his legislation that would help this problem.
    He seems to acknowledge the problem, but yet he does not 
seem to want to put forth an amendment or his own piece of 
legislation to fix this problem, and I find that discouraging, 
to say the least.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to start off with--I hope I am 
pronouncing her last name correctly--Ms. Cahn at the Vermont 
Law School.
    You have a clinic, I believe, and you have a case in that 
clinic called CARE v. EPA. Can you just briefly tell us about 
that? Because I have a question about that case. Just tell us a 
little bit about what that case is about, please.
    Ms. Cahn. Absolutely. That case was brought by Earthjustice 
and first the Yale Law Clinic and then the Vermont Law School 
Environmental Justice Clinic on behalf of communities in Flint, 
Michigan, in Tallassee, Alabama, and in New Mexico, California, 
Texas, and also on behalf of the National Sierra Club.
    And that case was a case of the undue delay by EPA in 
responding to Title VI complaints, complaints filed with EPA 
asking them to enforce the civil rights obligations of their 
funding recipients, and these complaints languished all for 
over a decade in spite of EPA's own regulations setting strict 
timelines for response and resolution of those complaints.
    Mr. McEachin. Let me ask you this. One of the great 
complaints that the other side seems to have about this 
legislation is that it will encourage litigation, you know, the 
same old song and dance.
    I want to ask you how could greater enforcement of the 
civil rights provisions under the EJ For All Act have prevented 
this court case?
    Ms. Cahn. Well, this was actually the second case raising 
this question of undue delay. So, in terms of the judicial 
inefficiency and drawing this out and the cost, had EPA 
followed its own regulations from the outset and been 
responsive and continued to address its backlog of complaints 
and address them directly in collaboration with the 
complainants themselves responding to community needs, 
litigation and two lawsuits would not have been necessary.
    Mr. McEachin. Interesting. I thank you for that.
    Dr. Sheats, let me turn to you now, sir. And first of all, 
thank you for the honor of having worked with you over these 
past couple of years on this legislation. Your expertise has 
been foundational to this bill.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted so many health 
disparities in the United States. Can you explain how 
cumulative pollution, the burden of cumulative pollution may 
have led to some of the health care disparities that we have 
seen throughout the pandemic?
    Dr. Sheats. Yes. Thanks for the question, Representative 
McEachin. Good to see you again.
    I think, if I have time to say it fully, but I think COVID-
19 is an example of what we are talking about with cumulative 
impacts.
    The EJ community has said for a while that our communities, 
the EJ communities, are vulnerable to environmental and health 
threats that are coming to our country, and with COVID-19, we 
see that air pollution increases the death rate and we see that 
it has been tied to race, that there are higher death rates in 
communities of color and low-income communities due to COVID.
    So, when I gave the definition of cumulative impacts, you 
see here both parts of it, the connection to air pollution and 
connection to social vulnerabilities in our society. COVID-19 
unfortunately demonstrates both of those and demonstrates 
cumulative impacts.
    Mr. McEachin. Thank you for your answer.
    Can you take a moment if you can and illustrate how taking 
into account the cumulative impacts in permitting decisions 
would impact our communities, that is, our EJ communities?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, I think right now one of the main 
problems is you don't take into account pollution. You don't 
take into account pollution across different types of 
pollutants. You have the individual standard, and if that 
standard is not violated, then the permit goes forward.
    But it is not taking into account the mixture of pollution 
in our communities, and when you breathe in air, you don't just 
breathe in one pollutant and it goes through a partition in 
your lungs. It all mixes in your lungs and can have detrimental 
health impacts.
    But the laws and regulations don't take into account that 
total super pollution that exists in the neighborhood. So, 
cumulative impact analysis would and should take that into 
account.
    Mr. McEachin. Thank you, sir.
    And, finally, I will turn to Ms. Cortez and just ask you, 
ma'am, in thinking about NEPA, how would the EJ For All Act 
help shift and enhance public engagement?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, being able to have longer periods for 
community engagement and intentional community engagement, 
which is what this policy outlines is critical and will be 
critical to making sure it is not just a check off on the list, 
making sure that community is fully aware of what is happening.
    The rest of the work we learn how to do. Fortunately and 
unfortunately, we are super adaptable. For example, at East 
Yard, we have community committees who do not have technical 
expertise who learn to read EIRs, who learn how to put public 
comments, who learn how to put written comments together for 
the record.
    We can do that work. It is very possible. It is just very 
difficult to do within a very short timeline and without 
ensuring that everything is also included in these impacts, 
because when we are just looking at one impact or another, it 
also does not benefit us when we are experiencing a very 
different reality than what is stated in this document.
    So, there are a few ways in terms of outreach, engagement, 
timing that NEPA would support or this policy would support 
with NEPA.
    Mr. McEachin. Thank you, ma'am.
    Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence as well as the 
indulgence of the Committee. I apologize for trespassing on 
your time, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. Always a gentleman, Mr. McEachin, but this is 
your work as well, and I want to thank you for that.
    Let me now recognize the gentlelady. Mrs. Radewagen, you 
are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Talofa lava. I 
want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member for 
holding this important hearing on this very important 
legislation.
    At this time, I would like to yield to Ranking Member 
Stauber.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much.
    I just want to, if I may, I want to talk a little bit about 
what Congressman Young had spoken about earlier about the 
importance of getting all people involved, whether you agree 
with our position or not.
    The Willow Project, Mr. Mayor stated he was not consulted, 
and I think he was not consulted as Congressman Young 
rightfully said. The position was not in line with some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
    The hypocrisy here on this particular project is astounding 
because of not having consultation, suspend the management plan 
put forward on the Willow Project.
    Ninety-five percent of the monies going into this community 
come from revenues from oil and gas. Where else are they going 
to get that?
    And these are able bodied workers wanting to work, wanting 
to live where they live, and there is no consultation because 
the folks that are intending to do it don't support the project 
or rather don't support the community.
    The community has stated they want this project to go 
forward the right way, but if there is no consultation. Mr. 
Chair, it is hypocrisy.
    For me, we talk about economic justice. What will face 
communities and the good paying jobs that are going to come 
there with the best environmental standards?
    What about the investment that these levies and taxes bring 
to the community? Ninety-five percent of this community's 
revenues are because of the oil and gas industry, and the Mayor 
has stated to all of us they want to be a part, they want this 
project to go forward.
    Yet, they are not consulted. I think the hypocrisy here, we 
have brought it up enough. I think it is shown outright, and it 
is unacceptable.
    Economic justice as my good friend from Louisiana just 
said, what about his constituents? What about allowing them to 
have good paying jobs?
    And, yes, I will bring it right back to mining. You talk 
about economic justice in breathing air. We mine in Minnesota 
to the cleanest, best environmental standards and the best 
labor standards.
    Yet, members of this Committee will not let us mine in 
Northern Minnesota. The biggest copper-nickel find in North 
America, yet they are OK with buying Chinese minerals mined by 
child slave labor to this country.
    Where is the economic justice there? Where is the economic 
justice for my constituents in northeastern Minnesota to mine 
these products, strategic national security minerals?
    Yet, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
on this Committee refuse to acknowledge we have an opportunity 
to do it right, and one of the witnesses, the gentleman, said 
we all breathe this air. Absolutely. So, is it OK to allow 
China to pollute our air and then still buy these critical 
minerals from them?
    The answer is no.
    The gentleman is right. The jet stream carries that stuff 
across the world, yet we are allowing it to happen.
    Every single member of this Committee when it had a 
resolution that said the United States will not buy minerals 
from foreign countries where the critical minerals have been 
mined by child slave labor, every single Member on the 
Democratic side of this Committee voted against it. I never 
thought child slave labor was a partisan issue.
    I think we have an opportunity here to do what is right, 
and economic justice means justice for those members who live 
in the community, and they ought to be consulted.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields.
    Let me recognize Mr. Sablan. Sir, you are recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Sablan. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 
holding this hearing, and I would like to say welcome to our 
witnesses.
    I know that the Dean of the House told the Committee 
earlier that it was a little early in Alaska where he was, and 
I think it was, but this hearing started at 1 a.m., Mr. 
Chairman, and I have another hearing following.
    But let me ask a question, and this may get me in trouble, 
but let me just think aloud and ask Ms. Cortez and Ms. Cahn to 
please tell me if the commodity, water, is part of the 
environmental justice agenda, I guess, since water over time 
has been taken.
    It is a public commodity. You know, it is water. It is 
groundwater. It is a public commodity, and yet water continues 
to be converted into a private commodity. They take water out 
from the ground and put it in a bottle and sell it to us.
    So, Ms. Cortez, in as short a time as you can, please give 
me some ideas of your thoughts. Give me some of your thoughts 
on this issue.
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you for that. At East Yard, we 
definitely are working on water from an education and policy 
beginning perspective. We fully believe that appropriating 
water is not sustainable. We cannot continue to steal water, so 
it is really important that we learn to conserve water.
    Some of the things that we are doing is making sure that we 
are investing in education and also support letters and 
anything else we can do to make sure that we are retaining as 
much water that we can from different sources, including like 
rainwater.
    We have a big project actually that is less than a block 
from my house. It is like a 200,000 gallon, a huge gallon 
situation, under a park to conserve water. So, these are the 
types of efforts that we know that we need to be able to not 
focus on stealing water from other areas.
    Mr. Sablan. All right. Thank you.
    Ms. Cahn, can you tell me what is the situation where we 
give people permission to go out, dig a well, suck up all the 
water that a whole community needs and uses, then package that 
into these kinds of bottles, then sell it right back to the 
community, and then they leave poison out there.
    Is this an issue that we should all be looking at?
    Ms. Cahn. This is absolutely the issue of water rights and 
clean drinking water, and access to clean drinking water is 
absolutely an issue of environmental justice and environmental 
racism.
    I would say I think about water as part of the public trust 
that we need to be conserving and ensuring that communities 
have equitable access to.
    And the privatization causes enormous concern, and then if 
you layer on top of that the denial of access to clean drinking 
water for communities like Flint, or of the one intentional 
discrimination case we know, the Holt case in Tennessee, where 
a White community was given access to clean water and the Black 
community was explicitly denied.
    Those are situations in which the only option becomes 
buying water and relying on private resources, and the cost of 
that is insurmountable.
    Mr. Sablan. Yes, thank you.
    Ms. Cahn. So, I think it absolutely is an issue of 
environmental justice.
    Mr. Sablan. My time is up.
    Ms. Cahn, just one question again. The Insular Areas, the 
United States Insular Areas, sometimes called outlying areas, 
territories, including my district, the Northern Mariana 
Islands, have long borne the brunt of the most damaging effects 
of climate change, and yet our natural resources have been 
underfunded, overexploited for a long time.
    How does chronic underfunding in the Insular Areas and 
environmental justice communities make these commodities more 
susceptible to climate change impacts?
    Ms. Cahn. Well, I think this is all rooted in historic 
disinvestment which layers burdens on top of burdens, and I 
think about, in particular, maybe a slightly different 
community, but a community that I know quite well in Eastwick 
in Philadelphia, which took Federal resources to displace about 
8,000 people from 2,300 acres of land and built in an urban 
renewal community on top of the floodplain.
    That community is now dealing with chronic stormwater 
issues, catastrophic flooding, and is adjacent to a Superfund 
site, while over many, many years that community was both 
disinvested and disenfranchised from the decisions that 
affected residents' lives.
    So, all of these can come together to make communities more 
vulnerable.
    Mr. Sablan. All right. Thank you, Ms. Cahn.
    Chairman Grijalva, thank you for this hearing. I need to 
run off to another hearing, but I appreciate that you----
    The Chairman. 1 a.m., Mr. Sablan?
    Mr. Sablan. Yes. This is how loyal I am to the Chairman of 
the Natural Resources Committee.
    The Chairman. Please allow me to thank you. I do not feel 
anywhere the guilt that I should feel now for my good friend 
from Alaska, given the torture that we put you through. Thank 
you very much, Mr. Sablan.
    Mr. Sablan. Oh, see, I enjoy this Committee. Thank you very 
much, and everyone have a good morning.
    The Chairman. Let me now recognize Representative Tiffany 
for 5 minutes.
    Sir.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Chair Grijalva. I appreciate it 
very much.
    Mayor Brower, I am going to have a question for you in 
about 2 minutes.
    But first, Mr. Sheats, I have a couple of quick questions. 
Have there been improvements in emissions that have been done 
over the last few decades into the environment into America?
    Dr. Sheats. There have been improvements, but there are 
also areas where there are multiple sources of pollution where 
we need to improve further.
    Mr. Tiffany. So, do you think, just for the record, sulphur 
dioxide, nitrous oxide, many of those pollutants like that are 
down like 80, 90 percent. We really should also recognize the 
improvements. There is further to go, but we should recognize 
those improvements.
    Should we recognize cumulative impacts? The life expectancy 
of an American back at the turn of the century in 1900 was 
about in the low 50s, and 1 in 10 children died as babies.
    Should we consider the improvements that we have made when 
discussing cumulative impacts?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, I think you have to consider the 
disparities, and I think even though we have made improvements, 
I think all of us would say that it is still unfair that some 
people don't live as long as other people.
    Mr. Tiffany. Do you personally have an objection to North 
Slope drilling for oil, that local community we have been 
hearing from, Mayor Brower?
    Dr. Sheats. I don't know that case at all, so I am not 
going to comment on that.
    Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Cahn, we have been hearing about how a 
number of the very rich environmental NGOs have been taking 
foreign money. Does your organization take any money from 
foreign interests?
    Ms. Cahn. I work for the Vermont Law School, and to be 
perfectly honest, I would have to consult with the 
administration to understand the larger funding landscape. But 
I am happily able to supply a written response.
    Mr. Tiffany. Oh, that would be terrific. So, that is all 
publicly available information, I take it. Is that right?
    Ms. Cahn. I actually would have to consult with the 
administration and supply you with a written response.
    Mr. Tiffany. That would be terrific.
    Mayor Brower, I hope we have you aboard here. You commented 
earlier about outside groups speaking for your tribe in 
Northern Alaska. Could you expound on that a little bit more?
    What was going on there?
    Mr. Brower. Thank you. An important question. This is Mayor 
Brower. I hope you can hear me.
    In my comments, I indicated we have not had any 
consultation, but there have been other groups of people trying 
to speak for us, our region, to indicate that they were in 
opposition to the activity in regard to Willow and oil and gas 
operations on the North Slope.
    Mr. Tiffany. And, Mayor, do you believe that they received 
or that their voices were heard, and yours was not, by the 
Federal Government?
    Mr. Brower. It really reflects that. There has been very 
little consultation, if any at all. There were comments and 
staff folks that came to Alaska to discuss subject matter, but 
then there was no real determination one way or the other.
    Mr. Tiffany. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us today. 
I appreciate those answers.
    So, let's sum this up here. Here we have an effort to take 
away local control, and we have wealthy environmental groups 
that want to advance the green fantasy on America where we are 
only going to run on windmills and solar panels, when we should 
have an all of the above approach in terms of producing energy.
    We are taking away local control here from this tribe in 
Northern Alaska. We are not considering cumulative impacts, 
including improvements that we have made as Americans.
    Do we have or can we do better? Can there be improvements? 
Absolutely, but we should also recognize where we came from and 
those things that we are doing better.
    And, to me, there are no boutique slices of justice. 
Calling it environmental justice, I mean, should we have 
economic justice, food justice, recreational justice? What 
other types of justice should we have?
    In America there is only justice, and it is really 
unfortunate that we see this trying to divide Americans based 
on something like this rather than us all working together.
    Finally, I would say here in Northern Wisconsin people of 
all socioeconomic backgrounds, including the poor, they are 
paying twice as much for their energy this year. They are 
paying twice as much to fill their propane tank. They are 
paying significantly more for their natural gas bill if that is 
what they are heating with.
    That is what is happening, and this Committee is taking us 
down that road. How can there be justice, including if you 
subscribe to this notion of environmental justice, if poor 
people have to pay more for their energy costs and they cannot 
spend it on other things that are more important to them, like 
their children, their health care, or whatever the case may be?
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields. Let me now turn to, I 
believe it is Ms. DeGette; no, Ms. McCollum, sorry. You are 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to 
hearing from the gentlewoman from Colorado as well.
    Thank you for holding this hearing. Representative 
McEachin, thank you for your work on this issue. The 
Environmental Justice For All Act will take critical steps to 
address disproportionate environmental and public health issues 
in low-income communities and communities of color.
    Environmental justice for me though doesn't mean just 
correcting those exposures to toxic pollution that the 
communities face. EJ communities also lack equitable resources 
to positively change their conditions and improve opportunities 
to invest in their future. Nationwide, the poorest communities 
have 41 percent less tree cover--yes, I am going to talk about 
trees for a minute--than the wealthiest neighborhoods do 
because that is important to air quality. Neighborhoods with 
the majority of people of color have 33 percent less tree 
canopy than the majority White communities, and in Minnesota, 
tree canopy also helps with energy costs.
    Frogtown is a neighborhood in St. Paul. I am going to bring 
it on home as many of the others have done it. It is a 
historically red-line community, and like many communities, it 
experienced higher rates of pollution in part because of a 
freeway that was forced into this community that brought 
pollution along with it.
    So, this community experiences higher rates of health 
issues that are negative. One example would be asthma.
    So, Frogtown, the neighborhood I am going to talk about, 
has a neighborhood campaign, and it is working to change the 
tree canopy issue. I am proud to have supported their work in 
the Frogtown Park and Farm, a group that has planted over 500 
trees in this neighborhood.
    So, equal access to an urban canopy, equal access to green 
space, equal access to community gardens makes EJ communities 
more resilient to rising temperatures and improves overall 
community health.
    There are so many opportunities to get this right. I gave 
one example, increasing an urban canopy. Facilitating new green 
jobs is also another thing we can do. Working toward a green 
infrastructure is another opportunity.
    I believe we can use the model of EJ For All to act to 
build on equitable access and to support new legislative 
efforts as well. An example I have is the Mississippi River 
Restoration and the Resilience Initiative Act. I incorporated 
and put in set-asides dedicated to support and ensure 
environmental justice communities have equal access to changing 
their future.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that we just passed is 
also making important investments to remove lead lines and 
clean up PFAS in EJ communities.
    Progress is the result of listening and working with 
advocates, such as many of the people who have testified to 
this Committee and the people who are testifying today, and 
listening to community members who are directly impacted by the 
harm that has been caused in the past.
    So, I want to thank our witnesses today, and I have two 
questions, but I am going to ask you to submit them in writing 
to the Committee.
    Ms. Cortez, could you please tell us more about some of the 
EJ communities and how they are typically challenged in getting 
access to Federal funding to improve their own environmental 
conditions and build green infrastructure, and how the EJ For 
All Act will help us in that effort, if you would do that?
    And then, Dr. Sheats, I am going to turn to a different 
topic and ask you to respond, and we will get to these 
questions in writing to both of you.
    Your testimony notes that there has been a cumulative 
impact of pollutants which has been a difficult problem to 
solve, especially when it is associated with race and income.
    So, I would like you to maybe help us understand a little 
more by answering the question in full later on to the 
Committee. With the research that you have done to highlight 
this issue, what can we do at a Federal level to help combat 
these disproportionate exposures to all of these multiple 
different types of pollution found in low-income communities 
and communities of color?
    Because the disparity issue is also an issue of 
accumulative pollutants and exposure over generations.
    Thank you all for your testimony, and I look forward to the 
Committee receiving the response to my written questions that 
will be submitted through the Committee.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    The gentlelady yields back.
    Let me recognize Mr. Rosendale. You are recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And, Mayor Brower, just to get you on the batter's deck, I 
am going to be going to you as soon as I complete this short 
statement.
    There has been a lot of talk today about environmental 
justice, but I don't think my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle realize the extent of the economic injustice these 
policies will have.
    Many of the provisions of this bill will create new and 
burdensome regulations causing more litigation, longer 
permitting times, and less economic development.
    In Montana, traditional energy and coal is crucial to many 
of our small communities. Take the Crow Tribe, for example. For 
46 years, they have leased their coal reserves, the 
Westmoreland Mining, which operates the Absaloka Mine in 
southeastern Montana.
    In the last two decades, this partnership has generated 
more than $325 million in taxes and royalties which play a 
vital role for the Crow Tribe funding the tribal government, 
providing essential services, and supporting tribal members 
with per capita royalty payments.
    The Absaloka Mine also generates opportunity. It employs 
dozens of tribal members providing good paying jobs to workers 
and economic stability for their families. In fact, in 2021, 59 
percent of Absaloka Mine employees were Crow Tribe members.
    This partnership between the Crow Tribe and Westmoreland 
Mining empowers tribal members to provide brighter futures for 
themselves and for their families.
    Mr. Brower, partnerships like these are not just unique to 
Montana. Can you describe the economic benefits that the 
Northern Petroleum Reserve Alaska provided and what 
subsequently happened in the North Slope due to Federal 
intervention?
    Mr. Brower. Thanks for the question, and I think it is very 
important to reflect on the positive outcomes that time, but in 
terms of the loss of services that that generates from the 
reduction of production and taxation to the North Slope 
Borough, we as a Borough start thinking of going through budget 
cuts, as we are doing right now.
    We are just getting into our budget cycle, and it impacts 
the whole North Slope Borough. It is not just one community. It 
is all eight communities across the North Slope that are 
impacted from determinations of this type.
    We have to think of what is happening for the next 2 to 3 
years in terms of our operations and revenues that continue to 
decline.
    When thoughts of higher costs for expenses of resources, we 
pay $5.75 a gallon, $5.95 a gallon for gas, and then a 100-
pound bottle of propane is nearly $500 and that only lasts a 
month.
    And these kinds of jobs that were being provided by 
Westmoreland Fee and Gas Industry Operations now are 
diminishing because of the actions that this Administration has 
taken.
    I hope it will help me identify the questions you are 
posing.
    Mr. Rosendale. Sure, and I want to go a little bit farther. 
We have seen time and time again this Administration has 
ignored the voices of those who they claim to represent, 
whether it is the communities of North Slope or the hundreds of 
thousands of Montanans who would have greatly benefited from 
the Keystone XL Pipeline.
    So, I want to reiterate a quote that we heard earlier in 
the hearing of last year, and that is, ``no decisions about us, 
without us.''
    In regard to the Willow Project, did anyone consult you or 
your community members before making these decisions? And do 
you feel like justice has been served?
    Mr. Brower. I would say no. What was out there, 
determinations were made that we were provided information just 
the fact that this Administration has taken. So, the immediate 
answer is no, there was no real consultation.
    Mr. Rosendale. In your opinion, was there adequate 
safeguards in place to develop these resources safely and in a 
manner to have a positive impact on your community?
    Mr. Brower. I think it took several years of communication 
through the NEPA process interactions with several of our 
villages hosting meetings in villages, reviewing the documents 
of the environmental impact statements and such to the Willow 
Project. It took several years. It just didn't happen 
overnight.
    So, yes, there was interaction between the industry, the 
Federal Government representatives, and the North Slope Borough 
in making these determinations.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much for joining us, Mayor 
Brower.
    Mr. Chair, I see that my time has expired. I would yield 
back.
    The Chairman. Thank you. The gentleman yields.
    And let me recognize Mr. Huffman. Mr. Chairman, you are 
recognized.
    Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Several of our GOP colleagues are incredulous that 
Democrats see racial impacts in the way our environmental 
policy has worked for most of our history and they want us to 
stop talking so much about race and disparate impacts and 
environmental justice and just keep doing the same old things 
the same old way.
    I could not disagree more, Mr. Chairman. How can we not see 
the racism even if some of it is not overt or intentional? The 
disproportionate impacts are so obvious. How can we not talk 
honestly about that and work to do more to end it?
    That is what you and Mr. McEachin are doing with this bill 
and, Mr. Chairman, I am proud to support you.
    The story of economic development for most of our country's 
history is that people with money and power who were always 
White did what they wanted, and the impacts were born by people 
without money and power who were generally Black, Brown, and 
Indigenous.
    And a great example is in my district. We are rich in 
Indigenous culture in the 2nd District in California, and 
tribes and other partners have been working for decades to 
remove four obsolete hydro dams on the Lower Klamath River.
    When these dams were built, nobody bothered to talk to 
downstream tribes or fishing communities. The bedrock 
environmental laws that our Republican friends continually mock 
and deride as creating litigation, well, they would have given 
tribes in downstream communities a voice, but they didn't exist 
when these dams were built.
    So, for decades the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Tribes along 
downstream fishing communities suffered terrible impacts, lost 
salmon habitat, badly degraded water quality that causes 
parasites and disease to ravage the salmon population, closing 
entire fisheries, devastating their economies and way of life.
    The environmental laws that we began passing in the 1970s 
finally gave people like this a voice. But as we have heard 
from the Ranking Member and so many other colleagues across the 
aisle, when minority communities use environmental laws to 
challenge projects that would harm them with pollution and 
other impacts, they are derided as litigious.
    I have to admire the clarity of what seems to be the 
Republican EJ policy. Whenever tribal or minority voices 
conflict with something the fossil fuel or mining industries 
want to do, like the many tribes who opposed Keystone XL, the 
Dakota Access Pipeline, other destructive fossil fuel projects, 
the policy is to just ignore them, steamroll them, ridicule 
them as litigious.
    But when they can find a tribal or minority voice that 
supports a drilling or a mining project, they temporarily 
become interested in environmental justice.
    Now, Mr. Chairman, the Gwich'in people and other Indigenous 
people in the North Slope would tell you a very different story 
about oil and gas development in Arctic Alaska than what we 
have heard today from the Republican side. There is no question 
the voices of fossil fuel advocates were heard by the Trump 
administration when they fast tracked drilling projects.
    But other voices were not heard, and that is the problem. I 
agree with my colleague Don Young. We should not pick and 
choose, but that means EJ voices should be heard and considered 
even when they conflict with powerful polluting industries, 
even when they don't get piles of money from the fossil fuel 
industry, even when they struggle to find the resources to 
engage in something like a NEPA process.
    And that is why your bill, Mr. Chairman, is so important, 
as well as the Biden administration's Justice40 Initiative. 
With a whole bunch of Federal infrastructure funding we have an 
opportunity right now to get this right, in the context of 
building the infrastructure of the 21st century.
    So, Dr. Sheats, I just want to ask you how can the 
Justice40 Initiative ensure a fair distribution of Federal 
resources to communities that have been historically left 
behind.
    Dr. Sheats. Well, I think we are going to have to--and you 
have been talking about it, you have all been talking about 
it--ensure the local communities have a say in where the 
benefits from Justice40 activities we are talking about, where 
the benefits and the funding go.
    I think in each case we are going to have to set up some 
system where local residents, local community groups, local EJ 
groups, local citizens have a say in that and actually provide 
guidance.
    Mr. Huffman. Anything more the Federal Government can do to 
ensure that tribes and other EJ communities have the resources 
and support they need to take advantage of these opportunities?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, just what you said. I know you want more 
details, but even that and what you said is kind of a novel 
idea, that the Federal Government should take steps to ensure 
that the groups on the ground, including Indigenous groups and 
tribes, have the capacity to be part of the implementation and 
the decision making in these instances.
    So, we have to find ways to do that through grants and 
other mechanisms to do that.
    Mr. Huffman. It is an important part of the Chairman's 
bill.
    With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
    The gentleman yields.
    Let me recognize Mr. Obernolte. Sir, you are recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to our witnesses for what has been a 
fascinating hearing.
    Mayor Brower, I found your testimony very poignant. The 
bill that we are considering today would make projects like the 
energy exploration that is permitted in your community 
substantially more difficult, more costly, and would lead to 
fewer of them.
    You had testified that about 95 percent of the Borough's 
revenue comes from the royalties on these kinds of projects. 
Can you talk to us just a little bit about the impacts on your 
community if you didn't have that revenue?
    Mr. Brower. Thank you. Yes, in regard to the 95 percent tax 
revenue that supports the Borough, Congressman, taxation of oil 
and gas companies within our region. The revenue supports 
health clinics, schools, tribal college, water and sewer 
infrastructure, and fire department, search and rescue. These 
are essential services that we identify with that are needed 
within our communities within the North Slope region.
    It is something that we have to hold high standards for to 
provide services and the need and we welcome the taxation to 
the oil industry for the services it provides across the North 
Slope.
    Without it, we would be in a world of hurt today.
    Mr. Obernolte. Right.
    Mr. Brower. You know, we are very fortunate we have two 
communities that are on natural gas. The rest are utilizing the 
diesel fuel that serves these smaller communities.
    Mr. Obernolte. Right.
    Mr. Brower. And that is something that we need to continue 
to communicate.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mayor Brower.
    Ms. Cortez, I had a question for you. In your testimony, 
you called the effects of the pollution in your community 
environmental racism, and we just heard Mayor Brower talk about 
the disastrous impacts that denying that community the ability 
to profit from the resources adjacent to their community would 
have on things like their drinking water and their health care.
    And, of course, the Mayor represents one of the most 
marginalized communities in the country.
    How would denying them the ability to do that not also be 
environmental racism?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you for that question because I 
think, I don't know too much about Alaska, but in hearing a lot 
of how investing in fossil fuels is a leading driver of our 
economy, these are some of the issues of what we have here in 
Los Angeles. We are an urban economy. We are driven by these 
fossil fuel investments. And for us, it is very marked, and we 
stand very firmly that this is not sustainable. It doesn't 
matter if you can extract these fossil fuels. It doesn't matter 
if we can get jobs off of them if we are going to die, if my 
lungs are being actively impacted daily.
    So, does it matter at the end of the day? Yes. Does money 
matter? Yes. We live in a capitalist society. I understand 
that. We are not foolish to think that this is an overnight 
response.
    What is important to know is that we need investments now 
to transition to alternative jobs, to alternative energy 
sources so that Alaska, Los Angeles, and across the nation we 
don't have to rely on these things. And that starts through 
Federal policy, that starts through Federal investment.
    Mr. Obernolte. Right. I think that is highlighting 
something that we are all in furious agreement in here, and we 
have kind of had a fascinating discussion this morning about 
this term ``environmental racism.'' I think Congressman Graves 
pointed out the fact that to have racism you have to have 
intentionality because it is discrimination against a 
marginalized community.
    And then Congressman McEachin was talking about, well, it 
really doesn't matter if it is intentional, what matters is the 
effects on these communities.
    And I strongly agree with both of those gentlemen, and I 
wish that we could have a more frank discussion about that term 
``racism'' when we use it because I think it distracts from our 
shared goal of solving these problems for these communities. 
That is the important thing.
    And when we use words like ``racism'' I think it distracts 
away from that goal, but I want to thank all of our witnesses 
for what has been a fascinating discussion, and I hope this 
kind of moves the conversation further.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields. Thank you.
    Mr. Lowenthal is recognized for 5 minutes. Chairman.
    Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And I am glad also that we have come together to discuss 
this critically important issue.
    I remembered as I was beginning to prepare for this when I 
first ran for office 30 years ago for City Council in the city 
of Long Beach. And I walked my district, and as I got close to 
the district that encompasses the southern part of the 710 
freeway and the Port of Long Beach and adjacent, also did not 
include but it was obviously the adjacent Port of L.A. was 
backed up right to my district.
    And as I walked and I got closer and closer to the port 
area and to the 710, more and more people said as I was coming 
to tell them why I was running for office, more and more people 
said, ``Alan, that is really interesting why you are doing 
that. But can you tell me what is this black soot in the 
window?''
    And as I got closer to the port they would talk more about 
that black soot, and they would ask me, ``Does it really have 
an effect? My kids have asthma. What is all of this all 
about?''
    So, I had become more and more aware as I studied what that 
black soot was that certain communities in Long Beach that were 
near this tremendous industrial complex of our ports and 
freeways suffered much greater from black soot than more 
suburban communities.
    And I know there is no quick fix to fixing this, but it has 
been 30 years and these communities are still suffering even 
though we have made some giant steps and taken some steps.
    I want to thank the Chair and also Mr. McEachin for their 
leadership on the Environmental Justice For All Act, and I 
appreciate the dedication of everyone on this Committee to 
talking about solutions because I think whatever terminology 
you want to use, I think both sides of the aisle have agreed 
that there are some communities that are paying a much greater 
price for the economic development in this country than other 
communities, and those communities tend to be low-income 
communities, frequently first generation communities, immigrant 
communities, and also people who have not been allowed or have 
not historically engaged in the economic development of this 
country.
    My first question is to Ms. Cortez. Over the years, I have 
been very impressed and grateful to the leadership of East Yard 
Communities for Environmental Justice. But I would like you, 
who have been out there in the field, on the streets, to tell 
me more about the environmental injustice that my community 
suffers on the West Side of Long Beach.
    Can you talk more about the very specifics that people who 
grow up near the ports, near the 710 freeway, like yourself?
    What is that experience like?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I appreciate that question because it 
allows folks to visualize what we may or may not see. I think 
it is really important to know that specifically, although Long 
Beach is huge, but specifically the West Side of Long Beach is 
actually divided. It is on the other side of the 710 freeway. 
And that is a marker, folks hear, ``the other side of the train 
tracks.'' These are things that are systemic, but they have 
huge impacts in terms of place relations to pollution and race.
    And I understand folks not wanting to bring race into this 
conversation, but folks who live in the West Side of Long 
Beach, it is not the same demographics that lives in East Long 
Beach. It is not the same demographic that lives in other 
areas.
    So, with West Long Beach it is primarily immigrant. It is 
primarily Black, Indigenous, people of color. There are a range 
of folks. There are also White folks there, but a majority of 
folks are Black, Indigenous, people of color. In West Side 
specifically, we have a small terminus freeway that is 
specifically created for trucks. There is the 710 freeway, 
which I mentioned sees 40,000 to 60,000 truck trips daily 
because it is very close to the port complex, which is a port 
complex that sees 40 percent of all goods that come into this 
country come through those ports, right off the 710 freeway to 
get to the railyards.
    There is also right now a proposed new railyard 
development, a new intermodal facility being proposed right 
next to West Long Beach, so it is really important to look at 
these are the cumulative impacts that we are talking about that 
are not being addressed in any policy right now, but that could 
be addressed with this new policy.
    Dr. Lowenthal. Thank you.
    My time is up, and just before I leave, I also want to talk 
about--I remember having a community meeting in one of the 
homes on the West Side, and the health director of Long Beach 
said, ``If you were born on the west side of Long Beach, your 
life expectancy is 10 to 15 years less than the life expectancy 
of someone who is born out on the east side.''
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Let me recognize Mr. Bentz.
    Representative, you are recognized for 5 minutes, sir.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks everyone for a 
most interesting conversation. I have some questions for 
Professor Cahn.
    And I want to start by asking if the Constitution as 
currently written contains a right for those important things 
such as clean air, clean water, so forth that are found in this 
bill.
    Does our Constitution contain a specific right to enjoy 
those benefits?
    Ms. Cahn. Our Federal Constitution does not. There are 
actually increasing numbers of state constitutions who have 
established a right to a healthy environment or a right to 
clean air and water, including New York being the most recent.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you.
    And as I understood it, it was about three states, but I am 
sorry, I just looked at it this morning. There could be more.
    The second question, does, in your opinion, this bill 
create those rights specifically in the findings and then in 
the second portion of the bill?
    So, does this bill create those rights?
    Ms. Cahn. This bill creates very clear environmental 
justice protections and that demand action on the part of the 
Federal Government through amendments to NEPA, through 
amendments to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, as 
well as by restoring the private cause of action under Title VI 
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
    Mr. Bentz. I am just looking at page 4, Subsection 9. It 
reads, ``All people have the right to breathe clean air, drink 
clean water, live free of dangerous levels of toxic pollution, 
and share the benefits of a prosperous and vibrant pollution-
free economy.''
    And then later on, there are instructions to agencies, even 
more direct than that. So, it would appear to me that there is 
something being created. It is not a right. It certainly is a 
basis for a lawsuit, would you not agree?
    Ms. Cahn. I would have to really think through the strategy 
on that, but I do see the bill as really strengthening the 
rights of the communities who have historically been 
disproportionately impacted by environmental and climate 
burdens and creating opportunities for environmental benefits 
and climate solutions.
    Mr. Bentz. All right. Well, I don't think I would have 
gotten away with that answer when I was going to law school, 
but of course, I was going to Lewis and Clark in Portland, not 
to Vermont.
    And, by the way, you guys have a great environmental 
program there. So, I think we are constantly trading places 
with you as to who is ranked No. 1 in the nation.
    Ms. Cahn. I can answer that question, yes.
    Mr. Bentz. In any event, I read it as giving rights to 
folks and thus lawyers will be ecstatic should this bill pass, 
and particularly with the last right that is suggested here, 
which is to ``share in the benefits of a prosperous and vibrant 
pollution-free economy.''
    Well, that sounds pretty broad. What happens if I go in and 
say, ``Hey, I don't have as much value. I don't have the 
economic benefit.''
    Does this bill give us, the lawyers, the right to argue 
that if someone doesn't have as much money as somebody else, we 
can use this bill to suggest that we should be equal on that 
basis too? We should all have the same amount of economic 
benefit. Is that what this bill does?
    Ms. Cahn. Well, I think this bill is intended to provide 
benefits to communities who have been historically disinvested, 
and there is actually an economic benefit for our country at 
large when we do that, when we support and improve health 
outcomes in communities where those outcomes have been 
disproportionately burdened. Then there is actually going to be 
an economic benefit to everyone.
    Mr. Bentz. It seems to me that what this does is throw to 
the courts the definition of extent and scope of whatever it is 
this bill says it is doing, which I think is wrong, and the 
bill should be far more clear in that which it is trying to 
achieve.
    The environmental injustice, although this bill appears to 
be directed toward communities of color and other minorities, I 
would suggest it is broader than that, and those in Oregon 
along the West Coast suffering from smoke inhalation from the 
fires that in large part are created by the failure to allow us 
to go in and try to reduce fuel loads.
    It looks to me like this bill gives all kinds of folks the 
right to bring action against whoever it is that is preventing 
us from getting in and protecting ourselves from that type of 
future.
    Mr. Chair, this is an extraordinarily interesting bill, I 
think one that deserves a lot more work before we turn the 
trial lawyers of America loose utilizing it to do God knows 
what.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman yields. Thank you.
    Let me recognize the Chair of the Subcommittee, Ms. Leger 
Fernandez. Representative, you are recognized.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you so much, Chair Grijalva.
    And I want to begin my comments focusing on the fact that 
this bill is called the Environmental Justice, right? That we 
are focused on making sure that everybody has justice in the 
same sense of access to that clean air, access to economic 
opportunities that don't come at the expense of somebody else's 
health.
    And I wanted to ask a bit of questioning on the concept of 
the disparate impact and what Sandoval did to our ability to 
have communities say, ``This is negatively impacting my 
health,'' and it is simply the impact that we are focusing on.
    So, we are moving away from saying we don't need to, and I 
don't think there is anything in this bill that is talking 
about that we have to prove racism. We simply are asking that 
everybody have the same ability to live in a community where 
they are not subject to an environment that is toxic to their 
health, especially when they don't have the resources to move 
somewhere else.
    So, Ms. Cahn, can you explain why reinserting the ability 
of bringing a cause of action that focuses on disparate impact 
gives an important tool to the communities that are living 
under a burden of, like in New Mexico, high methane emissions.
    We exploded an atomic bomb here, and the people who were 
exposed to that have not been able to get compensation.
    We have high levels of methane. We have one of the biggest 
methane clouds in the sky over part of our state.
    Why is the use of disparate impact important?
    Ms. Cahn. Thank you so much for that question.
    And I have been pondering this throughout the whole hearing 
because there has been some dialogue around whether intent is 
necessary to prove discrimination, and intentional 
discrimination is real, and we see intentional discrimination 
cases all the time.
    But disparate impact is also prohibited under Title VI of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that was part of the intent 
of the legislation. It was part of the intent, and it is 
documented, the legislative history and statements by President 
John F. Kennedy about the need to prevent actions, programs, 
and activities with the discriminatory impact on communities, 
that we need to ensure that this bill covers those as well.
    And there are countless examples of how that plays out. It 
is failing to account for how emissions from a facility would 
disproportionately expose communities of color to high levels 
of air pollution; failing to account for how rerouting a 
roadway would have a disparate impact on the air quality, the 
safety, or the quality of life for residents in a community of 
color; or refusing to offer simultaneous interpretation as 
disruptive or providing a Spanish language translation of 
permitting decision a week later than English language version 
but keeping the comment period the same.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Ms. Cahn, thank you so very much. I 
wanted to get to a couple of other questions.
    So, I am going to move on to the issue of the cumulative 
impacts. Two things, one, the cumulative impact and the 
importance of not looking--I keep thinking of how we are going 
to look at this project through a keyhole, and as long as we 
see that there is a bit of blue sky from that keyhole, we are 
fine.
    Whereas, if we open up our vista and we can see the 
communities adjacent to that project and how there are lots of 
other impacts, that is so key.
    And, Ms. Cortez, I really appreciated the fact that you 
pointed out the importance that you didn't have to eliminate 
jobs and economic growth while you were looking to solve these 
issues, and I appreciate that in this bill, that it is putting 
more funds and resources into those communities that have 
energized, though fossil fuel and other things are in our 
economy.
    I have several bills that seek to do that, that seek to 
invest in that.
    So, if you could describe to me a bit why you think it is 
important that your community, as organized as you have become, 
has the tools that you need that this bill gives you so that 
you can protect your ability to thrive and to live in this 
environment that is cleaner than what you do now.
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you, and I will make it really 
quick.
    The reality is that we already have so much education and 
tools that we have already implemented locally, that we have 
already implemented regionally, and either we have succeeded 
and have proven it, either we have failed and learned and gone 
back and done it, or we have realized that agencies, 
municipalities, state legislation is not going to move until 
the Federal Government can set an example by passing policies 
like EJ For All to, one, invest by giving us the tools to be 
able to do this work or pass policy that shows them that we are 
just as important and that they should also pass these more 
local, more smaller policies with us.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you.
    My time has expired. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
    Let me now recognize Representative Tlaib. Representative, 
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chairman. I cannot thank you 
enough for your leadership on this and, of course, our 
colleague, Congressman McEachin, on just really leading us and 
trying to make sure that we have a good quality life for many 
of our residents that have to take the brunt of environmental 
pollution.
    There has been so much discussion, and first of all to 
Director Cortez, the center you co-direct and the work that you 
are doing in your community reminds me of growing up in 
southwest Detroit.
    What must be distressing to all of you, as you all are 
listening to this, is language saying, quote, ``you people.''
    So, I want to apologize for that kind of rhetoric of ``you 
people.'' You are our people, including our Indigenous brothers 
and sisters across our nation. You are our people. You are not 
``you people.''
    So, I just want to really set that tone because it is so 
critically important that as folks are talking about this, and, 
Director Cahn, I want to ask you this. Do jobs fix cancer?
    Ms. Cahn. Do jobs?
    Ms. Tlaib. Does having a job, does that fix cancer?
    Ms. Cahn. Having a job does not fix cancer, and also it is 
a false choice.
    Ms. Tlaib. Does it fix the asthma? Does it fix the asthma 
rate? How about you, Director Cortez? Do jobs fix asthma?
    Ms. Cortez. No, it does not.
    Ms. Tlaib. Let me also ask. Dr. Sheats, one of the things I 
keep stressing, everybody keeps talking about the high cost of 
natural gas, the high cost of this.
    Do you know that it has been increased? Did you know this, 
that it increased by like 30 percent or so, the cost of asthma 
inhalers?
    Just yesterday, one of the mothers in my community was 
testifying about an asphalt plant coming into her neighborhood 
and how she had to put $300 aside to pay for asthma inhalers 
for her children, for her boys.
    Dr. Sheats, do you ever monitor the cost of public health 
in essence of where people are living with the environmental 
pollution?
    Has anybody ever looked at it, Ms. Cortez, Dr. Sheats, or 
Director Cahn?
    Have any of you looked at the cost of public health living 
in this highly polluted neighborhood?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I will just share very quickly that I 
remember there being an EPA statistic a long time ago that said 
if we fix this industrial thing, we would actually be saving 
this much money in health impacts. That statistic was from 
about 20 years ago, and I have not seen another statistic since 
on how to quantify and really focus on public health as a real 
investment, as something that is monetary and just as valuable 
or more valuable than these other economic impacts that folks 
talk about.
    Ms. Tlaib. How about you, Director Cahn?
    Ms. Cahn. I just keep thinking about the situation under 
the COVID-19 pandemic and the costs right now. Think about the 
cost of preventing particulate matter pollution 5 years ago, 10 
years ago, 30 years ago, and the economic and health benefits 
that communities that have been overburdened for that long 
would feel in this moment who are otherwise disproportionately 
affected by infection rates, severity, and death from COVID-19.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, Dr. Sheats, I do want to put this in the 
Congressional Record for the Chairman and for my colleagues.
    More of my Black neighbors die from COVID because of pre-
existing conditions, even though they make up less than 14 
percent of the total population in the state of Michigan.
    And I really believe if you look at the statistics around 
Flint, around Detroit, around other communities that are 
predominantly people of color, my Black neighbors, they died at 
a higher rate of COVID.
    Dr. Sheats, do you believe that is because most of them are 
bearing the brunt of environmental pollution, corporate 
pollution?
    Dr. Sheats. I think, of course, we don't know of their 
personal circumstance, but I believe that is a part of it.
    I think one thing that always strikes me about the COVID-19 
pandemic is that--and we have talked a lot about race today, so 
I will go ahead and say it even----
    Ms. Tlaib. No, go. This is your Congress, not just ``some 
people's.'' You can say it.
    Dr. Sheats. I think COVID-19 in some ways showed how the 
city is racist because I would not have predicted that one 
reason that people of color die higher from COVID-19 is because 
a higher percentage of us--it doesn't include me--but a higher 
percentage of us have to actually go out and be in the world 
and work and cannot stay home and work remotely.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
    Dr. Sheats. And I think it shows the racial impacts are 
very hard to predict and that we have to take every opportunity 
that we can to address those issues.
    Ms. Tlaib. And I know I have a little bit of time but, 
Chairman, if I may, can I please submit for the record? I think 
it is very, very important because cumulative impact analysis 
and the Environmental Justice For All is so important to my 
community.
    But for the record, please can I submit an article by the 
Detroit Free Press that said ``$175 million tax break for 
Marathon refinery buys Detroiters only 15 jobs,'' and I will 
explain this later in future jobs, but we gave $175 million at 
the time when we were struggling in Detroit in exchange for 
jobs, and they only gave us 15.
    And do you know that is the most polluted zip code in the 
state of Michigan.
    So, if I may, can I submit that for the record?
    The Chairman. Without objection, so ordered.

    [The information follows:]
Detroit Free Press

$175M tax break for Marathon refinery buys Detroiters only 15 jobs

Joe Guillen

Published 1 a.m. ET March 14, 2014

Updated 4:15 p.m. ET March 14, 2014

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


Marathon Petroleum, which received a $175-million tax break from 
the City of Detroit in a mammoth expansion project, is coming under 
fire from City Council for failing to hire enough Detroiters.

When Marathon asked the city for the tax break as part of the company's 
plan to expand its operations in southwest Detroit in 2007, with the 
appeal came a pledge to recruit Detroiters for new jobs at the 
refinery.

The City Council granted the company the personal property tax 
abatement, forgoing millions in tax revenue. Even with the tax break, a 
city analysis estimated the expansion would generate $181 million in 
income taxes, real property taxes and other fees for the city over two 
decades.

``As we discuss job creation, please understand that we will do what we 
can to hire qualified Detroit residents,'' then-Marathon Senior Vice 
President Garry Peiffer wrote to City Council in 2007. ``It is our 
intention to work closely with the Detroit Workforce Development 
Department and a local institution of higher education to develop 
curriculum and offer training for interested Detroit residents.''

But the vision to hire more Detroiters never materialized. Now city 
officials will more closely monitor Marathon's hiring practices to 
ensure the company is making an effort to hire Detroit residents.

``In a city with double-digit unemployment, any company that's 
receiving a tax abatement of nearly $180 million should be giving more 
back, including hiring residents,'' Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins said 
in an interview.

Marathon employs 514 full-time workers at its refinery, thanks to the 
$2.2-billion expansion. That's up from about 320 employees in 2007, 
when the city approved the personal property tax abatement, the largest 
of its kind in Detroit history.

Of the 514 employees, 30 are listed as Detroit residents as of January. 
In 2007, before the expansion, the company employed 15 Detroit 
residents. That means fewer than 6% of Marathon's workers at the 
refinery live in the city, according to the company's employment 
records, which must be submitted to the city annually under terms of 
its abatement agreement.

Several City Council members briefed on the company's hiring practices 
said the figures are unacceptable. Marathon's poor track record of 
hiring residents, they said, coupled with the high number of Detroiters 
looking for work, highlights the need to secure hiring guarantees when 
companies ask for tax breaks or other incentives.

Representatives of Marathon said the company has had difficulty finding 
qualified Detroiters, even though it funds a scholarship program at 
Henry Ford Community College designed to promote local hiring. Some of 
the available scholarships have gone unfilled, the company said.

``We would like nothing better than to have a higher percentage of 
Detroit residents in our workforce,'' refinery general manager Tracy 
Case told council members during a discussion on the company's hiring 
practices at a Feb. 13 planning and economic development committee 
meeting.

``We are aligned in that desire, but there are certain difficulties and 
challenges and obligations we have to our company to find the best 
people to work for us,'' Case said, adding that Detroit residency would 
be a tie-breaker in a hiring choice between two similarly qualified 
candidates.

Marathon bears a greater responsibility to hire Detroiters because the 
refinery's expansion has raised environmental concerns, Jenkins said. 
The expansion has allowed the company to process an extra 14,000 
barrels of oil per day.

Portia Roberson, Mayor Mike Duggan's group executive for ethics and 
civil rights, has been charged with further reviewing Marathon's hiring 
of Detroit residents. She will report back to the council in six 
months.

``I want to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but also I want 
Detroit residents to see where their tax dollars are going when you're 
talking about tax abatements,'' council President Brenda Jones said. 
``I want them to have the same fair chance that anybody else has, and I 
want you to live up to the agreement that you came to this table and 
said you would live up to. And the agreement was that you would hire 
Detroit residents.''

The city's cost-benefit analysis, done before the abatement was 
granted, estimated the refinery expansion would generate a net benefit 
of more than $181 million over 20 years--despite the $175-million tax 
break. The analysis assumed an increase of 60 full-time jobs at the 
refinery.

The city has agreed to 23 personal property tax abatements for various 
companies since 1998. The state treasurer has final approval of the 
exemptions, which are granted for a specific period, not for a specific 
dollar amount. However, the City of Detroit generally projects how much 
revenue the city and the county would be forgoing for each abatement.

In 2008, General Motors received a personal property tax abatement 
worth about $38 million from the city for its expansion at the Detroit-
Hamtramck plant. The company estimated it would add about 550 jobs, and 
first preference would be to hire laid-off union workers.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of bills in late 2012 to phase out 
the state's personal property tax over 10 years. The new taxing policy, 
which supporters say will boost the state's economy, is subject to a 
voter referendum in August.

Marathon executives said the Detroit tax break was crucial to the 
company's decision to expand here rather than in neighboring states 
without such tax burdens on new industrial equipment. The Marathon 
abatement carries a cost to the city of about $146 million in forgone 
tax revenue over 23 years and about $29 million to Wayne County.

Marathon workers perform a variety of jobs at the refinery, including 
engineers, refinery operators, maintenance workers and safety 
representatives. Job openings at the refinery typically pay an annual 
salary between $60,000 and $80,000, company representatives told the 
City Council.

Marathon's corporate website, to which a company spokesman directed the 
Free Press on Monday, showed the company has seven job openings in 
Detroit, including a welder, pump mechanic and an engineer.

Although Marathon has exceeded the projection and added about 200 full-
time jobs, the company's scholarship program at Henry Ford has not 
created many employment opportunities at Marathon for Detroiters. 
Company representatives attend career fairs at Henry Ford to promote 
the training program.

Marathon has contributed about $154,000 toward 37 scholarships since 
2008. Of those scholarships, five students have interned at the 
refinery. One graduate of the Henry Ford program applied for a job but 
did not meet pre-employment testing requirements, according to the 
company's written responses to the City Council's legislative policy 
division, which produced a report on Marathon's hiring practices in 
February.

The scholarship at Henry Ford fulfills the company's responsibility 
under the abatement contract to develop a training program. The 
contract, however, does not require the company to hire a certain 
number of Detroit residents. Marathon stated that hiring Detroiters 
would be a priority when it sought the tax break.

Marathon's results have been an eye-opener for new council members, who 
appear poised to demand more from corporations seeking tax breaks in 
the future.

In early February, veteran council members Jones and James Tate sought 
but failed to get a guarantee to hire Detroiters in post-construction 
jobs at the new Red Wings arena. Without the guarantee, they each cast 
a ``no'' vote on legislation related to the arena project, but the 
measure passed.

``I know that Madam President (Jones) beat the arena about the head and 
shoulders about'' a post-construction job guarantee, said first-term 
Councilman Scott Benson, who voted in favor of the hockey arena 
legislation. ``Now I see why it's so important that we put language 
into these contracts about post-construction jobs.''

Councilwoman Raquel Castaneda-Lopez, whose district includes the 
refinery, said her office will work with Marathon to inform the 
community about scholarship opportunities.

``Moving forward, we need to negotiate stronger employment requirements 
when granting tax abatements or other incentives,'' she said in an e-
mail. ``A company's track record of hiring Detroiters and working with 
the surrounding community should be factored into this process.''

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, and I yield.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Let me now recognize the gentlelady from New Mexico, Ms. 
Stansbury. You are recognized, Representative, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    A thank you, Chairman Grijalva, for introducing this bill 
and for convening this hearing.
    And I, too, want to extend my thanks to all of the 
witnesses for joining us today from all over the country and 
sharing your experiences, your feedback, your expertise, and 
helping to shape this legislation and to be educators to the 
public and to our communities about what we are trying to 
accomplish with this bill.
    I, too, am a proud co-sponsor of the Environmental Justice 
For All bill, and I am deeply proud of the process that the 
Chairman and Chairman McEachin and others engaged in to create 
this bill, it was a community-led process that included 
engagement with organizations and communities across the United 
States and incorporated the feedback of hundreds of people 
across the United States.
    So, let me be clear. Our communities must be at the table 
in making decisions that affect their quality of life, their 
health, and their futures, and that is what this bill is 
fundamentally about.
    It is about putting the power, the tools, and the resources 
back into our communities that have experienced the 
disproportionate impacts and legacies of pollution and the 
disproportionate impacts of economic development that have 
harmed our communities, so that they have the power to control 
their own destinies going forward.
    I am so grateful for this bill and all of the incredible 
work that has gone into it. Obviously, the goals of this bill 
are to strengthen the NEPA process, to provide data and tools 
to prevent harmful environmental impacts, to account for those 
impacts holistically across our environmental laws when we are 
doing permitting and allowing activities on the landscape.
    It is to ensure that our Federal agencies are coordinating 
with each other, and that there are people at those agencies 
that are not just looking out for the economic impacts and 
benefits for our communities, but are looking out for our 
communities themselves and making sure that their voices are 
heard in the process as we are undertaking to permit and allow 
activities and invest Federal resources, and to put those tools 
and resources into our communities themselves so that they have 
the power to shape their own destinies.
    And nowhere is this more important than in New Mexico where 
our state and our communities have faced this historical legacy 
in disproportionate impacts. I have heard a lot of discussion 
today questioning the history and the reality of what we know 
to be the truth inside of our communities.
    So, let me just say this is not hypothetical in New Mexico. 
Our history and our landscape are peppered with the examples of 
how the historical legacy has impacted our communities.
    In Western New Mexico, we have communities that are still 
living with the impacts of uranium mining. We have Pueblo and 
Dine and Chicano communities that are still dealing with mines 
that have been left unremediated and contaminated groundwater 
that is undrinkable.
    In the north, we have Pueblo and Hispano communities that 
have lived in valleys for countless generations that now have 
groundwater contamination caused by our government's nuclear 
experiments.
    In the east, we have dairies and ranchers and farmers whose 
entire operations have been destroyed by PFAS contamination 
because of Federal activities.
    And in the south, as Representative Leger Fernandez talked 
about, we have downwind communities in the Tularosa Basin who 
were exposed to radiation in 1945 and that for generations have 
experienced cancer and health impacts that are still killing 
people today in those communities.
    So, this is not a hypothetical. This is something that has 
affected our communities for generations. We need tools. We 
have to modernize our Federal Government. We need to ensure 
that there are people and processes and opportunities and 
resources for our communities to have their voices heard as 
decisions are being made, and that they can help to reimagine 
the futures that they want to see for themselves and their 
communities.
    I want to thank everybody who was involved in shaping this 
legislation and thank you especially, Mr. Chairman, for your 
vision and your ability to bring people together to help shape 
and create an opportunity for this bill.
    And I want to just turn very quickly to Dr. Sheats, Ms. 
Cortez, and others here, can you please just reiterate? We have 
been talking about this all morning, but why is it so important 
that our communities have a seat at the table? Starting with 
you, Dr. Sheats?
    Dr. Sheats. I think it gives our communities a fighting 
chance to address the elevated levels of pollution often found 
in environmental justice communities. It gives them some hope 
and the fighting chance to do so.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you.
    And Ms. Cortez?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I think for us we have nothing to lose, 
literally. Like this is our lives, and we will continue 
fighting for it.
    And this policy and any policy that is truly focused on EJ, 
we will continue fighting for it, and we will continue fighting 
for a seat at this table.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you very much.
    And thank you all so much for being here this morning and 
for lending your voices and your expertise to this very 
important bill.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields.
    Let me recognize Representative Porter. Madam Chair, you 
are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Dr. Sheats, this is a map of abandoned and active oil wells 
in Southern California, and as you can see, there are a lot of 
them, and this is true in many parts of our country.
    Under current Federal law, if an oil company wants to open 
another oil well on Federal land in a place where there already 
are lots and lots of oil wells, would they have to consider 
other facilities in the area during the permitting process and 
limit new pollution based on the cumulative effects?
    Dr. Sheats. Let me say this, and I hope I don't get this 
wrong. The way I understand it now, is that within a certain 
category of pollution they have to consider other sources, but 
across pollutants they would not.
    Ms. Porter. OK. So, they don't necessarily have to mitigate 
or account for air pollution, for example, if their facility 
would create water pollution and even if they were adding 
another polluting facility.
    My understanding is that there are no limits on pollution 
under current law based on cumulative impacts.
    Ms. Cortez, do you or anyone else have a thought on that?
    Ms. Cortez. I do not. I will defer to my colleagues.
    Dr. Sheats. The total amount of pollution does not have to 
be taken into account in the neighborhood.
    Ms. Porter. OK. Because of that, in your experience do oil 
and gas companies deliberately pick low-income and frontline 
communities for their facilities?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes.
    Ms. Porter. Why, Ms. Cortez?
    Ms. Cortez. Because the processes are so complex, these 
companies are able to come into our communities with things 
like an EIR, a negative declaration in which community members 
who are already struggling to make ends meet, are working two 
jobs, cannot find child care, are having health impacts, are 
having to go to the emergency room, are not able to fully 
participate in challenging these projects.
    A lot of times, like I said, there is even a negative 
declaration. So, it doesn't even undergo a process which allows 
for the continued systemic placing of these facilities near our 
homes.
    Ms. Porter. And my understanding is that the Environmental 
Justice For All Act, one of the ways it would address that is 
to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit 
discrimination based on disparate impact, and it would 
effectively allow these low-income communities when they are 
harmed, and it is disproportionate to them, to be able to raise 
discrimination claims on that basis.
    Are companies right now currently cleaning up their 
pollution in these communities, Ms. Cortez?
    Ms. Cortez. They are not, so many of them are allowed to 
leave. A lot of them just abandon ship and these are what we 
now call brownfields in our communities.
    And because Los Angeles is such an urban area, what we see 
is that the only sites that are open, that there is nothing 
developed on is because they are brownfields that continue to 
pollute our communities through gas emissions.
    Ms. Porter. And we have abandoned oil and gas wells, and 
that is part of what this map shows. There are purple dots and 
blue dots, and a lot of these are abandoned and they are 
sitting there leaving taxpayers with the bill.
    I want to enter into the record a story from MarketWatch 
last week that said, ``Oil is the hottest sector, and Wall 
Street analysts see upside of up to 48% for favored stocks.''
    And those companies include some of the biggest oil and gas 
producers on public land, like Chevron and Phillips. Instead of 
covering the cost of their pollution, they are giving out 
dividends to their investors. We are all getting cheated as a 
result because we all have an interest in our public lands, but 
frontline communities are literally paying with their health, 
as you point out.
    Ms. Cahn, I want to turn to climate change quickly. How do 
national policies help local communities increase their 
resilience to climate change?
    Ms. Cahn. I think that the EJ For All Act provides a whole 
set of resources that could help local communities really 
invest in climate resilience and climate adaptation and do so 
in a way that puts communities at the lead.
    So, there are a host of funds, I think particularly the 
open space funds that are dedicated in the EJ For All Act. One 
of the legacies of disinvestment has been the lack of green 
garden and open spaces and tree cover, which has an impact on 
air quality, on health, and also on stormwater management.
    And communities have responded by creating green garden 
open spaces in the face of disinvestment, but those spaces are 
largely land insecure. So, the open space funds in the EJ For 
All Act actually could provide for land acquisition, also 
technical assistance, and provide ways to either create new or 
preserve existing spaces that would increase climate 
resilience.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields.
    I recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Soto. You are 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Chairman.
    Colleagues, America is finally emerging from crisis. We 
passed the American Rescue Plan, shots in arms, money in 
pockets, and we avoided another great recession. And 77 percent 
of Americans are now vaccinated and cases are dropping.
    Unemployment is below 4 percent. We avoided a key 
foreclosure crisis in Florida and across the nation. Pensions 
and 401(k)s were saved, and now we are turning to combat 
inflation, supply chain, price gouging, managing the pandemic, 
and possibly even a gas tax holiday are all in the works.
    Thanks to my colleagues on the Democratic side, sadly all 
Republicans voted no.
    Then we passed the infrastructure plan. Roads and bridges, 
airports and ports, water and electric reforms, $21 billion for 
environmental remediation of brownfields, which I will get to 
in a moment, rural broadband, and infrastructure equity, like 
what we are talking about here today, breaking down those 
barriers, reconnecting communities.
    Thanks to Representative Don Young for voting yes. Sadly, 
the rest of you voted no. A couple of you even tried to take 
credit back home, but were quickly rebuffed by your local 
press.
    And now we are going to work on the America COMPETES Act, 
domestic manufacturing, microchips, biotech, aerospace, 
telecom, medical supplies. We are making microchips back in the 
district now, and this is going to be huge for us.
    Again, all of you voted no. I am hoping that you will 
change your mind as we get to a final vote after the Senate. We 
need to come together.
    In our area in Florida, we have seen coal plants closing 
and coal ash storage is an issue in Orange County and Osceola 
County. We have boosted solar, wind, and natural gas. We may 
even extend or expand our nuclear capacity, but highly toxic 
coal ash is an issue. Some was even trucked in recently to 
Osceola County, but we put a stop to that.
    Dr. Sheats, have you seen similar issues in communities 
where toxic pollution has compounded from multiple sources?
    And what are the health implications for all those living 
in those communities?
    Dr. Sheats. Yes, well, we certainly see that in New Jersey. 
Actually in Newark, New Jersey, the DEP, Department of 
Environmental Protection, has actually acknowledged it is a 
place that suffers from cumulative impacts.
    And I think we see partially the results in the number of 
kids in school, asthma attacks associated with air pollution.
    And in the health disparities that exist in our nation, 
again, part of the reason we believe is because of the 
disparate amount of pollution in our communities.
    Mr. Soto. And Dr. Sheats, how would the Environmental 
Justice For All Act help address these issues of cumulative 
pollution impacts?
    Dr. Sheats. Well, finally a gap in our laws and regulations 
will begin to be filled because it would mandate that the 
cumulative impact analysis take into account all the pollution 
in a neighborhood and not just look at pollution as individual 
pollutants and ask if those individual standards are violated.
    It would take a more holistic approach and say, hey, this 
super pollution in the neighborhood has to be taken into 
account.
    Mr. Soto. Ms. Cortez, we passed $21 billion for 
environmental remediation in the Build Back Better 
infrastructure package. What do you think would be one or two 
areas to focus on that we should work on to remediate past 
environmental justice issues?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, I think remediation of brownfields, as I 
was mentioning earlier, is super important because these areas 
are toxic. A lot of these areas are dirt. They are uncovered.
    Some of us, if we don't know how to find the tools, we 
don't even know what toxins we are being exposed to, but a lot 
of them are adjacent to homes.
    We have seen that happen here where brownfields are active 
polluting sites, have caused numerous metal types of cancers, 
where folks are actively dying even after the facility is shut 
down.
    Mr. Soto. Ms. Cahn, what would be your recommendation for 
us to focus on for the $21 billion in environmental remediation 
that has passed?
    Ms. Cahn. I would actually have to say let's start by 
consulting with communities about where the needs are greatest 
and the spaces that have been left unremediated for the 
longest.
    I will say that there have been recent studies, actually I 
think 2 years ago by the EPA, looking at the intersection of 
climate risk and brownfields and Superfund risk, so I would 
also say let's look at the spaces that are at risk of flooding 
and have the potential to spread toxins throughout a 
neighborhood exacerbating the health impacts.
    Mr. Soto. Thanks.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you. The gentleman yields.
    Let me now turn to the gentleman from Chicago, Mr. Garcia. 
Sir, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Chairman Grijalva, and of course, 
all of our outstanding witnesses and, of course, thank you to 
Congressman McEachin for the environmental justice bill.
    Look, everyone deserves a safe and healthy place in which 
to work, live, play, and learn, and we all have the right to 
pure air, clean water, and an environment that enriches our 
lives.
    But the reality is that for too many people of color and 
low-income communities, including the ones I represent, they 
lack access to these basic fundamental rights.
    In 2022, Chicago still has an uneven and inequitable 
exposure to pollution and toxins across its neighborhoods.
    A question for Dr. Sheats. I know you have done crucial 
work in New Jersey to push back against the disproportionate 
siting of toxic and hazardous facilities in communities of 
color and low-income communities.
    In my district, we are dealing with similar issues. 
Recently, two companies, with abysmal track records when it 
comes to the environment and with issues of safety of the 
communities that they enter, have indicated intentions to 
establish plants in locations in Chicago on the South and West 
Side.
    We called on city officials to reject those applications in 
order to protect the health of our neighbors who are already 
overburdened by pollution.
    My question is, how would the robust cumulative impact 
assessments proposed in the Environmental Justice For All Act 
help prevent this type of injustice?
    Dr. Sheats. I think that the cumulative impact provision in 
the EJ For All Act would very nicely address this issue 
because, again, it says that if, due to cumulative impacts 
there is not a reasonable certainty of no harm, and in doing 
the cumulative impact analysis, you would have to take into 
account existing pollution and the pollution that would be 
added by the facilities that want to come into that community.
    And if that standard is violated, if it would cause harm to 
the community, then the permit will not be issued. But I think 
it could play a role, a major role, in protecting those 
communities.
    Mr. Garcia. So, incorporating what we have learned and new 
technology is essential to making places safe and healthy for 
everyone.
    Dr. Sheats, you helped pass groundbreaking legislation in 
the state of New Jersey that requires an assessment of 
cumulative impacts and sets a limit on cumulative impact 
pollution in overburdened areas.
    You also helped craft a municipal ordinance for the city of 
Newark on environmental justice and cumulative impacts. You 
have seen these cumulative impact policies be implemented at 
the local and state level.
    Can you speak to why the Federal Government should also be 
required to consider cumulative impacts?
    Dr. Sheats. Yes. And I should say, we are waiting for the 
state regulations to be issued any day now. We have high 
anticipation that they will help our communities, and it is not 
enough to do this though on a state-by-state basis because 
currently New Jersey is the only state that has passed a law 
that says you should deny permits under certain circumstances 
based on cumulative impacts.
    Some other states are interested, but that doesn't replace 
national legislation. How about all of the vast majority of 
states that are not contemplating passing such cumulative 
impact legislation? All those other communities in those states 
should be protected, and the EJ For All Act would help to 
protect them.
    Mr. Garcia. Last week, this Committee held a hearing to 
examine the lack of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion 
within environmental non-government organizations and 
grantmaking foundations and how this creates a barrier to 
robust public participation in the decision-making process, 
particularly for those in marginalized communities.
    But as we know, this problem is broader and beyond NGOs and 
foundations. So, Dr. Sheats, communities of color have always 
been at the forefront of the environmental justice movement, 
but perhaps don't get as much recognition as other leaders in 
this space.
    How do we ensure that communities of color continue leading 
the conversation and movement, in 30 seconds?
    Dr. Sheats. You have to give them the resources so they 
have the capacity to do so, and we ask that allies who work 
with us, work with those communities, let those communities 
lead.
    Mr. Garcia. To the point. You have time to spare.
    Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman, and the 
gentleman yields.
    Let me now turn to the gentlelady from Massachusetts, 
Representative Trahan. You have 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Trahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your 
leadership on this issue. And thank you to the witnesses for 
joining us today to consider this important legislation.
    As part of today's conversation about environmental 
justice, I would like to highlight the important efforts we 
must take to clean up brownfield sites that litter our 
communities.
    In fact, the other Committee I sit on, Energy and Commerce, 
is holding a separate hearing on them today as well.
    Brownfields, as well as Superfund sites, are 
disproportionately found in low-income communities, like Lowell 
where I grew up. They make it hard for businesses to open in 
these areas, stalling economic development.
    Last May, the EPA awarded the city of Lawrence a $500,000 
brownfield clean-up grant to clean up the Merrimac Paper site. 
Between 1866 and 2005, this site operated as a paper processing 
and finishing plant. Unfortunately, despite its location in the 
center of Lawrence along the Merrimac River, the factory 
produced toxic chemicals, which have contaminated the site with 
polynuclear, aromatic hydrocarbons, petroleum, heavy metals, 
and other contaminants that stem from transformers, underground 
storage tanks, and previous fires within the building.
    Cleaning up the Merrimac Paper site will free up nearly 5 
acres for redevelopment and make it possible to create a future 
connection between the Lawrence River Trail and the Merrimac 
River Trail.
    Lawrence is not the only community in my district that is 
coping with brownfields. The city of Lowell has a long history 
of redeveloping several brownfields into signature projects: 
the Paul Tsongas Arena, the Lasha Park, the GM Garage, the 
Hamilton Canal District.
    And these projects demonstrate the incredible potential we 
have to leverage these contaminated locations from hazardous 
properties to economic opportunities. Cleaning them up creates 
jobs as well as room for small businesses to grow, and for 
communities like Lowell and Lawrence, which have limited green 
space and vacant land available for redevelopment, converting 
these spaces into usable land, for example, parks, river walks, 
and economic opportunity is just critical.
    Federal investment in brownfield sites is key to 
revitalizing communities in Massachusetts and across our 
country. Fortunately, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 
included $1.5 billion for brownfield remediation and 
revitalization, and communities like Lawrence and Lowell will 
be able to use these types of investments to transform 
contaminated sites into community assets like public parks and 
green spaces that can help communities thrive and prosper.
    Ms. Cortez, I know you have already spoken extensively on 
the importance of brownfields, but can you speak more to the 
work you do to revitalize brownfields locally and the 
opportunity we have in these areas to provide healthy outdoor 
recreation spaces and environmental amenities in environmental 
justice communities that lack access to such amenities now.
    Ms. Cortez. Yes, thank you. I think similar to what you 
mention in Lowell and I'm sure in other areas as well, our 
communities, most of the brownfields that I know of were either 
paint manufacturers, metal manufacturers, chrome platers, and 
landfills.
    So, as they leave, they leave this behind and leave behind 
the compound gases, metals on the floor, and other such things 
that continue to harm the community.
    One of the big issues and why funding is so important is 
because what is happening is that private developers purchase 
these brownfields and they want to turn over their profit. So, 
what happens is that the only thing that can be redeveloped--
because when you redevelop you have to clean, so these 
developers end up doing a cleanup, but because they have to pay 
for the cleanup, they make sure that they have a business that 
is going to yield them a significant amount of profit.
    So, what we see is that they get cleaned up to put other 
polluters there. That is literally what we see, is they are 
cleaning up to put more polluters there, and that does not 
allow for greenspaces.
    So, Federal funding that has already come through our hoods 
is super important to allow for green spaces that so 
desperately need to be created.
    And in addition to that, these sites are so big that what 
we see is right now in our urban neighborhoods, all we have 
access to are pocket parks. That is a great start. That is not 
enough. That is not enough for substantial recreation, so these 
types of investments into brownfields are very important.
    Mrs. Trahan. Yes, if you could just like bring it home for 
us, how will the Environmental Justice For All Act help support 
the more equitable access to parks and recreational 
opportunities for these underserved and economically 
disadvantaged communities?
    Ms. Cortez. Yes. EJ For All will be able to provide funding 
so that we can have these spaces cleaned and have green spaces 
accessible to the communities that are most impacted and do not 
have access currently to these types of facilities.
    Mrs. Trahan. Thank you so much for that and for all the 
work that you do.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Let me introduce--not a member of the Committee, but part 
of it today for Committee action. Madam Chair, Ms. Maloney, are 
you joining us or have you joined us?
    Ms. Maloney. Yes, I am here. We are trying to get the Zoom 
going. But I am on it.
    The Chairman. OK. You are recognized.
    Ms. Maloney. Thank you so much, Chairman Grijalva, and 
thanks to you and Congressman McEachin for writing this 
terrific bill.
    Communities like mine need the Environmental Justice For 
All Act to become law. My constituents in western Queens live 
in an area that has become and is called ``Asthma Alley.'' 
Across the street from Queensbridge Houses, the largest public 
housing development in the country, is the Ravenswood 
Generating Station, the dirtiest fossil fuel plant in the 
state.
    If you can believe it, there are 3 more peakers that burn 
fossil fuels on the Ravenswood site, 2 more peakers just two 
blocks away, and 10 within a mile, 24 just in that 
neighborhood, and 91 across the city.
    That is too many and that is why we have environmental 
health challenges and problems.
    Millions of people in New York live within a mile of these 
plants, and if you live near one, you probably live near many.
    Enough is enough. We need to stop polluting and harming 
frontline communities. We need to pass your Environmental 
Justice For All Act, and we need all Members of Congress to go 
home to their districts, meet with local environmental justice 
communities and ask how they can best fight for relief from 
toxic pollution for constituents that get the short end of the 
stick every time a polluter comes to town.
    For some reason in New York, they put all of the pollution 
in one area, and it is really a justice neighborhood usually.
    The Oversight Committee worked with the environmental 
justice leaders in New York's PEAK Coalition. We found that 
while each of the city's 91 peakers and baseload plants may 
stay under emissions' thresholds individually, the amount of 
pollution they spew together is just too much, especially when 
added to the thousands of gas and diesel boilers and generators 
in buildings across our city.
    It is more than our bodies can handle. It is too much for 
our children. To a child's lungs, it makes no difference if 
soot comes from 1 of the smokestacks or from 10. It should not 
make a difference in the eyes of the law, and with the 
Environmental Justice For All Act it will not.
    In collaboration with Chairman Grijalva, members of this 
Environmental Justice Working Group, frontline communities 
across the country, and the authors of the Environmental 
Justice National Climate Platform, I wrote the Justice and 
Power Plant Permitting Act to complement his efforts.
    My bill, H.R. 6548, builds on Environmental Justice For All 
by inserting the cumulative impacts model into the permitting 
of fossil fuel powered plants and other sources of air 
pollution as prohibiting these sources if they cause harm.
    With one of the country's leading practitioners in 
developing this bill, and he is here today, Dr. Sheats, I would 
like to submit a list to the panel, your panel and to you, Mr. 
Chairman, of groups across the country that are supporting my 
bill, for the record, and they should be supporting yours.
    Dr. Sheats, the cumulative impacts framework has been a 
profound success in state law, in state permitting decisions. 
It is long past time that Congress put in place a national 
framework.
    What is your message to Members of Congress who may be 
unfamiliar with this concept or unsure whether to support 
cumulative impact bills like Chairman Grijalva's and 
Congressman McEachin's and mine?
    Dr. Sheats?
    Dr. Sheats. I think that you pretty much said it, but let 
me add that environmental justice communities, low-income 
communities, communities of color have been working toward this 
for years, saying that this gap in our laws has to be plugged. 
There has to be some way to take into account the total amount 
of pollution in the neighborhood.
    It is just so unfair that these multiple sources keep going 
into the same neighborhoods. The time is now, and we are glad 
so many people are at least starting to listen and taking this 
seriously.
    And we really thank you and your colleagues in Congress for 
paying attention to this issue.
    Ms. Maloney. I think another item that is troubling is they 
took the permitting process and gave it to the states. Yet, it 
is the Federal Government that wrote the Clean Air and Clean 
Water Acts.
    And yet, they are looking at one source of pollution and 
adding more and more peaker plants to the same neighborhoods.
    Could you comment on the permitting process? It is not 
working because they are continuing to pollute communities, 
particularly communities of color, with polluting plants over 
and over and over again, and they put so many of them in one 
area.
    Dr. Sheats. And the hard reality is that at some point the 
permitting process has to say enough is enough, and at some 
point, due to cumulative impacts and environmental justice, the 
permitting process has to say we are not going to put more 
polluting facilities in these neighborhoods that already have 
more than their fair share of facilities.
    Ms. Maloney. Well, that is the main point I want to make, 
that we have to change our permitting process, and we have to 
pass the Environmental Justice For All Act.
    I congratulate Congressmen Grijalva and McEachin for their 
leadership on this. We should pass it out of Committee and to 
the Floor for a vote.
    And I thank you for allowing me to share with you my 
support for your bill, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Let me now invite any Committee member who had not had the 
opportunity to comment or to question our witnesses to ask for 
time and I will be more than happy to do that or else I will 
move into closing the meeting.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Who seeks recognition?
    Mr. Stauber. It's Stauber, Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Stauber.
    Mr. Stauber. Mr. Chair, because in my opening statement we 
had some technical difficulties, I am going to ask that my 
opening statement be put into the record.
    And then I would ask that Mayor Brower's Op-Ed dated 
January 24, 2020, be also placed in the record.
    And then the last request of you, Mr. Chair, would you 
please share the letter to Secretary Haaland regarding the 
Willow Project? Can you share that with the entire Committee?
    The Chairman. Absolutely, and also all of the signatories 
on the letter as well. Every office will receive it.
    Thank you for requesting that.
    So ordered.

    [The information follows:]
OPINION -- COMMENTARY

Goldman Sachs to Native Alaskans: Drop Dead

The bank claims to value `stakeholder engagement' but dropped Arctic 
drilling without consulting us.

By Harry Brower Jr.
Jan. 24, 2020 6:33 pm ET

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


 Pipelines in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, Feb. 16, 2017.

  Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

Utqiagvik, Alaska

As the mayor of Alaska's North Slope Borough, I represent about 10,000 
people in an area larger than most states. Beneath our lands are some 
of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, including Prudhoe Bay 
and the coastal plain of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

Since the 19th century, when our Inupiat ancestors made initial contact 
with the West, we have worked to maintain a balance between the modern 
world and our rich cultural inheritance. Largely because of the oil and 
gas under our lands, which are developed using the highest 
environmental standards, we have come far. My biggest fear is that we 
will be set back in our quest--this time by those who claim to care 
about us but are using my lands and my people as symbols for a larger 
political goal.

Last month, Goldman Sachs announced it will no longer fund oil and gas 
development in the Arctic region. The announcement came as a shock to 
me and my constituents, particularly because the New York-based 
investment bank claims ``stakeholder engagement'' and ``consultation'' 
with Indigenous peoples are core business principles. No one will be 
more affected by Goldman Sachs's decision than the people of Alaska's 
North Slope, yet we learned about it in the media.

By ignoring the concerns of Alaska Natives and basking in positive 
publicity, Goldman Sachs demonstrated the condescending, subtly racist 
attitude that too often has been the hallmark of the way Westerners 
deal with Indigenous people. Had anyone at Goldman Sachs bothered to 
ask us what we thought about funding energy plays on the North Slope, 
here's what we would have said:

From the time of Western contact until we were able to claim the rights 
to our lands, the people of the North Slope and other Indigenous 
Alaskan communities suffered and lived under horrific conditions. In 
1953, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh traveled throughout 
rural Alaska conducting a health survey. The visitors were shocked by 
what they found.

``The Indigenous peoples of Native Alaska are the victims of sickness, 
crippling conditions and premature death to a degree exceeded in very 
few parts of the world,'' the team wrote. ``Among them, health problems 
are nearly out of hand.'' They documented ``the large numbers of the 
tuberculosis [sufferers], the crippled, the blind, the deaf, the 
malnourished and the desperately ill.''

These were my direct forbears--including my mother--and the ancestors 
of many who still live on the North Slope. In the face of such 
desperate poverty, our ancestors--some still alive--organized to get 
access to our lands and resources. Elders, including my father, helped 
organize Alaska Natives throughout the state. They formed associations. 
They started a newspaper.

They traveled to Washington in large numbers, some even sleeping in 
tents outside, to lobby Congress for the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act of 1971, the largest lands claim act in history. The act 
transferred ownership of what had been federal land to the Indigenous 
people who lived there and paved the way for North Slope oil production 
as well as logging, mining and fishing rights in other areas of the 
state.

I'm proud that Prudhoe Bay has produced 18 billion barrels of oil since 
1977, contributing billions of dollars to state coffers and funding 
development in Native Alaskan communities. Today I see fellow residents 
becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers. Some, like me, have 
become whaling captains.

We have a long way to go to enjoy the amenities that most people in the 
``lower 48'' take for granted. But thanks to oil production, our 
children are no longer forced to live hundreds of miles away from their 
families simply to attend high school. We are able to eat our native 
foods, practice our native ceremonies and speak in our native tongues. 
Many of us now live near a cutting-edge medical clinic. We can heat our 
homes, turn on our lights with a flick of the switch, and in some cases 
we even have indoor plumbing. We are no longer one whaling hunt from 
starvation.

We are able to have all this because we treasure and protect our land 
and wildlife--the resources that executives and environmental groups in 
cities thousands of miles away claim to care about. The way we see it, 
caring about the land and wildlife should also mean caring about the 
Indigenous people who inhabit the land--and that means knowing us, 
which Goldman Sachs hasn't bothered to do. We aren't hungry for oil, we 
are hungry for progress and understanding from those on the East Coast 
and beyond. We don't need your protection or judgment. We need your 
respect. We need to be treated like fellow Americans.

Goldman Sachs says its decision to forgo participation in Arctic 
drilling projects was born of a desire to fight climate change. But 
given its business interests in oil-producing states around the world, 
including involvement in last year's initial public offering of Saudi 
Arabia's oil company, Aramco, that can't be true.

Goldman executives are simply looking to curry political favor with 
powerful green interests. The cost of Goldman Sachs's hypocrisy will be 
paid by my people, who may soon be on a path back to the deprivation 
and hardship our ancestors worked so hard to leave behind.

    Mr. Brower, a whaling captain, was elected mayor of Alaska's North 
Slope Borough in 2016.

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. Let me thank the witnesses and the Members 
for their questions.
    Achieving environmental justice for all is a major 
priority, and Congress, I really believe needs to act with the 
level of urgency that it deserves.
    And without objection, I would like to enter into the 
record the many letters of support the Committee has received 
from hundreds of organizations for H.R. 2021, from grassroot 
community organizations and public health advocates.
    So ordered.

    [The information follows:]

              Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

                        Mount Rainier, Maryland

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) writes to 
offer our strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act 
(H.R. 2021). We urge committee members to advance this important 
legislation quickly to begin remedying the long history of 
environmental racism and injustice, and cumulative and disproportionate 
health and environmental impacts, that affects communities of color, 
low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous nations and communities, 
across the country.

    This legislation is directly in line with ANHE's core mission and 
vision, which the organization bases on both the Nursing Code of Ethics 
and the Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice. ANHE upholds the 
rights of all individuals to have access to healthy and safe 
environments free from toxic pollutants, access to food and products 
free from toxic chemicals, and most importantly the right and 
opportunities to determine the needs of one's own community and its 
future.

    Decades of research and evidence, and the many testimonies of 
impacted people and communities themselves, have documented a history 
of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts imposed 
on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous 
communities. These affected peoples and communities have themselves 
developed and demanded solutions to these injustices and harms for some 
time. The extensive public input process that informed the Act's 
creation reflects this history and evidence, and has produced 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. 
This Act has the potential to be immeasurably beneficial to the health 
and advancement of communities that have been marginalized and 
overlooked for far too long. We urge the Committee, and any other 
committees with jurisdiction over this legislation, to begin to correct 
these injustices and address this legacy of harm, by promptly passing 
the bill out of Committee and sending it on to the full House of 
Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

                         Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN
                                                 Executive Director

                                 ______
                                 

                        Anna Julia Cooper Center

                     Winston-Salem, North Carolina

                                              February 14, 2022    

Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chairman,
Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking Member,
Natural Resources Committee,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    The undersigned organizations write to offer our strong support for 
the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee 
members to advance this important legislation quickly to begin 
remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and 
cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that 
affects communities across the country.
    The undersigned organizations work together as members and allies 
of the Coming Clean collaborative network to reform the industrial 
chemical and fossil fuel industries so they are no longer a source of 
harm and to secure systemic changes that allow a safe chemical and 
clean energy economy to flourish. We are working toward a world where 
no community's health, safety, or well-being is considered an 
`acceptable' sacrifice to develop energy or to create and dispose of 
products. We know we can build a world where our climate and economy 
are nontoxic, sustainable, and just for all--and we're working to make 
this vision a reality.
    Our work together is guided by the Louisville Charter for Safer 
Chemicals: A Platform for Creating a Safe and Healthy Environment 
Through Innovation, a vision and set of principles to guide 
transformation of the chemical industry, backed by policy 
recommendations. The very beginning of the Charter recognizes that: 
Justice is overdue for people of color, low-income people, Tribes and 
Native/Indigenous communities, women, children and farmworkers, who 
experience disproportionate impacts from cumulative sources. This 
chemical burden is unprecedented in human history and represents a 
major failure of the current chemical management system.
    The urgent need to address disproportionate and cumulative impacts 
is a central tenet of the Louisville Charter (endorsed by over 100 
diverse organizations across the country). One of the ten foundational 
principles of the Charter reads:

    Prevent Disproportionate Exposures and Hazards, and Reduce 
Cumulative Impacts on Environmental Justice Communities.

    Adopt policies and practices that remedy the disproportionate 
chemical hazards and exposures faced by communities of color, Tribes 
and Native/Indigenous communities, and low-income communities, and that 
address combined burdens of multiple pollutants, multiple sources, and 
accumulation over time with vulnerabilities that exist in a community. 
Break down and end discriminatory practices and policies that result in 
disproportionate and cumulative impacts in these communities. To this 
end, grassroots, fenceline and environmental justice communities must 
be at the table when developing and advancing chemical policies at all 
levels.
    Other core Charter principles include the need to act with 
foresight to protect health and prevent pollution; take immediate 
action to protect, restore, and strengthen communities; and ensure the 
public and workers fully have the right to know, participate, and 
decide. The full Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals, and a list of 
endorsing organizations, can be found at www.louisvillecharter.org.
    As the Committee likely knows well, given the extensive process of 
research and public input that supported development of the Act, the 
history of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts 
imposed on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous communities is very well documented. Decades of research and 
evidence were supplemented by a year-long public input process through 
which disproportionately impacted communities and constituencies 
detailed the harms and impacts that they experience, and the solutions 
and remedies that would be most beneficial to them, producing 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    Research supporting by Coming Clean network members and allies 
which supports the need for the Act, and the policy solutions it 
contains, include:

    Who's in Danger? Race, Poverty, and Chemical Disasters: A 
Demographic Analysis of Chemical Disaster Vulnerability Zones 
(published by the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical 
Policy Reform, or EJHA) documented that the percentage of Blacks living 
in fenceline zones near 3,433 high-risk chemical facilities is 75% 
greater than for the U.S. as a whole, and the percentage of Latinos is 
60% greater. The poverty rate in these areas is 50% higher than for the 
U.S. as a whole.
    Life at the Fenceline: Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in 
Environmental Justice Communities (EJHA, Coming Clean, Campaign for 
Healthier Solutions) found that in several communities that host 
clusters of hazardous facilities, the fenceline zones near these 
facilities are disproportionately Black, Latino, and low income, and 
face multiple health hazards and risks. In addition, the most 
vulnerable neighborhoods near these facilities (those that are both low 
income and have low access to healthy foods) are even more heavily and 
disproportionately impacted.
    Watered Down Justice (Natural Resources Defense Council, Coming 
Clean, and EJHA) found that the rate of violations of the Safe Drinking 
Water Act increased in communities of color, low-income communities, 
and areas with more non-native English speakers. The analysis also 
found that water systems that serve these communities also stayed in 
violation for longer periods of time, for more violations, for more 
contaminants.
    Environmental Justice for Delaware (EJHA, Delaware Concerned 
Residents for Environmental Justice, Coming Clean, et al) found that 
people in seven communities along the industrial corridor in the 
northern portion of Delaware's New Castle County face a substantial 
potential cumulative health risk from (1) exposure to toxic air 
pollution, (2) their proximity to polluting industrial facilities and 
hazardous chemical facilities, and (3) proximity to contaminated waste 
sites. These health risks are substantially greater than those of 
residents of a wealthier and predominantly White community in Delaware, 
and for Delaware as a whole.

    Our organizations strongly support the Act's central elements, 
which are important steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and 
ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--
regardless of color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect 
to the development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits will 
            not be issued if projects cannot demonstrate a reasonable 
            certainty of no harm to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

                                 ______
                                 

                  Center for Earth Energy & Democracy

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    We write to offer our strong support for the Environmental Justice 
for All Act (H.R. 2021) and urge committee members to address 
environmental injustices by advancing this important legislation. We 
support this legislation as aligned with our mission centered on 
creating a just, pollution free energy economy; and grounded in our 
values of self-determination in Indigenous, low income communities and 
communities of color.

    We strongly support the following central elements in the Act:

     Providing research, education and outreach grants to 
            support community-based projects that address environmental 
            and public health issues in environmental justice 
            communities.

     Addressing cumulative impacts of pollution in permitting 
            decisions and ensuring that permits to facilities 
            demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm to human 
            health.

     Directing the federal government and federal agencies to 
            develop environmental justice strategies and regularly 
            report on implementation and progress.

     Supporting communities and workers as they transition away 
            from fossil fuel dependent economies.

    We commend all of the environmental justice advocates who 
contributed to this legislation. We hope committee members engage 
environmental justice communities as the Environmental Justice for All 
Act continues its journey through Congress.

            Respectfully submitted by,

                                               Ansha Zaman,
                                            Federal Policy Director

                                 ______
                                 

                         CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY

                             Washington, DC

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Our organization writes to offer our strong support for the 
Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee 
members to advance this important legislation quickly to begin 
remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and 
cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that 
affects communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous nations and communities, across the country.
    We support this legislation as aligned with our mission and values, 
which are supportive of environmental justice. We have established our 
own Ethnic Diversity and Inclusiveness Team and hold monthly training 
sessions with our staff.
    Decades of research and evidence, and the many, many testimonies of 
the impacted people and communities themselves, have documented a 
history of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts 
imposed on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous communities. These affected peoples and communities have 
themselves developed and demanded solutions to these injustices and 
harms for some time. The extensive public input process that informed 
the Act's creation reflects this history and evidence, and has produced 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully yours,

                                             Jaydee Hanson,
                                                    Policy Director

                                 ______
                                 

                Children's Environmental Health Network

                                              February 10, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Our organization writes to offer our strong support for the 
Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee 
members to advance this important legislation quickly to begin 
remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and 
cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that 
affects communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous nations and communities, across the country.

    The Children's Environmental Health Network (CEHN) supports this 
legislation because it is aligned with our mission and values--to 
protect the developing child from environmental health hazards and 
promote a healthier environment.

    Decades of research and evidence, and the many, many testimonies of 
the impacted people and communities themselves, have documented a 
history of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts 
imposed on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous communities. These affected peoples and communities have 
themselves developed and demanded solutions to these injustices and 
harms for some time. The extensive public input process that informed 
the Act's creation reflects this history and evidence and has produced 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

    These urgently needed policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health.

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities.

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies.

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas, and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies.

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
have a moral imperative to protect our most vulnerable, our children--
children of today as well future generations. We urge the Committee, 
and any other committees with jurisdiction over this legislation, to 
begin to correct these injustices and address this legacy of harm, by 
promptly passing the bill out of Committee and sending it on to the 
full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

                               Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH,
                                                 Executive Director

                                 ______
                                 

                             CleanAirNow KC

                                               February 8, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Our organization writes to offer our strong support for the 
Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee 
members to advance this important legislation quickly to begin 
remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and 
cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that 
affects communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous nations and communities, across the country.
    We support this legislation as aligned with our mission and values, 
which are to work with and uplift communities most threatened by air 
pollution; particularly those with vulnerable populations affected by 
multiple, disproportionate environmental health burdens. CleanAirNow 
aims to support and amplify the voices of these communities to increase 
their organizational capacity for effective participation in local, 
state, and federal policy in order to achieve environmental justice, 
health equity, and climate justice for their communities. CleanAirNow 
is devoted to help facilitate and maximize opportunities for cross-
disciplinary and community-based participatory research (CBPR), 
bridging organizational and geographic boundaries to improve the health 
and lives of citizens across our service area.
    CleanAirNow recently released this report ``Environment Racism in 
the Heartland'' which highlights the environmental racism communities 
endure while we are trying to fight for equity, and health and being 
exposed to cumulative impacts from government inaction and polluters. 
Lugo-Martinez, Environmental Racism in the Heartland, Fighting for 
Equity and Health in Kansas City, November 2021, Union of Concerned 
Scientists and CleanAirNow, https://doi.org/10.47923/2021.14322.
    Decades of research and evidence, and the many, many testimonies of 
the impacted people and communities themselves, have documented a 
history of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts 
imposed on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous communities. These affected peoples and communities have 
themselves developed and demanded solutions to these injustices and 
harms for some time. The extensive public input process that informed 
the Act's creation reflects this history and evidence, and has produced 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

        Atenas I. Mena,               Beto Lugo Martinez,
        Co-Executive Director         Executive Director


                                 ______
                                 

                           CLEAN WATER ACTION

                             Washington, DC

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Clean Water Action strongly supports the Environmental Justice for 
All Act (H.R. 2021). This bill will help begin remedying the long 
history of environmental racism and injustice in our communities. It 
will also begin to remedy cumulative and disproportionate health and 
environmental impacts that affect communities of color, low-income 
communities, and Native/Indigenous nations and communities across the 
country.

    The legislation is aligned with our mission and values, which are 
to protect our environment, health, economic well-being and community 
quality of life. Clean Water Action organizes strong grassroots groups 
and coalitions, to solve environmental and community problems such as 
those included in the Environmental Justice for All Act. Comprehensive 
environmental justice solutions serve not only to benefit directly 
impacted communities, but also to improve social and environmental 
livelihoods for all. We strongly support the Act's central elements, 
which are important steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and 
ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--
regardless of color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect 
to the development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions.

     Codifying and bolstering President Clinton's 1994 
            Executive Order by directing federal agencies to develop 
            environmental justice strategies and regularly report on 
            implementation and progress.

     Ensuring that federal agencies consequentially include 
            diverse communities in public health research, data 
            collection, and analysis.

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies.

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies.;

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to the disproportionate harms that have been experienced by communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction, to 
begin to correct these injustices and address this legacy of harm by 
promptly passing the bill out of Committee and sending it on to the 
full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully,

        Lynn Thorp,                   Jennifer Peters,
        National Campaigns Director   National Water Programs Director

        Kim Gaddy,                    Sean Jackson,
        National Environmental 
        Justice Director              National Campaigns Coordinator

        Thea Louis,
        National Water Projects 
        Coordinator

                                 ______
                                 

               Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed

                                              February 11, 2022    

Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chairman,
Committee on Natural Resources,
U.S. House of Representatives,
1324 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva:

    The Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed supports and urges 
passage of the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We thank 
you for your leadership on this issue and pledge our support to move 
this bill through Congress and to the President's desk to be signed 
into law. Our coalition represents more than 175 organizations across 
the Delaware River watershed, which cover more than 13,539 square miles 
and are home to over 13.3 million residents across 4 states.
    It is no coincidence that marginalized communities continue to bear 
the burden of living in close proximity to hazardous sites, facing 
higher risk for exposure to toxic chemicals and associated health 
impacts like asthma and lead poisoning. As our nation grapples with 
racism, we must recognize that our environmental laws and policies 
contribute to this never-ending cycle. The Environmental Justice for 
All Act seeks to break this cycle and would strengthen legal 
protections to combat environmental injustices. With this bill, people 
in cities such as Camden, Trenton, Wilmington, and Philadelphia, could 
bring statutory claims for damages under common law and request 
injunctive relief for environmentally caused health crisis events that 
have severe impacts on children and future generations. It would 
strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by restoring the ability of 
individuals to bring actions against entities engaging in 
discriminatory practices.
    All too often, pollution disproportionately impacts Indigenous 
communities, people of color, and low-income families. This bill would 
help to protect such communities by requiring the consideration of 
cumulative impacts in permitting decisions under the Clean Water Act 
and the Clean Air Act. It would require federal agencies to provide 
early and meaningful community involvement, including tribal 
representation, under the National Environmental Policy Act when 
proposing an action affecting an environmental justice community. 
Additionally, this bill would establish a fund to use revenues from 
fees on oil, gas, and coal industries to support communities and 
workers as they transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent 
economies.
    Furthermore, this bill emphasizes the need for equitable access to 
the outdoors and nature, which provides countless benefits to 
underserved communities. Studies show that a thriving environment is 
invaluable for emotional, mental, and physical health, and Covid-19 has 
provided a real-world case study of the importance of getting outdoors 
in a safe and clean environment. This bill would prioritize projects 
that create access to parks and recreational opportunities in urban 
areas. This bill would also authorize $75 million annually for grants 
to support research, program development, and implementation of 
projects to improve environmental and public health issues in 
environmental justice communities.
    This legislation would benefit millions of residents in the 
Delaware River watershed by ensuring equal protection from harmful and 
unnecessary exposure to pollutants in the environment. We must act now 
to undo the burdens that have been placed on marginalized communities 
suffering from adverse public health impacts. Ignoring the lack of 
regulation and enforcement of key environmental protections will 
perpetuate marginalized communities. Thank you again for your 
leadership on H.R. 2021, the Environmental Justice for All Act, and we 
pledge our strong support for this legislation.
    Please contact Kelly Knutson at [email protected] with 
any questions or concerns.

                                 ______
                                 

                             PRESS RELEASE
                        Statement for the Record
 Equitable and Just National Climate Platform Co-authors Offer Strong 
           Support for the Environmental Justice for All Act

    WASHINGTON (Feb. 15, 2022)--In response to the House Natural 
Resources Committee hearing today on the Environmental Justice for All 
Act (H.R. 2021), Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, a 
coalition of environmental justice and national environmental groups, 
released the following statement:

    ``We offer our strong support for the Environmental Justice for All 
Act (H.R. 2021) and urge House Natural Resources Committee members to 
confront the legacy of environmental racism in the United States by 
advancing this important legislation. High concentrations of toxic 
pollution, persistent and systematic racial discrimination and lack of 
access to economic opportunities, have created disproportionately high 
environmental and public health risks in communities of color and low-
income communities. We must confront environmental racism head-on by 
prioritizing solutions that reduce pollution in environmental justice 
communities at a scale needed to significantly improve public health 
and quality of life. We urge lawmakers to develop equitable policies 
that reduce toxic pollution in all its forms.

    ``We commend the environmental justice advocates who contributed to 
this legislation along with Chair Grijalva and Representative McEachin, 
who led the community-driven process to incorporate the needs and 
perspectives of environmental justice communities into this Act.''

    Witnesses for the hearing include Dr. Nicky Sheats, Director of the 
Center for the Urban Environment at Kean University's John S. Watson 
Institute for Urban Policy and Research, a founding member of the New 
Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, and a co-author and inaugural 
signatory of the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform. His 
testimony is here.

    The Act contains the following:

     Requires consideration of cumulative impacts in permitting 
            decisions under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.

     Codifies President Clinton's 1994 Executive Order 12898 by 
            directing federal agencies to develop environmental justice 
            strategies and regularly report on implementation and 
            progress.

     Requires federal agencies to provide community involvement 
            opportunities under the National Environmental Policy Act 
            (NEPA) when proposing an action affecting an environmental 
            justice community.

     Requires Tribal representation throughout the NEPA process 
            for an activity that could impact an Indian Tribe, 
            including activities impacting off-reservation lands and 
            sacred sites.

     Amends Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

     Funds research grant programs to investigate personal and 
            childcare products containing chemicals linked to adverse 
            health impacts.

     Supports access to parks and recreational opportunities, 
            prioritizing projects and recreational opportunities that 
            benefit underserved urban communities.

     Authorizes $75 million annually for grants to support 
            research, education, outreach, development, and 
            implementation of projects to address environmental and 
            public health issues in environmental justice communities.

     Establishes a Federal Energy Transition Economic 
            Development Assistance Fund using revenues from new fees on 
            the oil, gas, and coal industries to support communities 
            and workers as they transition away from greenhouse gas-
            dependent economies.

    The Equitable & Just National Climate Platform celebrated its two-
year anniversary on July 17, 2021. In 2019, signatories to the platform 
achieved consensus on a historic plan calling for national climate 
action that confronts racial, economic, and environmental injustice as 
it enacts deep cuts in climate pollution and accelerates a pollution-
free energy future that benefits all communities. The co-authors 
included leaders from a dozen environmental justice organizations and 
six national environmental groups. More here.

    For more information, please contact Jake Thompson at 
[email protected] or Anahi Naranjo at [email protected]

                                 ______
                                 

               Friends Committee on National Legislation
                        Statement for the Record
                on the Environmental Justice for All Act
                             March 1, 2022

    Chair Grijalva, Ranking Member Westerman, and members of the 
Committee:

    The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) welcomes this 
opportunity to submit testimony to the House Natural Resources 
Committee in relation to its February 15, 2022, full Committee hearing 
on the Environmental Justice for All Act.
    FCNL supports legislation to address long-standing environmental 
injustices in the United States, including the Environmental Justice 
for All Act of 2021. As a Quaker advocacy organization, FCNL works to 
advance legislation that support peace, justice, and environmental 
stewardship. Our vision for the world stems from the Quaker belief in 
the worth and dignity inherently present in each person.
    As long-time advocates, we know that opportunities to pass 
transformational environmental legislation in the Congress are rare. 
Chair Grijalva, you and your colleagues are here at one of those rare 
opportunities. You can vote to pass legislation that extends justice to 
communities across the U.S. who have long sought relief from 
environmental racism.
    The environmental challenges facing communities--low-income and 
minority communities--are, at heart, rooted a long history of policies 
that entrenched segregation, exacerbated economic inequality, and 
exposed them to multiple environmental hazards. The results of these 
policies can be seen in 2022 in communities like St. James Parish, 
Louisiana, where residents of the Diamond neighborhood are subjected to 
poor air quality due to an industrial facility sited directly across 
the fence-line from people's homes.
    In the past year, FCNL has been heartened to see initiatives by the 
Biden Administration to address this environmental crisis. The 
Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, for 
example, established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory 
Council and set out the goals of the Justice40 Initiative. We are also 
grateful to the Congress for passing the Infrastructure Innovation and 
Jobs Act (IIJA) in November 2021. That bill contains significant 
funding to remove pollution from the water and soil, take down highways 
built through minority communities, and expand public transit options. 
These are moves in the right direction.
    We believe, however, that more remains to be done. That is why FCNL 
supports the Environmental Justice for All Act of 2021, introduced by 
Chair Grijalva and Representative McEachin. We see as key this 
legislation's provisions strengthening Title VI of the 1964 Civil 
Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on disparate impact, or 
actions that appear neutral but have a lopsided impact on people of 
color. We also support the Environmental Justice for All Act's 
requirement to consider cumulative impacts over time in permitting 
decisions under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. This will ensure 
that permits will not be issued if the project fails to show that it 
will not harm human health. These two provisions provide the legal 
foundations for a strong response to environmental injustice.
    The Quaker civil rights and social justice leader Bayard Rustin 
said that ``one has to fight for justice for all.'' The 117th Congress 
has a moral responsibility to lift the burden of injustice from the 
shoulders of the communities that have borne the overwhelming burden of 
pollution. We ask the Chair, members of the Committee, and the Congress 
to meet this moment, show that the Congress listens to the voices of 
the people, and pass the Environmental Justice for All Act.

Addendum: Statements from FCNL's Advocacy Corps Members

        ``Growing up in New Mexico, I have been familiar with adverse 
        and harmful effects of pollution on our communities and 
        ecosystems. My state has been fighting for years for federal 
        water protections. We have a saying in New Mexico ``El Aqua Es 
        Vida,'' meaning water is life. Like the waterways we have in 
        our state, our communities, families, and friends are all 
        connected. Pollution affects all of us. I am asking that on 
        behalf of your constituents, you protect the place you and they 
        call home by supporting the Environmental Justice for All Act. 
        I am asking for you to preserve the natural beauty of life and 
        our experience with it.''

                                              --John Hoang, New Mexico*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     *Statement has been edited for clarity.

        ``I want to show people that their voices are loud, and that 
        it's important to speak on issues that have affected one's own 
        community. Passing the Environmental Justice for All Act is 
        critical for more environmental legislation and climate change 
        action to gain traction. Our environment has long outlived us, 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        and urgent action must be taken soon to protect it.''

                                       --Taylor Powell-Abbinante, Ohio*

        ``The current situation in Ukraine and the newly released 
        United Nations Climate Report should serve to remind us how 
        vulnerable we all are to the perils of wartime and climate 
        change. Together we bear witness to our interdependency as the 
        World unites to stand against the poison Putin is inflicting 
        because know what happens in Ukraine doesn't necessarily stay 
        in Ukraine. If any Democracy is threatened, all Democracy is 
        threatened. The same holds true for our natural environment. If 
        one community in our world is suffering the negative impacts of 
        toxic waste or pollution, we will all have to face the 
        consequences. We must unite to protect the planet and pass the 
        Environmental Justice for All Act. If any one of us is not 
        protected, none of us are protected.''

                                           --Marianne Wareham, Florida*

                                 ______
                                 

                              GreenLatinos

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    We write in support of the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 
2021). While we know that some progress has been made, we must 
acknowledge the reality of the present: Brown, Black, and Indigenous 
communities are still disproportionately affected by environmental and 
climate catastrophes facing our country. This is particularly unjust 
given that we had the least to do with creating them.
    Our communities cannot wait, we need action to achieve our 
environmental liberation as soon as possible.
    We know that the Environmental Justice for All Act is rooted in the 
moral principle that all people have the right to pure air, clean 
water, and an environment that enriches life. As participants in 
providing extensive community feedback on the initial draft, we are 
proud that this legislation is informed by the belief that federal 
policy can and should seek to achieve environmental justice, health 
equity, and climate justice for all communities.
    We are heartened to see that the Environmental Justice for All Act 
amends and strengthens Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We are 
enthused that this will prohibit discrimination based on disparate 
impact and will permit private citizens, residents, and organizations 
to seek legal remedy when faced with discrimination.
    The core mission of GreenLatinos is to bring about racial and 
social justice for all communities through environmental liberation. We 
advocate for an equitable world that delivers clean, reliable, and 
affordable water; clean air that doesn't choke the lungs of the most 
vulnerable; and access to the beauty of our parks and coastlines and 
ocean for all to enjoy equitably. It is evident that the climate crisis 
and environmental degradation are causing a rapidly escalating 
breakdown in civil and human rights, threatening our basic life-
sustaining needs, including access to fresh air, clean water, healthy 
food, adequate health care, and shelter in our communities. Any real 
solution to addressing this crisis will demand the unprecedented 
transformation of every sector of the global economy over the next 
decade.
Water Equity
    GreenLatinos supports the provisions in the Environmental Justice 
For All Act that increase access to clean water for drinking, 
recreation, economic stability and for community health. We also 
believe that clean and healthy water is vital to a healthy environment. 
Water is a human right and unfortunately our communities have access in 
disproportionate ways. As such we are pleased to see that the 
Environmental Justice For All Act enhances the permitting decisions 
under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. This will help ensure 
that permits will not be issued if the project cannot demonstrate a 
reasonable certainty of no harm to human health.
Equitable Access and Communication
    Our communities have long been excluded from providing input into 
the federal environmental process. Urgently needed action on climate 
change and environmental justice in an equitable manner can only be 
achieved if we center the voices of those most impacted. That is why we 
are so pleased to see that the Environmental Justice For All Act 
ensures that federal agencies include diverse communities in public 
health research, data collection, and analysis. It also requires 
federal agencies to provide early and meaningful community involvement 
opportunities under NEPA when proposing an action affecting an 
environmental justice community. In addition, we are pleased that the 
act ensures robust Tribal representation throughout the NEPA process 
for an activity that could impact an Indian Tribe, including activities 
impacting off-reservation lands and sacred sites.
Public Lands and Ocean
    Public Lands and Ocean are often seen as a defining feature of our 
nation's character. Throughout our history, exclusion, oppression, and 
injustices have traditionally shaped the operations of policies of land 
and ocean management agencies and have created real barriers of access 
to all overlooked communities. Latinx, Hispano, indio-hispano, 
communities from across the nation all have deep-rooted connections to 
land and ocean that define our culture and sense of place. As such we 
are excited to see that the Environmental Justice For All Act supports 
more equitable access to parks and recreational opportunities, 
prioritizing projects and recreational opportunities that benefit urban 
neighborhoods and underserved communities.
Climate and Clean Air
    The public health crisis that wreaks havoc on our communities along 
with the climate crisis causes severe diseases like respiratory 
illness, cardiovascular disease, and shorter life span. Studies show 
that Latinx children in the U.S. are twice as likely as non-Latinx 
whites to die from asthma attacks. Nearly one third of Latino children 
live in counties where hazardous air pollutant concentrations exceed a 
1 in 10,000 cancer risk level. GreenLatinos is heartened to see that 
the Environmental Justice for All Act authorizes $75 million annually 
for grants to support research, education, outreach, development, and 
implementation of projects to address environmental and public health 
issues in environmental justice communities, including programs that 
improve the air frontline communities breathe and with it, boosts 
quality of life.
    The climate crisis is already impacting Latino communities across 
the country. Latino communities want to see action taken to protect 
their health and mitigate the climate crisis. In fact, 86% of Latinx 
people support carbon pollution limits on power plants--a key driver of 
climate change. In this context, the Environmental Justice For All 
Act's establishment of a Federal Energy Transition Economic Development 
Assistance Fund is critical to our environmental liberation. Using 
revenues from new fees on the oil, gas, and coal industries to support 
communities and workers as they transition away from greenhouse gas-
dependent economies is a smart way forward.
    For all these reasons, GreenLatinos is proud to support the 
Environmental Justice for All Act. We urge all House Committees with 
jurisdiction over this legislation to support it as well and to act 
expeditiously to bring this important bill to the House floor. Thank 
you for your attention.

            Sincerely,

                                               Mark Magana,
                                         Founding President and CEO

                                 ______
                                 

                        Statement for the Record
                              Healthy Gulf

    As a regional organization working to support clean air, water and 
land for communities throughout the Gulf South, Healthy Gulf voices our 
strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act. It's clear 
that this piece of legislation was crafted following direct 
consultation of our nation's environmental leaders and impacted 
residents. McEachin and Grijalva are doing exactly what elected 
officials should do, by ensuring that communities closest to the 
problem have a seat at the table as we develop policy solutions.
    Our community partners, who live at the fenceline of polluting 
industries in Texas and Louisiana, have for decades made clear demands: 
that our regulatory agencies need to create real opportunities for 
meaningful community education and engagement around environmental 
issues. That we must take into account the cumulative impacts of 
exposure to multiple sources of toxic emissions in the permitting 
process. That sacred sites, burial grounds and Indigenous land must be 
protected, and that as we shift away from oil, coal and gas, we must 
guarantee economic justice for all workers in transition from these 
industries.
    All of these principles are reflected in the Environmental Justice 
for All Act. This is a comprehensive policy plan that will move our 
country toward truly guaranteeing what should be the fundamental right 
of all its residents: to breathe clean air, to drink clean water, and 
to live and thrive in healthy communities.

            Respectfully submitted,

                                          Michael Esealuka,
                                                Louisiana Organizer

                                 ______
                                 
                        Statement for the Record
   Inclusive Louisiana Joins Fight for Environmental Justice For All 
                              Legislation

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


   St. James the Baptist Parish and the town of Convent are home 
to Inclusive Louisiana, an environmental justice group fighting for 
cleaner air, safer communities, and stronger federal regulation of 
petrochemical companies and heavy industry. Over the past 60 years, 
hazardous facilities with dangerous chemicals and emissions have 
engulfed the majority Black residents that live in the town. Inclusive 
Louisiana believes that the Environmental Justice For All Act, 
Sponsored by Chair Raul M. Grijalva and Representative A. Donald 
McEachin, ``will address the urgent pollution emergency and climate 
crisis that has negatively impacted them and their families. The 
legislation is rooted in the moral principle that all people have the 
right to pure air, clean water and an environment that enriches life.'' 
According to Gail Lebouf, codirector of Inclusive, our local government 
treats us like we're expendable. We've been crying for 60 years and our 
cries are going unheard. If there's any place that cries out for 
Environmental Justice, it's St. James Parish.

    The legislation will amend and strengthen Title VI of the Civil 
Rights Act of 1964, which will prohibit discrimination based on the 
disparate impact we endure as Black, fenceline communities. The act 
will also hold companies accountable by allowing those of us impacted 
to seek legal remedy when they discriminate. Another key feature of the 
legislation includes cumulative impacts, which requires consideration 
of the cumulative impacts in permitting decisions under the clean water 
and clean air act and ensures that permits will not be issued if the 
project cannot demonstrate reasonable certainty of no harm to health.

    Inclusive Louisiana is a grassroots community advocate organization 
with deep beliefs in our christian faith, and passionate about the 
injustices we see imposed everyday on our health, air, water, and soil. 
Our mission is to spread enlightenment and hope to all people to create 
a fairer and more inclusive society.

                                 ______
                                 

                        Interfaith Power & Light

                      New Mexico & El Paso Region

                                              February 14, 2022    

Re: Environmental Justice Act

    New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light is very supportive 
of Environmental Justice for All Act to create a Federal Energy 
Transition Economic Development Assistance Fund.
    New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the nation. We are the 
second largest fossil fuel producing state in the nation. Over decades 
the fossil fuel industry has not brought us out of poverty, rather, we 
now face lessening water supplies, polluted land and water, orphaned 
wells and miles of snaking pipelines from oil and gas sites to tanks 
and other fixtures that will probably never be cleaned up. What were 
ranching and farming areas seem to be destined for toxic wastelands. We 
have uranium mining legacy sites that we still seek funds for clean-up 
that we hope will provide training and jobs for our Navajo communities 
well into the future. But, we should not have to rely on clean-up of 
pollution for job training and jobs. We should not be left as a 
sacrifice zone or part of what Pope Francis calls the ``Throw Away 
Culture''.
    We have created some avenues to begin just transition in our state 
and the federal legislation would go along way in moving this forward 
for justice and rights for our frontline and underserved communities. 
Here is a statement from a community group that we work with in the 
Permian Basin.

Statement from Kayley Shoup, Organizer, Citizens Caring for Future, 
        Frontline Community in SE New Mexico Permian Basin.

    ``My hometown of Carlsbad, New Mexico is home to the Permian Basin. 
Also known as the largest oil field on the planet and likely the 
nation's top emitter of methane. While Southeast New Mexico is home to 
rich reserves of oil, we are also uniquely positioned to become a 
manufacturing hub for many different supplies that are used in the 
production of renewable energy. With the investment of time & resources 
that The Environmental Justice for All Act will provide we can create 
the political will in our communities to transition to a more 
sustainable economy, instead of continuing to be shackled to the oil 
industry. An industry that not only harms the health of those of us 
that live among it, but also harms the world with its contribution to 
global warming. Small oil towns in the most prolific basin in the world 
want a seat at the table in a green economy, and this act gives us an 
opportunity to take that seat.''

    For decades rural states like New Mexico have provided fossil fuels 
in many forms for the growth of the nation at the expense of 
communities. It is morally and ethically responsible that some way to 
address just transition be moved forward for our communities.

            Peace and good,

                                            Sr. Joan Brown,
                                                 Executive Director

                                 ______
                                 
                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    The undersigned organizations write to offer our strong support for 
the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee 
members to advance this important legislation quickly to begin 
remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice, and 
cumulative and disproportionate health and environmental impacts, that 
affects communities across the country.
    The undersigned organizations work together as members and allies 
of the Coming Clean collaborative network to reform the industrial 
chemical and fossil fuel industries so they are no longer a source of 
harm and to secure systemic changes that allow a safe chemical and 
clean energy economy to flourish. We are working toward a world where 
no community's health, safety, or well-being is considered an 
`acceptable' sacrifice to develop energy or to create and dispose of 
products. We know we can build a world where our climate and economy 
are nontoxic, sustainable, and just for all--and we're working to make 
this vision a reality.
    Our work together is guided by the Louisville Charter for Safer 
Chemicals: A Platform for Creating a Safe and Healthy Environment 
Through Innovation, a vision and set of principles to guide 
transformation of the chemical industry, backed by policy 
recommendations. The very beginning of the Charter recognizes that: 
Justice is overdue for people of color, low-income people, Tribes and 
Native/Indigenous communities, women, children and farmworkers, who 
experience disproportionate impacts from cumulative sources. This 
chemical burden is unprecedented in human history and represents a 
major failure of the current chemical management system.

    The urgent need to address disproportionate and cumulative impacts 
is a central tenet of the Louisville Charter (endorsed by over 100 
diverse organizations across the country). One of the ten foundational 
principles of the Charter reads:

Prevent Disproportionate Exposures and Hazards, and Reduce Cumulative 
        Impacts on Environmental Justice Communities.

        Adopt policies and practices that remedy the disproportionate 
        chemical hazards and exposures faced by communities of color, 
        Tribes and Native/Indigenous communities, and low-income 
        communities, and that address combined burdens of multiple 
        pollutants, multiple sources, and accumulation over time with 
        vulnerabilities that exist in a community. Break down and end 
        discriminatory practices and policies that result in 
        disproportionate and cumulative impacts in these communities. 
        To this end, grassroots, fenceline and environmental justice 
        communities must be at the table when developing and advancing 
        chemical policies at all levels.

    Other core Charter principles include the need to act with 
foresight to protect health and prevent pollution; take immediate 
action to protect, restore, and strengthen communities; and ensure the 
public and workers fully have the right to know, participate, and 
decide. The full Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals, and a list of 
endorsing organizations, can be found at www.louisvillecharter.org.
    As the Committee likely knows well, given the extensive process of 
research and public input that supported development of the Act, the 
history of cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards and impacts 
imposed on communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous communities is very well documented. Decades of research and 
evidence were supplemented by a year-long public input process through 
which disproportionately impacted communities and constituencies 
detailed the harms and impacts that they experience, and the solutions 
and remedies that would be most beneficial to them, producing 
legislation uniquely influenced by the people and communities it seeks 
to help.

    Research supporting by Coming Clean network members and allies 
which supports the need for the Act, and the policy solutions it 
contains, include:

    Who's in Danger? Race, Poverty, and Chemical Disasters: A 
Demographic Analysis of Chemical Disaster Vulnerability Zones 
(published by the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical 
Policy Reform, or EJHA) documented that the percentage of Blacks living 
in fenceline zones near 3,433 high-risk chemical facilities is 75% 
greater than for the U.S. as a whole, and the percentage of Latinos is 
60% greater. The poverty rate in these areas is 50% higher than for the 
U.S. as a whole.

    Life at the Fenceline: Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in 
Environmental Justice Communities (EJHA, Coming Clean, Campaign for 
Healthier Solutions) found that in several communities that host 
clusters of hazardous facilities, the fenceline zones near these 
facilities are disproportionately Black, Latino, and low income, and 
face multiple health hazards and risks. In addition, the most 
vulnerable neighborhoods near these facilities (those that are both low 
income and have low access to healthy foods) are even more heavily and 
disproportionately impacted.

    Watered Down Justice (Natural Resources Defense Council, Coming 
Clean, and EJHA) found that the rate of violations of the Safe Drinking 
Water Act increased in communities of color, low-income communities, 
and areas with more non-native English speakers. The analysis also 
found that water systems that serve these communities also stayed in 
violation for longer periods of time, for more violations, for more 
contaminants.

    Environmental Justice for Delaware (EJHA, Delaware Concerned 
Residents for Environmental Justice, Coming Clean, et al) found that 
people in seven communities along the industrial corridor in the 
northern portion of Delaware's New Castle County face a substantial 
potential cumulative health risk from (1) exposure to toxic air 
pollution, (2) their proximity to polluting industrial facilities and 
hazardous chemical facilities, and (3) proximity to contaminated waste 
sites. These health risks are substantially greater than those of 
residents of a wealthier and predominantly White community in Delaware, 
and for Delaware as a whole.

    Our organizations strongly support the Act's central elements, 
which are important steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and 
ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--
regardless of color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect 
to the development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits will 
            not be issued if projects cannot demonstrate a reasonable 
            certainty of no harm to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

        Center for Progressive 
        Reform                        PODER
        National                      Austin, TX

        Clean and Healthy New York    River Network
        Albany, NY                    National
        Clean Power Lake County       TX Campaign for the Environment
        Waukegan, IL                  Texas

        CleanAirNowKC                 Toxic Free NC
        Kansas City                   Durham, North Carolina

        Health Prof. for a Healthy 
        Climate                       Upstream
        Minneapolis, Minnesota        National

        Lake James Environmental 
        Assoc.                        UrbanPromise Ministries
        Nebo, North Carolina          Camden, New Jersey

        Locust Point Community 
        Garden                        Waterway Advocates
        Baltimore, MD                 South Florida

        Mother's of Diversity 
        America                       We the People of Detroit
        Dunbar, WV                    Detroit, Michigan

        National Family Farm 
        Coalition                     West End Revitalization 
                                      Association
        Washington, DC                Mebane, NC 27302

        National Women's Health 
        Network                       WV Environmental Council
        National                      Charleston, West Virginia

        Oregon Phy. for Social 
        Responsibility                West Virginia FREE
        Oregon                        Charleston, WV

        Our Future WV                 Wisconsin's Green Fire
        Charleston, WV                Wisconsin

        Pennsylvania Council of 
        Churches                      Women's Voices for the Earth
        Harrisburg, PA                National/Montana/Colorado

        Pesticide Action Network
        National

                                 ______
                                 
                                          February 15, 2022        

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    We write in support of the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 
2021). We commend Chairman Grijalva and Rep. McEachin for creating an 
inclusive and open process to develop legislation that concretely 
addresses vast and long-standing inequities in our environmental 
protections. In process and in substance, the Environmental Justice for 
All Act is a significant step forward to confront the legacy of 
environmental racism and disparate impacts affecting frontline 
communities nationwide. We urge committee members to support and 
advance this legislation as soon as possible.
    The Environmental Justice for All Act is the result of a process 
that prioritizes the voices of the communities most harmed by 
environmental degradation. It represents a bold and necessary shift in 
the way we create federal environmental policy--it is the result of a 
serious and years-long effort to genuinely listen to the expertise and 
concerns of the very people experiencing the worst of pollution. Its 
drafters carefully and transparently crafted legislation that reflected 
those experiences and expertise while creating concrete and significant 
improvements to our environmental protections systems.
    Environmental justice communities--communities of color, low-income 
communities, and Tribal and Indigenous communities, as defined in the 
bill--continue to experience disproportionate levels of exposure and 
vulnerability to toxic pollution and environmental risks. To combat 
this reality, the bill would mandate bold actions that protect the 
health and safety of communities that are forced to carry the vast 
majority of the burden from our nation's historical and current 
reliance on dirty fuels, toxic substances, and exploitative practices. 
It also would invest in the same communities so that they can have 
broader access to cleaner transportation, safer food and green spaces. 
Moreover, it would redistributes the burden by having the same 
exploitative industries--oil, gas and coal companies who have profited 
from poisoning our air and water--pay for these new investments with 
additional fees.
    Notably, the bill would give communities the right to hold 
polluters accountable in court when these polluters' actions result in 
a discriminatory impact. For far too long, polluters have been able to 
discriminate against people of color, forcing them to prove a 
discriminatory intent even when the impacts of their actions were 
clearly racist. The bill recognizes that front-line communities do not 
live with the intent of the polluters' racist practices; communities 
are forced to live with the impacts of those practices and they should 
have the right to remedy the impacts of this racism in court.
    Many attempts were made over the last few years to violate or 
dismantle bedrock environmental protections like the National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), but this bill offers a counter by 
giving environmental justice communities a voice in infrastructure 
development. The bill restructures current permitting processes so that 
cumulative impacts are considered properly and consistently as new 
infrastructure develops in environmental justice communities. The bill 
also directs federal agencies to seek Tribal government input in the 
NEPA process, and to ensure that Indian Tribes are invited to hold the 
status of a cooperating agency for proposed actions that might impact 
their reservation lands and sacred sites. Further, the bill codifies 
2016 EPA guidance on consultation and coordination with Indian Tribes 
and 1997 Council on Environmental Quality guidance on environmental 
justice under NEPA. Taking a page from the process used to create the 
bill, the legislation would ensure that environmental justice 
communities most impacted by infrastructure projects have influence 
over the permitting process.
    Centered on the simple premise that everyone has the right to drink 
clean water, breathe clean air, and live without fear of the poisonous 
effects of toxic chemicals, the Environmental Justice for All Act and 
the process used to create it, stand as an example to follow and 
significant step to end environmental racism. Setting strong new norms, 
it makes significant investments to limit and clean up the toxic 
pollution that has plagued environmental justice communities for 
decades. Concurrently, it invests in the same communities so that they 
have equitable access to emerging resources and technologies that 
should be equitably available to them as our nation recommits itself to 
addressing our health, safety, and the climate crisis.
    The undersigned organizations are proud to support the 
Environmental Justice for All Act. We urge all House Committees with 
jurisdiction over this legislation to support it as well and to act 
expeditiously in order to bring this important bill to the House floor. 
Thank you for your attention.

            Sincerely,

        Raul Garcia                   Donna Detweiler
        Earthjustice                  Albuquerque Mennonite Church

        Laura Neish                   Katie Huffling
        350 Bay Area Action           Alliance of Nurses for Healthy 
                                      Environments

        Patricia Hine                 Peniel Ibe
        350 Eugene                    American Friends Service 
                                      Committee

        Carolyn C. Barthel            Roxanne Blackwell
        350 Mass                      American Society of Landscape 
                                      Architects

        Emily Johnston                Charles Robles
        350 Seattle                   Ancestral Lands Conservation 
                                      Corps

        JL Andrepont, MPA, PhDc       Dori Peralta Baker
        350.org                       Asian Pacific Islander Coalition-
                                      YKM

        Athena Christodoulou 
        Adelante                      Heather Cantino
        Progressive Caucus            Athens County's Future Action 
                                      Network

        Kyle Crider                   Ted Glick
        Alabama Interfaith Power & 
        Light                         Beyond Extreme Energy

        Pamela Miller                 Lisa Arkin
        Alaska Community Action on 
        Toxics                        Beyond Toxics

        Mark Hefflinger               Elaine Cimino
        Bold Alliance                 Common Ground Community Trust

        Lisette van Vliet             Sofia Martinez
        Breast Cancer Prevention 
        Partners                      Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound 
                                      and Mora County

        Groger McNew                  David Feinman
        Cambio Inc.                   Conservation Lands Foundation

        Elizabeth Alex                Naina Panthaki
        CASA                          Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions

        Cathleen Kelly                Karyn Bigelow
        Center for American 
        Progress                      Creation Justice Ministries

        Brett Hartl                   Dahlia Rockowitz
        Center for Biological 
        Diversity                     Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate 
                                      Action
        Dr. Sacoby Miguel Wilson      Kyli Wagner
        Center for Community 
        Engagement, Environmental 
        Justice and Health            Defend Our Future

        Thomas Fox                    Cameron Walkup
        Center for Environmental 
        Health                        Defenders of Wildlife

        Darya Minovi                  Omar Sarabia
        Center for Progressive 
        Reform                        Defiende Nuestra Tierra

        Catherine Garoupa White       Hazel James
        Central Valley Air Quality 
        Coalition                     Dine' Centered Research 
                                      Evaluation

        Julie Waterman                Yolanda Whyte
        City Parks Alliance           Dr. Yolanda Whyte Pediatrics

        Kim Gaddy                     Bianca Sopoci-Belknap
        Clean Water Action            Earth Care

        Esteban Arenas-Pino           Mary Gutierrez
        Climate Justice Alliance      Earth Ethics, Inc.

        Laura Gardner                 Lauren Pagel
        Climate Reality 
        Massachusetts Southcoast      Earthworks

        Rabbi Daniel Swartz           Bianca Encinias
        Coalition on the 
        Environment and Jewish Life   El Chante: Casa de Cultura

        Ruth Santiago                 Kendra Hughes
        Comite Dialogo Ambiental, 
        Inc.                          Environmental Defense Fund

        Ann Mesnikoff                 Mark A Dunlea
        Environmental Law & Policy 
        Center                        Green Education and Legal Fund

        Thomas Wheeler                Barbara Carey
        Environmental Protection 
        Information Center-EPIC       Green Faith Olympia

        Mona Munroe-Younis            Amy Brooks Paradise
        Environmental 
        Transformation Movement of 
        Flint                         GreenFaith

        Leah Redwood                  Irene Burga
        Extinction Rebellion San 
        Francisco Bay Area            GreenLatinos

        Vernon C Butler               Deborah Jackson
        Families United for 
        Education                     Harambee House

        John Peck                     Charlotte Brody
        Family Farm Defenders         Healthy Babies Bright Futures

        Nayyirah Shariff              Lexi Tuddenham
        Flint Rising                  Healthy Environment Alliance of 
                                      Utah

        Shannon Smith                 Naomi Yoder
        FracTracker Alliance          Healthy Gulf

        Louise Lears                  Shanna Edberg
        Franciscan Action Network     Hispanic Access Foundation
        Elaine Tanner                 Laura Esquivel
        Friends For Environmental 
        Justice                       Hispanic Federation

        Michael Hansen                Camilla Simon
        GASP                          Hispanics Enjoying Camping, 
                                      Hunting, and the Outdoors

        Christina Schlegel            Cheryl Barnds
        Global Center for Climate 
        Justice                       Honor the Earth

        Jerry Otero                   Marc Brenman
        Grand Canyon Trust            IDARE LLC

        Adrien Salazar                Tom BK Goldtooth
        Grassroots Global Justice 
        Alliance                      Indigenous Environmental Network

        Shelley Silbert               Krystal Curley
        Great Old Broads for 
        Wilderness                    Indigenous Lifeways

        Nadira Narine                 Lance Kittel
        Interfaith Center on 
        Corporate Responsibility      Inland Ocean Coalition

        Tiffany Hartung               Kyle Simpson
        Interfaith Power & Light      National Recreation and Park 
                                      Association

        Carson Barylak                Rebeca Villegas
        International Fund for 
        Animal Welfare (IFAW)         National Wildlife Federation

        Kimberly Baker                Roberto Morales
        Klamath Forest Alliance       Nature For All Coalition

        Monica Kleimeyer              Jodi Lasseter
        Laudato Si Circle             NC Climate Justice Collective

        Madeleine Foote               Mariel Nanasi
        League of Conservation 
        Voters                        New Energy Economy

        Alejandra Ramirez-Zarate      Dr. Virginia Necochea
        League of Conservation 
        Voters-Chispa                 New Mexico Environmental Law 
                                      Center

        Dr. Terrie E. Griffin         Sr. Joan Brown
        League of Women Voters of 
        Pennsylvania                  New Mexico Interfaith Power and 
                                      Light

        Dave Shukla                   Anthony Rogers-Wright
        Long Beach Alliance for 
        Clean Energy                  New York Lawyers for the Public 
                                      Interest

        Richard Moore                  
        Los Jardines Institute        Next 100 Colorado

        Molly Rauch                   Carol R. Foss, Ph.D.
        Moms Clean Air Force          NH Audubon

        Kera Panni                    Carol Gay
        Monterey Bay Aquarium         NJ State Industrial Union Council
        Leslie Raff                   Fernanda Banda
        Morristown United Methodist 
        Church, Greenfaith Circle     NM Dream Team

        Susan Gordon                  Jerry Rivers
        Multicultural Alliance for 
        a Safe Environment            North American Climate, 
                                      Conservation and Environment

        Maggie Ostdahl                Timothy Judson
        National Aquarium             Nuclear Information and Resource 
                                      Service

        Jesse Walls                   Cari Gardner
        National Audubon Society      NYPAN Environ Committee

        Jeff Slyfield                 Cari Gardner
        Ocean Conservancy             NYPAN Greene

        Lara Levison                  Dr. Robert K. Musil
        Oceana                        Rachel Carson Council

        NaTisha C. Washington         Donna Chavis
        One Pennsylvania              RedTailed Hawk Collective

        Jackie Antalan                Gabriel Thoumi, CFA, FRM
        Operation HomeCare, Inc.      Founder, Responsible Alpha

        Emily Martin                  Mustafa Santiago Ali
        Our Climate                   Revitalization Strategies

        Alexandra Merlino             Linda Starr
        Partnership for Responsible 
        Business                      Rio Grande Valley Broadband, 
                                      Great Old Broads for Wilderness

        Michael Malcom                Michael Richardson
        People's Justice Council      Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith 
                                      Circle

        Andrea Vidaurre               Nora Nickum
        Peoples Collective for 
        Environmental Justice         Seattle Aquarium

        Deborah L. Lynch              Elizabeth Perera
        PHE INC                       Sierra Club

        Liz Robinson                  Lauren Reliford, MSW
        Philadelphia Solar Energy 
        Association                   Sojourners

        Tonyehn Verkitus              Nat Mund
        Physicians for Social 
        Responsibility Pennsylvania   Southern Environmental Law Center

        Alexia Leclercq               Terry Sloan
        PODER                         Southwest Native Cultures

        Bishop Dwayne Royster         Nathan Taft
        POWER Interfaith              Stand.earth
        Beatriz Soto                  Shoshana Hershkowitz
        Protegete                     Suffolk Progressives

        Julia Bernal                  Jean Tepperman
        Pueblo Action Alliance        Sunflower Alliance

        Cesar G. Abarca               Lauren Maunus
        Quelites Instutute            Sunrise Movement

        Timothy Edward Duda           Wyatt G. Sassman
        Terra Advocati                University of Denver Sturm 
                                      College of Law

        Hal Connolly                  Desiree Luckey
        The Climate Reality Project   URGE: Unite for Reproductive & 
                                      Gender Equity

        Rev. Michael Malcom           Kelsey Anderson
        The People's Justice 
        Council                       Voices for Progress

        Myke Bybee                    Odette Mucha
        The Trust for Public Land     Vote Solar

        Shayna Han                    Rachel Dawn Davis
        The Union for Reform 
        Judaism                       Waterspirit

        Tamanna Brar                  Susan Jane Brown
        The Wilderness Society        Western Environmental Law Center

        Anita Amstutz                 Jennifer Byrne
        Think Like a Bee              White River Natural Resources 
                                      Conservation District

        Christopher Ramirez           Aubrey Bertram
        Together for Brothers         Wild Montana

        Gerry Seavo James             Juli Slivka
        Together Outdoors-Outdoor 
        Recreation Roundtable         Wilderness Workshop

        Connor Kippe                  Jamie McConnell
        Toxic Free NC                 Women's Voices for the Earth

        Tina M Cordova                Amara Jones
        Tularosa Basin Downwinders 
        Consortium                    Youth Emergency Auxiliary Service 
                                      Sierra Leone (YEAS-SL)

        Taofik Oladipo                Seneca Johnson
        Union of Concerned 
        Scientists                    YUCCA Youth United for Climate 
                                      Crisis Action

        Elizabeth Chun Hye Lee        Zanagee Artis
        United Methodist Women        Zero Hour

        Diana Dorn-Jones              Colton R. Dean
        United South Broadway 
        Corporation, community 
        partner                        

        Bruce A. Rose

                                 ______
                                 

                Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

                           New York, New York

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

Re: Letter for the Record on the Environmental Justice for All Act

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    On behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and our members, 
we write to express strong support for the Environmental Justice for 
All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge committee members to advance this 
important legislation quickly to begin remedying the long history of 
environmental racism and injustice, and cumulative and disproportionate 
health and environmental impacts, that affects communities of color, 
low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous nations and communities, 
across the country.
    We support this legislation as aligned with NRDC's mission and 
values, which are to address the global environmental and climate 
crises through actions that are rooted in justice and that reduce 
historic and persistent inequities in health, socio-economic security, 
and human well-being.
    We underscore that this landmark bill has been developed in close 
partnership with leaders in the environmental justice movement. The 
extensive public input process that informed the Act's creation has 
produced legislation uniquely influenced by the peoples and communities 
affected by those it seeks to help. Accordingly, the Environmental 
Justice for All Act recognizes that meaningfully improving the lives of 
Black, Indigenous, and People of Color requires transformative change 
led by those on the frontlines.
    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Among the foundational 
actions provided by the Environmental Justice for All Act is the 
strengthening of the National Environmental Policy Act to ensure that 
communities have a meaningful opportunity to engage in NEPA processes 
that will impact them.
    Another significant aspect of the Environmental Justice for All Act 
is the requirement that federal agencies consider cumulative impacts in 
Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act permitting decisions. The failure to 
consider cumulative impacts is a long-standing and egregious oversight 
in environmental regulation and policymaking. It ignores the lived 
reality of frontline communities, who often face multiple environmental 
threats at once, along with social stressors such as racial 
discrimination, historical trauma, and reduced access to material 
resources. It ignores the science that shows that the risks from 
environmental pollution are heightened precisely when a person or 
community faces multiple threats and stressors. Accounting for 
cumulative impacts is fundamental to reducing inequities and ensuring 
that additional burdens are not heaped upon those already experiencing 
disproportionate environmental and social vulnerability.
    Importantly, the Environmental Justice for All Act also strengthens 
the Civil Rights Act to permit private citizens and organizations 
facing discrimination to seek legal remedies. Providing this recourse 
will help make progress toward correcting the unequal pollution burden 
and stark environmental health disparities that frontline communities 
experience due to historic and on-going structural discrimination.
    Finally, we wish to underscore that the Environmental Justice for 
All Act is ambitious because it must be. It responds to the scale of 
challenges frontline communities face every day in their fight for 
clean air, clean water, and a healthy and safe environment. It is a 
long overdue correction to our nation's failed chemical management 
policies, and the cumulative hazards and disproportionate harms that 
have resulted for communities of color, low-income communities, and 
Native/Indigenous communities. We urge the Committee, and any other 
committees with jurisdiction over this legislation, to begin to correct 
these injustices and address this legacy of harm, by promptly passing 
the bill out of Committee and sending it on to the full House of 
Representatives. NRDC looks forward to working with you, the rest of 
the Committee, and environmental justice advocates to move this 
legislation forward.

            Sincerely,

                                      Melissa Lin Perrella,
                                   Chief Equity & Justice Officer  
                               Environment, Equity & Justice Center

                                 ______
                                 

                        OUR FUTURE WEST VIRGINIA

                       Charleston, West Virginia

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    On behalf of Our Future West Virginia (OFWV), I write to offer our 
strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). 
We are urging each committee member to quickly advance this important 
legislation as a way to appropriately address the long history of 
environmental racism and injustice, and the cumulative and 
disproportionate health and environmental impacts that have adversely 
affected communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/
Indigenous nations and communities, across the country.
    OFWV supports this critical piece of legislation as it aligns with 
our mission of helping communities in WV build local power to upend 
oppressive systems around them and working to ensure that every West 
Virginian has the justice, dignity, and equity needed to thrive.
    Unfortunately, there are many communities in WV that have received 
short shrift when it comes to the notion of Environmental Justice, 
suffering in isolation and readily ignored by policy makers and toxic 
producing manufacturers. Despite decades of research and evidence, and 
the far-reaching testimonies from impacted people and communities 
themselves, there has been little if any redress. Instead, the 
documented history of the cumulative and disproportionate chemical 
hazards and impacts imposed on communities of color, low-income 
communities, and Native/Indigenous communities have continued for 
generations ad nauseam. Impacted folks have curated their own solutions 
to these injustices and harms for some time, while calls for official 
intervention at the local and state levels have gone ignored. The 
extensive public input process that informed the Act's creation 
reflects this history and stands as evidence. Further it has produced 
legislation that is uniquely influenced by the very folks it seeks to 
help.
    OFWV strongly supports the Act's central elements, which are 
important steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring 
the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless 
of color, culture, national origin, income, or geographical location--
with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of 
health and environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

    These urgently needed policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue course 
correction to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the 
cumulative hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for 
communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous 
communities. We urge the Committee, and any other committees with 
jurisdiction over this legislation, to rectify these injustices and 
truly address this legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of 
Committee and sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

                                            Kathy Ferguson,
                                             Interim Exec. Director

                                 ______
                                 

                       OUTDOORS ALLIANCE FOR KIDS

                                                February 14, 2022  

    Dear Chairperson Grijalva, Ranking Member Westerman and members of 
the House Natural Resources Committee:

    We, the undersigned members, partners and supporters of the 
Outdoors Alliance for Kids (OAK), appreciate the prioritization of 
equitable access to nature and increased transportation options to 
parks, trails, green spaces and public lands in the Environmental 
Justice for All Act. OAK is a national strategic partnership of more 
than 100 businesses and organizations representing more than 60 million 
Americans, with a common interest in connecting children, youth and 
families with the outdoors. Our members and supporters believe that in 
the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for equitable opportunities 
to recreate in the outdoors has never been more apparent.
    Parks and public lands belong to all Americans to enjoy, regardless 
of income or zip code. Unfortunately, far too many under-resourced 
families face significant obstacles to accessing these special places. 
Urban, rural and remote communities, especially racially and ethnically 
diverse, low-income, and disabled communities, disproportionately lack 
safe access to their public lands and waters. The pandemic has 
dramatically expanded this access gap, with the Governors Highway 
Safety Association finding that pedestrian injury and death increased 
21% during the pandemic.
    The Environmental Justice for All Act is rooted in the principle 
that all people have the right to pure air, clean water and an 
environment that enriches life. With a multi-year inclusive public 
process that involved a diverse set of stakeholders and impacted 
communities, this legislation incorporates three vital programs to 
support equitable access to nature for youth and families that OAK 
strongly supports:
Section 11, Access to parks, outdoor spaces and public recreation 
        opportunities

    This provision would codify and guarantee funding for the Outdoor 
Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) program to enhance access to 
greenspace and develop recreational infrastructure in communities that 
lack park space and have been traditionally under-resourced. This 
important investment in local parks will expand access for one-third of 
Americans, including 28 million children, who lack access to a quality 
park close to home. Since the program's inception in 2014, ORLP funding 
has supported 69 projects, leveraging more than $76 million in non-
federal funds, to improve close-to-home outdoor access. With parks 
serving as critical, job-creating, resilient infrastructure and 
offering communities the proven physical and mental health benefits of 
access to the outdoors, we must act now to invest in open spaces.
Section 12, Transit to Trails grant program

    The Transit to Trails grant program directs the Department of 
Transportation to establish a block-grant program to fund accessible 
transportation systems to parks, trailheads, green spaces and public 
lands. This will provide federal grants to match state and local 
funding of transit routes between cities and public lands to ensure 
underserved and rural communities can safely and equitably access parks 
and outdoor recreation opportunities. Connecting more families and 
individuals with quality nature, especially in critically underserved 
areas, will provide greater opportunities for employment, wellbeing and 
outdoor exploration.
Section 13, Repeal of sunset for the Every Kid Outdoors program

    The Every Kid Outdoors (EKO) program provides fourth graders and 
their families with one year of free access to all national park 
sites.This program must be made permanent; by statute, the Every Kid 
Outdoors program will expire in 2026. Removing the sunset provision in 
EKO now will be essential in allowing agencies to provide lasting 
equitable access to federal public lands. Engagement with the outdoors 
is essential for developing resilient youth and strong families, and 
will develop future park visitors and stewards.
    As we work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that 
access to the outdoors is more important than ever. Engagement with the 
outdoors has been a lifeline for many during the pandemic and will be a 
crucial step in the healing process for youth and families while 
developing future park visitors and stewards. Expanding and bolstering 
programs that provide equitable access to nature will create healthier, 
more sustainable, economically vibrant and climate-resilient 
communities.
    We strongly endorse and appreciate the inclusion of equitable 
access to nature programs within the Environmental Justice for All Act. 
For questions related to this letter, please reach out to Tara Brown, 
Senior Government Relations Representative at The Wilderness Society at 
[email protected]. Thank you for your consideration.

            Sincerely,

        American Hiking Society       National Recreation and Park 
                                      Association

        American Society of 
        Landscape Architects          Nature For All

        Appalachian Mountain Club     Outward Bound California

        Appalachian Trail 
        Conservancy                   Seed Your Future

        Avid4 Adventure               Sierra Club

        Children & Nature Network     SkyDay

        Choose Outdoors               The Corps Network

        Conservation Legacy           The Trust for Public Land

        ForeverGreen Trails           The Venture Out Project

        Latino Outdoors               The Wilderness Society

        Move Redmond

                                 ______
                                 

     People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER)

                             Austin, Texas

                                               February 8, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

Re: Austin, Texas Community Testimony & Support for Environmental 
        Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021)

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    In 1928, the City of Austin's Master Plan set the stage for the 
relocation of African American and Mexican American population along 
with unwanted industry to East Austin.

    East Austin residents have endured a legacy of racism. This legacy 
of racism includes cumulative and disproportionate chemical hazards 
that have impacted low-income and communities of color health and 
environment in East Austin.

    For more than 35 years, East Austin residents had lived next to 
several bulk fuel storage tank facilities (Tank Farm) that devastated 
the land and our community. The tank farm was in a predominately Latino 
and African American neighborhood. Millions of gallons of petroleum 
products were stored at the Tank Farm. The Tank Farm was a 52-acre site 
with above ground fuel storage tanks owned by six major oil companies. 
Even though these six oil corporations were located next to each other, 
their permits at the state level were approved as if there was just one 
corporation located on the 52-acre site. Cumulative impacts were not 
considered. In 1992, PODER discovered that the companies had violated 
air emissions and had contaminated the groundwater. There were numerous 
health problems in the community.

    The City of Austin's Holly Power Plant (HPP) located within feet of 
East Austin residents had noise levels that exceed the Housing, Urban, 
and Development (HUD) federal standards for residential areas, and 
elevated EMF (electromagnetic fields). The HPP was the largest 
stationary source of nitrogen oxide which contributes to ozone. Several 
fires at the site raised additional public health and safety concerns.

    BFI, a multinational waste management company, was contracted by 
the City of Austin to collect recyclables such as plastics, glass, 
cans, and newspapers of over 350,000 households. BFI was in a community 
of color neighborhood. The site became a `mini' landfill causing an 
infestation of rats, alarming residents' public health concerns. 
Industrial pollution from the large trucks delivering recyclables to 
the plant, devasted the residents. A five alarm fire at the site raised 
additional public health and safety concerns.

    Pure Castings uses numerous toxic metals. The Pure Castings 
industrial metal foundry located across from Zavala Elementary School 
and in a residential area. PODER has been working with City Council 
members, health officials and other regulatory agencies to protect the 
health of the children and the community.

    PODER has demanded solutions to these injustices and harms, not 
just for our communities but for communities throughout the United 
States and the world.

    PODER strongly supports the central elements in the Environmental 
Justice for All Act, which are important steps toward remedying a long 
legacy of harm and ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful 
involvement of all people regardless of color, culture, national 
origin, or income--with respect to the development, implementation, and 
enforcement of health and environmental laws, regulations, and 
policies.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with authority over this 
legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by:

                                            Susana Almanza,
                                                           Director

                                 ______
                                 

                             River Network

                                              February 14, 2022    

Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chairman
Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking Member
Natural Resources Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    I am writing on behalf of River Network to express our strong 
support for the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). Embedded 
in our mission and values is the belief that all people have a right to 
clean and ample water that sustains life. Unfortunately, biases and 
disparities disproportionately burden communities of color, Indigenous 
communities, and low-income communities with environmental damage and 
on-going harm that limits access to healthy, life-sustaining waters for 
all. Addressing and repairing these environmental injustices is 
essential to ensuring everyone's right to clean water.
    We commend Chair Grijalva and Representative McEachin for their 
approach to developing this legislation. By collaborating with 
communities impacted by environmental racism and oppression, extensive 
community perspectives and input were used to craft this the bill. This 
process led to a comprehensive bill with a clear set of policy 
solutions, informed by those most impacted by environmental injustices.

    In particular, we commend the inclusion of the following provisions 
to strengthen the impact of the Environmental Justice for All Act, 
inspired by the feedback received from impacted communities:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits will 
            not be issued if projects cannot demonstrate a reasonable 
            certainty of no harm to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    River Network commends this process, supports the legislators and 
community members who identified these policy solutions, and fully 
supports the Environmental Justice for All Act.

    Thank you for your consideration of our letter of support.

            Sincerely,

                                               April Ingle,
                                                    Policy Director

                                 ______
                                 

                        SILENT SPRING INSTITUTE

                         Newton, Massachusetts

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    We are writing on behalf of Silent Spring Institute to provide 
comments on the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021) and 
detail the need for action on issues of environmental racism and 
disparate exposure burdens to toxic chemicals across axes of race, 
class, and geographic location.
    Silent Spring Institute is a non-profit research organization that 
studies the links between environmental chemicals and disease, with a 
focus on breast cancer. As one of the fundamental principles of 
environmental justice underscores, we believe that every American has a 
right to live, work, and play in a safe and healthy environment 
regardless of race, color, national origin, or income.\1\ We have 
several research projects focused on environmental justice, including a 
study that explores the influence of lead hazard control programs at 
reducing other chemical hazards,\2\ an investigation of endocrine 
disrupting chemicals in personal care products used by Black and Latina 
women,\3\,\4\ and research on whether low-income and 
communities of color in the U.S. have higher levels of contaminants in 
their drinking water.\5\,\6\ We have also researched indoor 
and outdoor air quality for environmental justice communities living 
near industrial facilities and major transportation 
corridors.\7\,\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Silent Spring Institute. (2022). Pursuing Environmental 
Justice. Core Values. Accessed February 14, 2022. https://
silentspring.org/core-value/pursuing-environmental-justice.
    \2\ Silent Spring Institute. (2022). Lead and Healthy Homes. How 
are we exposed to toxic chemicals?: Household air and dust. Accessed 
February 14, 2022. https://silentspring.org/project/lead-and-healthy-
homes.
    \3\ Helm, J.S., Nishioka, M., Brody, J.G., et al. (2018). 
Measurement of endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals in 
hair products used by Black women. Environmental Research, 165, 448-
458. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.03.030.
    \4\ Dodson, R.E., Cardona, B., Zota, A.R., et al. (2021). Personal 
care product use among diverse women in California: Taking Stock Study. 
Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 31(3), 487-
502. doi: 10.1038/s41370-021-00327-3.
    \5\ Schaider, L.A., Swetschinski, L., Campbell, C., et al. (2019). 
Environmental justice and drinking water quality: are there 
socioeconomic disparities in nitrate levels in U.S. drinking water? 
Environmental Health, 18(3). doi: 10.1186/s12940-018-0442-6.
    \6\ Silent Spring Institute. (2019). Millions of Americans exposed 
to elevated nitrate levels in drinking water. News. January 16. https:/
/www.silentspring.org/news/millions-americans-exposed-elevated-nitrate-
levels-drinking-water.
    \7\ Dodson, R.E., Udesky, J.O., Colton, M.D., et al. (2017). 
Chemical exposures in recently renovated low-income housing: Influence 
of building materials and occupant activities. Environment 
International, 109, 114-127. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2017.07.007.
    \8\ Brown, P., Brody, J.G., Morello-Frosch, R., et al. (2012). 
Measuring the success of community science: the northern California 
Household Exposure Study. Environmental health perspectives, 120(3), 
326-331. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1103734.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    World War II, over 80,000 new chemicals have been released onto the 
market, very few of which are tested for safety or are subject to 
regulations.\9\ For breast cancer alone, more than 200 chemicals have 
been associated with mammary gland tumors in animal studies,\10\ and 
about half of these are chemicals that people are routinely exposed to 
in their everyday lives.\11\ These chemicals are found in furniture, 
food packaging, cleaning products, personal care products, and numerous 
household items. Significantly, exposure to these chemicals are higher 
among low-income communities of color. Our research shows that water 
systems with higher levels of nitrate tend to serve predominantly 
Latinx communities.5 Exposure to nitrate itself is shown to 
be associated with cancers \12\,\13\ as well as birth 
defects,12,\14\ and high nitrate levels are also a good 
indicator of other drinking water contaminants present.6 Our 
studies have also found that beauty products marketed to women of color 
contain higher concentrations of toxic chemicals,3,4 which 
may contribute to the trend of women of color having higher chemical 
body burdens than white women.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Lloyd-Smith, M., & Sheffield-Brotherton, B. (2008). Children's 
environmental health: intergenerational equity in action--a civil 
society perspective. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1140, 
190-200. doi: 10.1196/annals.1454.051.
    \10\ Brody, J.G., Moysich, K.B., Humblet, O., et al. (2007). 
Environmental pollutants and breast cancer: epidemiologic studies. 
Cancer, 109(12 Suppl), 2667-2711. doi: 10.1002/cncr.22655.
    \11\ Rudel, R.A., Ackerman, J.M., Attfield, K.R., & Brody, J.G. 
(2014). New Exposure Biomarkers as Tools for Breast Cancer 
Epidemiology, Biomonitoring, and Prevention: A Systematic Approach 
Based on Animal Evidence. Environmental health perspectives, 122(9), 
881-895. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1307455.
    \12\ Temkin, A., Evans, S., Manidis, T., et al. (2019). Exposure-
based assessment and economic valuation of adverse birth outcomes and 
cancer risk due to nitrate in United States drinking water. 
Environmental Research, 176, 108442. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2019.04.009.
    \13\ Espejo-Herrera, N., Gracia-Lavedan, E., Boldo, E., et al. 
(2016). Colorectal cancer risk and nitrate exposure through drinking 
water and diet. International Journal of Cancer, 139: 334-346. doi: 
10.1002/ijc.30083.
    \14\ Brender, J.D., Weyer, P.J., Romitti, P.A., et al. (2013). 
Prenatal Nitrate Intake from Drinking Water and Selected Birth Defects 
in Offspring of Participants in the National Birth Defects Prevention 
Study. Environmental health perspectives, 121(9), 1083-1089. doi: 
10.1289/ehp.1206249.
    \15\ Zota, A.R. & Shamasunder, B. (2017). The environmental 
injustice of beauty: framing chemical exposures from beauty products as 
a health disparities concern. American Journal of Obstetrics & 
Gynecology, 217(4), 418.e411-418.e416. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2017.07.020.

    The disparate exposures we have studied are only small parts of a 
disturbing national trend. More than half the people in the US who live 
within 3km of a toxic waste site are people of color.\16\ Low-income 
communities of color are disproportionately exposed to air 
pollution,\17\,\18\,\19\ and 40% percent more 
likely to be serviced by water systems that continually violate the 
Safe Drinking Water Act.\20\ All of these trends of disparate exposure 
contribute to a myriad of health and social wellbeing disparities 
between minority and white communities,\21\ including disparate rates 
of asthma,\22\ lead poisoning,\23\ adverse birth outcomes,\24\ 
pesticide exposure,\25\ and Covid-19 mortality.\26\,\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ. 
(2007). Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987-2007. Cleveland, OH: 
United Church of Christ. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/
toxic-wastes-and-race-at-twenty-1987-2007.pdf.
    \17\ Miranda, M.L., Edwards, S.E., Keating, M.H., & Paul, C.J. 
(2011). Making the Environmental Justice Grade: The Relative Burden of 
Air Pollution Exposure in the United States. International Journal of 
Environmental Research and Public Health, 8(6), 1755-1771. Retrieved 
from https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/6/1755.
    \18\ Tessum, C.W., Paolella, D.A., Chambliss, S.E., et al. (2021). 
PM2.5 polluters disproportionately and systemically affect people of 
color in the United States. Science Advances, 7(18), eabf4491. 
doi:10.1126/sciadv.abf4491.
    \19\ Bell, M.L. & Ebisu, K. (2012). Environmental inequality in 
exposures to airborne particulate matter components in the United 
States. Environmental health perspectives, 120(12), 1699-1704. doi: 
10.1289/ehp.1205201.
    \20\ Pullen Fedinick, K., Taylor, S., & Roberts, M. (2019). Watered 
Down Justice. National Resources Defense Council, Coming Clean, & 
Environmental Justice Health Alliance. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/
default/files/watered-down-justice-report.pdf.
    \21\ Meyer, P.A., Yoon, P.W., & Kaufmann, R.B. (2013). 
Introduction: CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report--United 
States, 2013. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: Morbidity and 
Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 62(03): 3-5. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/
preview/mmwrhtml/su6203a2.htm?s_cid=su6203a2_w.
    \22\ Nishimura, K.K., Galanter, J.M., Roth, L.A., et al. (2013). 
Early-life air pollution and asthma risk in minority children. The GALA 
II and SAGE II studies. American journal of respiratory and critical 
care medicine, 188(3), 309-318. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201302-0264OC.
    \23\ Wengrovitz, A.M. & Brown, M.J. (2009). Recommendations for 
Blood Lead Screening of Medicaid-Eligible Children Aged 1-5 Years: an 
Updated Approach to Targeting a Group at High Risk. Centers for Disease 
Control & Prevention: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). 
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5809a1.htm.
    \24\ Woodruff, T.J., Parker, J.D., Kyle, A.D., & Schoendorf, K.C. 
(2003). Disparities in exposure to air pollution during pregnancy. 
Environmental health perspectives, 111(7), 942-946. doi: 10.1289/
ehp.5317.
    \25\ Carter-Pokras, O., Zambrana, R.E., Poppell, C.F., et al. 
(2007). The environmental health of Latino children. Journal of 
pediatric health care: official publication of National Association of 
Pediatric Nurse Associates & Practitioners, 21(5), 307-314. doi: 
10.1016/j.pedhc.2006.12.005.
    \26\ Brandt, E.B., Beck, A.F., & Mersha, T.B. (2020). Air 
pollution, racial disparities, and COVID-19 mortality. The Journal of 
allergy and clinical immunology, 146(1), 61-63. doi: 10.1016/
j.jaci.2020.04.035.
    \27\ Wu, X., Nethery, R.C., Sabath, M.B., et al. (2020). Air 
pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: Strengths and 
limitations of an ecological regression analysis. Science Advances, 
6(45). doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd4049.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act contains several measures 
that could greatly alleviate these exposure and health inequities,\28\ 
including:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \28\ Committee on Natural Resources, House of Representatives. 
(2021). Environmental Justice For All Fact Sheet. Fact Sheets. 
Published March 2021. https://naturalresources.house.gov/imo/media/doc/
EJ%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20March%202021.pdf.

     Requiring permits under Clean Water Act and the Clean Air 
            Act to consider cumulative impacts and only be issued when 
            the project can demonstrate no harm to human health within 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            reasonable certainty.

     Additional funding for research grants that study 
            chemicals of exposure concern in personal and childcare 
            products; funding for research into safer alternatives for 
            cosmetic product chemical, specifically for those product-
            containing chemicals marketed specifically to people of 
            color; requirements for transparent and accurate disclosure 
            of ingredients in personal care products' labels.

     $75 million annually in grants to support research, 
            outreach, development, education, and projects on 
            environmental and public health issues in environmental 
            justice communities.

     Requiring federal agencies to implement environment 
            justice strategies and engage with diverse communities, as 
            proposed by Executive Order 12898.

     Expanding and improving genuine and meaningful 
            opportunities for community engagement and influence under 
            the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and specific 
            strengthening of Tribal representation and consultation in 
            projects affecting Tribal land or even sacred sites off-
            reservation.

    These key measures of the Act represent a long-awaited addressment 
of the hazards and inequities posed by toxic chemicals, insufficient 
regulations, and the resulting harms for communities of color, low-
income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We hope the 
peer-reviewed scientific information we have provided can help inform 
your decision to support this Act. We greatly appreciate the 
opportunity to submit comments.

            Sincerely,

        Summer-Solstice Thomas,       Dr. Jennifer Liss Ohayon,
        Research Assistant            Research Scientist

                                 ______
                                 

                        Statement for the Record
                      The Alliance For Appalachia
                            London, Kentucky

    Dear Chair Grijalva and members of the House Committee on Natural 
Resources:

    The Alliance for Appalachia is a regional coalition that promotes a 
healthy, just Appalachia by supporting member organizations in 
communities impacted by destructive resource extraction. Our coalition 
brings together some of the most experienced groups from across the 
region to share resources, strategize for collective impact, and 
organize for a just transition that shifts from an extractive economy 
to a regenerative economy. This includes building local and political 
power to redress past harms and lift up all people.

    The Alliance for Appalachia supports the Environmental Justice For 
All Act (H.R. 2021) as legislation rooted in the moral principle that 
all people have the right to clean air, water, and soil. We need the 
safeguards included in this bill to ensure that these rights are a 
reality.

    We know that our region is not unique and that we are not alone in 
our pursuit of justice. Environmental racism and oppression plague 
communities across the country in the name of profit and people of 
color and low-income individuals suffer first and worst.

    The cumulative impacts of coal mining in our region are pervasive 
and devastating to communities across our region and beyond. Fossil 
fuel extraction like coal mining impacts the environmental and human 
health of workers and communities. Mountaintop removal coal mining 
devastates the landscape, turning beautiful, plentiful forests into 
ugly, barren lands where native plants and animals struggle to thrive. 
The U.S. EPA estimates that more than 500 mountains have been destroyed 
by mountaintop removal and over 2,000 miles of streams have been buried 
with many more being poisoned by heavy metals and toxins.

    We know that water is life, and yet we have witnessed countless 
violations of the Clean Water Act at mines across Appalachia. While the 
industry may be on the decline globally, mountaintop removal mining is 
not over. Just last year, the WV Department of Environmental Protection 
approved a 1,085-acre MTR permit on Coal River Mountain, and a few 
months ago, approved a 1,112-acre Paint Mountain MTR permit on Paint 
Mountain, despite the overwhelming evidence that communities near 
mountaintop removal have significantly higher rates of birth defects, 
serious disease, and mortality.

    Before coal is ever extracted, mountains are blown up with war-like 
explosives to expose coal seams. During the extraction process, workers 
breathe in silica dust that leads to the deadly black lung disease, and 
the same dust falls on communities below, often less than a mile from 
the site. This process buries headwater streams and poisons our 
drinking water. When mining is finished these companies skirt 
reclamation responsibilities and leave behind polluted abandoned mine 
sites for taxpayers and community members to clean up.

    Further down the supply chain, coal-fired power plants are the 
largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions around the world. The 
waste created from burning coal, coal ash, is similarly dangerous to 
the surrounding communities, and again is disproportionately dangerous 
to communities of color who have often had to bear the burden of 
storing the waste.

    Julie Bledsoe of Powell, Tennessee, who shared part of her family's 
story during the House Natural Resources Committee 2020 EJ Now Tour, 
has been directly impacted by the dangers of coal ash:

        ``My husband worked to clean up the Kingston Coal Ash Spill. He 
        was a healthy life long non-smoker and he now has COPD. I would 
        like to share the dangers of coal ash. There are coal ash sites 
        in EJ communities and all over our Nation that must be cleaned 
        up. The cleanup workers and communities must be protected. What 
        happened at Kingston must never happen again. Coal Ash is 
        currently classified as non-hazardous, but it is deadly for 
        humans to breathe. Workers at Kingston were denied respiratory 
        protection. There are now over 50 workers dead that worked on 
        the Kingston Coal Ash Spill cleanup. Many more are sick.''

    And yet, extreme coal mining practices aren't the only form of 
extraction in Appalachia. Members of the Alliance for Appalachia are 
also resisting a huge petrochemical buildout to process fracked gas in 
the Ohio Valley, where elected officials and the oil and gas industry 
are telling residents it's their only hope for jobs. We know this is 
not true and we know the environmental and health impacts of this 
industry by following the experiences of our comrades in the Gulf South 
whose home is now referred to as ``Cancer Alley.''

    The impacts of fossil fuel extraction reach beyond environmental 
injustices. In a region like ours, economies are inextricably linked to 
and impacted by the boom and bust cycles of extraction. For example, 
property taxes and royalties from coal fund local school systems. When 
trucks hauling coal destroy our roads, it's county taxes that have to 
repair them. When companies deny workers their health benefits, it's 
taxpayers that foot the bill. When they file bankruptcy and walk away 
from reclamation responsibilities, it's taxpayers that are footing the 
bill. And when our water is poisoned, it's up to us to find safe 
sources to drink and bathe that are often more expensive and labor-
intensive than a public system.

    The Environmental Justice For All Act would ensure that communities 
have the tools to protect themselves and fight back against harmful 
industries. It requires federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in making 
permitting decisions and ensures that permits will not be issued if 
projects cannot demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm to human 
health. And, it requires permitting authorities to determine that there 
exists a reasonable certainty of no harm to the health or general 
population, or to any potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation 
located in or immediately adjacent to the area of the major source.

    We believe that we can achieve environmental justice by building 
power in communities and connecting people of all backgrounds and 
identities from geographically and culturally disparate places. We lean 
on people's personal experiences to tell the stories and perspectives 
necessary to reach strategic decisions. This bill is no different. As 
members of the Environmental Justice Working Group with the House 
Natural Resources Committee, we know this legislation is based on 
principles defined and demanded by people like our members who are on 
the frontlines of environmental injustices. Had it been in place 
decades ago, it could have saved our communities and our mountains from 
the corporate greed that has robbed us of life-sustaining natural 
resources. We support its passage so we can right the wrongs already 
done and protect future generations.

            For the mountains and the people,

                     Members of the Alliance for Appalachia

              Kentuckians for the Commonwealth  West Virginia 
Highlands Conservancy

    Coal River Mountain Watch  Appalachian Voices  
Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards

          Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment  
Center for Coalfield Justice

                  The STAY Project  Heartwood  Sierra 
Club Environmental Justice

        Southwings  Highlander Education and Research Center 
 Keepers of the Mountains

                        Black Warrior RiverKeeper  The Clinch 
Coalition

                                 ______
                                 

                        Statement for the Record
                        The Descendants Project
    The Descendants Project Announces Support of Key Environmental 
                              Legislation

    February 7. Wallace, LA. The Descendants Project, a nonprofit 
organization committed to eradicating the legacies of slavery for black 
descendant communities especially fighting pollution within Louisian's 
``Cancer Alley'' announced its support for the Environmental Justice 
For All Act. Sponsored by Chair Raul M. Grijalva and Representative A. 
Donald McEachin,'' the legislation is rooted in the moral principle 
that all people have the right to pure air, clean water and an 
environment that enriches life.''
    Residents within Louisiana's cancer alley, an 83-mile stretch of 
highway along the Mississippi River inundated by petrochemical and 
heavy industry, endure cancer risks higher than 95% of the country. 
Plants and manufacturing facilities are often located on the former 
sites of plantations. Black neighborhoods and ``freetowns'', which are 
often on the perimeter of plantations, are now ``fenceline'' 
communities overburdened by the pollution from the facilities. 
Consequently, Black communities experience a disproportionate amount of 
exposure to carcinogens, PM 2.5, and even damage to homes and personal 
property. According to Dr. Joy Banner, one of the founding directors of 
The Descendants Project, ``This legislation will amend and strengthen 
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which will prohibit 
discrimination based on the disparate impact we endure as Black, 
fenceline communities. The act will also hold companies accountable by 
allowing those of us impacted to seek legal remedy when they 
discriminate against us.''
    Another key feature of the legislation includes cumulative impacts, 
which requires consideration of the cumulative impacts in permitting 
decisions under the clean water and clean air act and ensures that 
permits will not be issued if the project cannot demonstrate reasonable 
certainty of no harm to human health.
    Residents and EJ groups within cancer alley have highlighted the 
loophole whereby the heavy burden of pollution is not taken into 
consideration when evaluating the potential harm to the community from 
a new permit applicant. ``It's like pouring water into a glass that's 
already two-thirds full, but not taking into account the water that's 
already in the glass. The glass can't handle the water, just like our 
bodies can't handle the pollution.'' Says Banner.
    The Descendants Project is in their own fight for environmental 
justice; the foundation is suing St. John the Baptist Parish for 
illegal industrial zoning that is still on the books from the 1990s. 
The Parish President at the time served five years in federal prison 
for corruption and taking a bribe to rezone the land for Formosa. The 
illegal zoning is now being used by Greenfield, Louisiana LLC to plan a 
massive grain terminal that would inundate the community with more 
harmful dust, pollution, and emissions.
    According to Banner, ``It's vital to our survival that we have 
federal legislation to hold states accountable for the protection of 
our environment and our health. We know from personal experience that 
without oversight, our states are not doing their due diligence to keep 
us safe. What more proof do you need than ``Cancer Alley?''

    Through programming, education, advocacy, and outreach, The 
Descendants Project is committed to reversing the vagrancies of slavery 
through healing and restorative work. We aim to eliminate the narrative 
violence of plantation tourism and champion the voice of the Black 
descendant community while demanding action that supports the total 
well-being of Black descendants. Visit thedescendantsproject.com to 
learn more or to donate.

                                 ______
                                 

                         The Wilderness Society

                             Washington, DC

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Committee on Natural 
        Resources                     Committee on Natural Resources
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva, Ranking Member Westerman, and all Members 
of the House Committee on Natural Resources:

    On behalf of our more than one million members and supporters, The 
Wilderness Society (TWS) writes to express enthusiastic support for 
H.R. 2021, the Environmental Justice for All Act, being heard before 
the House Natural Resources Committee on February 15, 2022.
    The Environmental Justice for All Act was developed over a year-
long process that included environmental justice leaders, frontline 
communities, and a wide range of stakeholders. This helped shape the 
policy while keeping the most impacted communities on the front-end of 
the policymaking process. The development of this legislation 
represents a critical step toward meaningful community engagement, 
collaboration, and environmental justice action to alleviate 
environmental racism nationwide.
    From the inclusive public process that involved a diverse set of 
stakeholders and impacted communities, H.R. 2021 is rooted in the moral 
principle that all people have the right to pure air, clean water, and 
an environment that enriches life. The Environmental Justice for All 
Act is informed by the belief that federal policy can and should strive 
for environmental justice, health equity, and climate justice for all 
deliberately overlooked and underserved communities. This legislation 
establishes that Congress and other federal agencies should seek to 
achieve environmental justice, promote meaningful public involvement, 
provide technical assistance on environmental justice issues to 
communities, and cooperate with Tribes, States, and local governments 
to address environmental injustice.
    TWS supports H.R. 5986 as a whole and believes that legislation 
should center historically underrepresented populations to better 
address existing inequities. We commend Chair Grijalva, Representative 
McEachin, and their staff on pulling together a diverse coalition of 
contributors to this legislation and believe that it has strengthened 
the outcome of these community-based discussions. Below we have 
highlighted a few areas that we support and have particular expertise 
in:
Equitable Access to the Outdoors

    H.R. 2021 would ensure more equitable access to parks, thus 
promoting individual health and economic benefits, specifically through 
the inclusion of the Every Kid Outdoors Act, Outdoors for All Act, and 
Transit to Trails Act. These programs prioritize and directly serve 
deliberately under-resourced and overlooked communities by addressing 
inequities in access to parks and natural outdoor spaces. There are 
proven benefits to investing in parks and recreation. The outdoor 
recreation economy accounts for billions of dollars in consumer 
spending and supports millions of jobs. By improving connectivity with 
outdoor recreation, more people can benefit from outdoor industry 
employment opportunities, as well as the physical and mental wellbeing 
associated with recreating outdoors. If we maximize the opportunities 
for all people to experience the physical, mental, and social benefits 
of nature, then every community--regardless of race, income, or zip 
code--will be stronger, healthier, and more resilient for generations 
to come.
Fair and Just Transition

    The Environmental Justice for All Act would increase the onshore 
coal, oil, and gas royalty rate to ensure companies pay a fair price 
and that the public is compensated properly for the private use of our 
shared public lands. The legislation also establishes a Federal Energy 
Transition Economic Development Assistance Fund and two new fees on the 
oil, gas, and coal industries to support communities and workers as 
they transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies.
Transparent and Inclusive Federal Decision Making

    H.R. 2021 ensures early and meaningful community involvement 
opportunities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when 
federal agencies propose an action that can harm the health and 
environment of an environmental justice community. The bill directs 
Federal agencies to solicit robust Tribal representation throughout the 
NEPA process for an activity that could impact an Indian Tribe, 
including activities impacting off-reservation lands and sacred sites. 
Federal agencies would also be directed to conduct and compile 
environmental and health research while soliciting community input, 
particularly with Indigenous communities. Additionally, H.R. 2021 would 
require the consideration of cumulative impacts in permitting decisions 
and ensure that permits issued pursuant to such acts demonstrate a 
reasonable certainty of no harm to human health.
Collaboration and Representation

    The Environmental Justice for All Act would establish channels of 
collaboration between federal agencies and environmental justice 
communities, including Tribal and Indigenous populations, to ensure 
meaningful and transparent community collaboration in the development 
and implementation of environmental justice strategies and research. 
The bill would also bolster protections through the expansion of legal 
rights and recourse for impacted communities and individuals when faced 
with discrimination. Lastly, through agency trainings on justice and 
community grants to fund environmental justice initiatives and 
research, H.R. 2021 will generate educational benefits both for those 
in government and those in the community about the environment as a 
contributor to public health issues.

    TWS supports the expansion of legal rights for people and 
communities experiencing environmental injustice, ensuring early and 
meaningful involvement of frontline communities in federal decision 
making, increasing environmental justice training for agency staff, 
providing resources to expand environmental justice programs, promoting 
equitable access to quality outdoor spaces, and ensuring just 
transitions for workforces in impacted communities. For these reasons, 
TWS supports the Environmental Justice for All Act and urges all 
Members of the Committee to support H.R. 2021.

    Thank you for considering our views.

            Sincerely,

                                           Drew McConville,
                     Senior Managing Director, Government Relations

                                 ______
                                 

                       TOXIC FREE NORTH CAROLINA

                         Durham, North Carolina

                                              February 14, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Toxic Free North Carolina writes to offer our strong support for 
the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). We urge you and your 
fellow committee members to advance this important legislation quickly 
to begin remedying the long history of environmental racism in our 
nation, and the cumulative, disproportionate health impacts resulting 
from our institutional injustices.
    Since 1986, Toxic Free NC has been advocating for safer and more 
just policies to protect environmental health in North Carolina. This 
legislation is aligned with our mission and values as we fight for a 
toxic-free future in which all individuals and communities across our 
state have sovereignty over their health and environment. Those who are 
living on the frontlines of toxic pollution--predominantly Black and 
Brown and low-income communities--also bear disproportionate impacts 
from racial injustice, an escalating climate crisis, and a public 
health emergency. Last week's Winston Weaver fertilizer plant fire in 
Winston Salem, North Carolina, is only the most recent example in a 
long history of environmental injustice in our state.
    Many, many testimonies of the impacted people and communities, and 
academic research based on their stories have documented 
disproportionate chemical hazards and health impacts imposed on 
communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous 
communities--currently and historically.
    These affected peoples and communities have themselves developed 
and demanded solutions to these injustices and harms for some time. The 
extensive public input process that informed the Act's creation 
reflects this history and has produced legislation uniquely influenced 
by the people and communities it seeks to help.

    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

            Respectfully submitted by,

                                              Connor Kippe,
                                                    Policy Advocate

                                 ______
                                 

                        Statement for the Record
                   Virginia Interfaith Power & Light
                      Faith Harris & Kidest Gebre

Introduction:

    Greetings and thank you for the opportunity to submit the following 
written comments to the committee in support of H.R. 2021, also known 
as the EJ4All Act. Virginia Interfaith Power & Light (VAIPL) represents 
over 16,000 supporters representing faith communities across the 
Commonwealth of Virginia. Our written testimony will focus on the 
importance of defining cumulative impacts and for providing meaningful 
community involvement opportunities to achieve environmental justice 
for all, especially for low wealth, Black, and Brown communities.
    In Virginia, as well as in other states, we know that low-income 
communities and ``communities of color are already at greater risk from 
pollution from fossil-fueled power plants than the general population. 
In 2015 as a supplement to the final Clean Power Plan, the EPA 
conducted an environmental justice proximity analysis. This analysis 
summarized all of the affected electricity generating units while 
collecting socio-demographic characteristics and other environmental 
data at a distance of 1 and 3 miles around each regulated source. The 
analysis showed that people who live within 3 miles of a power plant 
have an average income of $18,400 compared to the national average of 
$21,587. Thirty-nine percent of the people that live within 3 miles of 
a power plant are people of color compared to the national average of 
thirty-six percent.'' \1\ While there have been no subsequent reports, 
this type of analysis is a foundation to identify potential areas, 
communities, and regions to expand the analysis process accordingly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , EJ Screening Report for 
the Clean Power Plan, supra n.5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sec. 7. Consideration of cumulative impacts

    ``Many fossil fuel-fired power plants in the United States are 
located in the same areas where other industrial facilities are sited. 
Many of those facilities contribute to the nonattainment of other Clean 
Air Act standards. Residents in these communities are overburdened by 
numerous pollution sources as well as social and economic stressors.'' 
The EPA should provide the standard for states to ``address the 
cumulative impacts of multiple pollution sources on low-income 
communities and communities of color. Communities should advocate for 
their state to take a multi-pollutant approach to plan development. The 
EPA has suggested in the final rule. Application of a multi-pollutant 
approach increases the likelihood of limiting or eliminating localized 
emission increases that would otherwise affect overburdened 
communities.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Final Clean Power Rule at 258 (2015).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ``Cumulative impacts are defined as impacts that result from 
individually minor but collectively significant actions over time. Such 
impacts are known to increase racial and economic disparities in health 
outcomes resulting from harmful environmental activities such as energy 
generation, mining, waste disposal, and wastewater treatment. 
Disproportionate adverse environmental impacts have resulted from 
Virginia's fossil fuel infrastructure, housing infrastructure, siting 
of industrial facilities, waste management, and transportation system. 
Numerous fossil-fuel based power plants have been placed in localities 
that have a higher percentage of people-of-color than the state 
average.'' \3\ For example, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) would 
carry fracked gas across 303 miles from northern West Virginia to 
southern Virginia. The proposed pipeline would have a carbon impact 
equivalent to 26 typical coal plants and risk water contamination in 
local communities and homes. ``The project would pump and pressurize 
fracked gas to travel from Chatham into North Carolina, posing several 
environmental and public health risks for the historically Black 
community.'' \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Talking Points: Omnibus Environmental Justice Bill (2021) 
Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative.
    \4\ Walters, Makaelah. ``Residents near Proposed Lambert Compressor 
Station Push Back, Cite Environmental Racism.'' Appalachian Voices.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    MVP's ``Southgate Extension'' plan includes the Lambert compressor 
station in Pittsylvania County. The Lambert compressor station would be 
the third compressor station located in the same community. 
``Compressor stations, which help maintain pressure and flow of the 
natural gas in pipelines, can be significant sources of pollution, 
emitting carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter, 
sulfur dioxides, and volatile organic compounds, among other harmful 
substances. The station emits constant noise, but noise levels are most 
severe during a ``blowdown'' or release function.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The cumulative impacts of environmental issues are associated with 
adverse effects on public health that disproportionately impact 
communities of color. Considering cumulative impacts will allow federal 
``agencies to thoroughly evaluate their historical and anticipated 
environmental actions. This is particularly significant for 
environmental activities near low-income areas, communities of color, 
or historically underserved communities that are impacted by several 
environmental risks and harms simultaneously.'' \6\ Mountain Valley 
Pipeline's decision regarding the Lambert station at the MVP Southgate 
extension would perpetuate patterns of environmental racism that 
concentrate toxins in Black and Indigenous communities and is an 
excellent example of why we need to incorporate cumulative impact 
considerations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sec. 20. Public Meetings

    As a grassroots organization, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light 
consistently supports community members to overcome barriers to 
participation in the current system for environmental decision-making. 
Public participation related to environmental decisions should include 
rulemaking and permit decisions. The environmental justice for all act 
requires involving impacted communities in the decision-making process 
for environmental justice issues. Public meetings are essential to 
improving public engagement in permitting procedures and related 
regulations for environmental justice issues.
    Public meetings are crucially important for community participation 
and involvement in ``consideration of the development of certain new 
polluting facilities for community members such as most fossil fuel-
fired power plants, landfills, and sewage treatment plants.'' \7\ For 
example, here in Virginia, ``current public participation requirements 
do not provide for the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of 
Virginians in agencies' environmental decisions and actions. This 
unfair treatment is demonstrated by the persistent environmental 
injustices related to siting of fossil fuel infrastructure, landfills, 
and other environmentally hazardous activities in environmental justice 
communities.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Talking Points: Omnibus Environmental Justice Bill (2021) 
Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative.
    \8\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Similar to Pittsylvania County, many ``environmental justice 
communities, especially rural Black communities as of recently, are 
known to be at risk of or directly face unequal burdens from the 
state's environmental decision-making activities and the current 
cumbersome pathways for providing public feedback that have prioritized 
professional expertise and technical arguments over legitimate health 
concerns of residents of environmental justice and fenceline 
communities.'' \9\ As people of conscience, we believe the voices of 
marginalized communities across the commonwealth need to be 
prioritized, valued, and empowered in all decision-making processes. 
Public hearings on permits should be held in the directly impacted 
communities earlier in the process with both in-person and hybrid 
options. Public hearings should be held when accessible to full-time 
workers. Communities also need more advance notice of when public 
hearings will be held.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Environmental Justice for All Act will help our federal 
agencies to advance environmental justice and set the standards for 
state agencies to follow. During our current General Assembly 2022, we 
at Virginia Interfaith Power & light are working to oppose legislation 
introduced to curtail the authority of citizen boards to approve or 
deny permits for both air and water pollution. One bill also removed 
the opportunity for public hearings and public comments. Passing 
legislation at the federal level where the EPA is tasked to hold public 
hearings regionally will set forth language and practice useful to 
state and non-governmental organizations like Virginia Interfaith Power 
& Light to hold state agencies and legislators accountable to engage 
impacted communities.

                                 ______
                                 

                      Women's Voices for the Earth

                                               February 8, 2022    

        The Hon. Raul Grijalva,      
         Chairman                     The Hon. Bruce Westerman, Ranking 
                                      Member
        Natural Resources Committee   Natural Resources Committee
        U.S. House of 
        Representatives               U.S. House of Representatives
        Washington, DC 20515          Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Westerman:

    Women's Voices for the Earth, an environmental health organization 
representing tens of thousands of people across the nation, strongly 
supports the Environmental Justice for All Act (HR 2021). For too long, 
people of color and low-income communities have suffered the 
disproportionate impacts of pollution.

    It is well-established that women of color experience some diseases 
and conditions at significantly higher rates than white women. African-
American women are 34% more likely to die of breast cancer than white 
women,\1\ and lupus, an autoimmune disease, affects African-American 
women at three times the rate of white women. Lupus also 
disproportionately affects women of Latina, Asian and American Indian 
descent.\2\ African American women are more likely to have premature 
births and babies born with low birth weights.\3\ While there may be 
numerous factors associated with these increased risks, each of these 
risks has also been linked with exposure to toxic chemicals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2010. Finding 
Solutions to Health Disparities: At A Glance 2010. Available: http://
www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/AAG/reach.htm.
    \2\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Minority 
Health and Health Disparities. 2008. Eliminate Disparities in Lupus 
(Online Factsheet). Available: http://www.cdc.gov/omhd/amh/factsheets/
lupus.htm.
    \3\ March of Dimes Fact Sheet: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in 
Birth Outcomes. Available at: https://www.marchofdimes.org/March-of-
Dimes-Racial-and-Ethnic-Disparities_feb-27-2015.pdf.

    People of color, including African Americans, Latinos, and Asian 
Americans, comprise a majority of the population in neighborhoods where 
commercial hazardous waste facilities are located. Forty-six percent of 
housing units for the poor--mostly people of color--sit within about a 
mile of factories that reported toxic emissions to the EPA.\4\ As a 
result, people of color suffer higher-than-average rates of asthma, 
lead poisoning, and exposure to contaminated water, pesticides, and 
mercury.\5\ These factors, when combined with exposure in the 
workplace, home, and diet, often lead to greater adverse health effects 
in women of color than in the rest of the population.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Bullard, R; Saha, R; Wright, B. 2007. Toxic Wastes and Race and 
Twenty 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental 
Racism in the United States. Report for United Church of Christ Justice 
& Witness Ministries. Available: http://www.ejnet.org/ej/twart.pdf.
    \5\ Ibid.

    Indigenous people who rely on traditional diets of fish and marine 
mammals are also strongly affected by environmental contamination, 
particularly of water. One study found blood levels of polychlorinated 
biphenyls (PCBs) at levels six to nine times higher in the Yupik people 
of Alaska than in the general population in the lower 48 states.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/ijch.v64i4.18010.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We strongly support the Act's central elements, which are important 
steps toward remedying a long legacy of harm, and ensuring the fair 
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people--regardless of 
color, culture, national origin, or income--with respect to the 
development, implementation, and enforcement of health and 
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These urgently needed 
policy improvements include:

     Requiring federal agencies to consider cumulative health 
            impacts under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in 
            making permitting decisions, and ensuring that permits are 
            only issued when there is a reasonable certainty of no harm 
            to human health;

     Providing $75 million in annual grants for research and 
            program development to reduce health disparities; and 
            improve public health in environmental justice communities;

     Strengthening the Civil Rights Act to permit private 
            citizens and organizations facing discrimination to seek 
            legal remedies;

     Creating an energy transition economic development 
            assistance fund--paid for through new fees on oil, gas and 
            coal companies--to support communities and workers as they 
            transition away from greenhouse gas-dependent economies;

     Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act to 
            ensure that communities have a meaningful opportunity to 
            engage in NEPA processes that will impact them.

    The Environmental Justice for All Act is a long overdue correction 
to our nation's failed chemical management policies, and the cumulative 
hazards and disproportionate harms that have resulted for communities 
of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous communities. We 
urge the Committee, and any other committees with jurisdiction over 
this legislation, to begin to correct these injustices and address this 
legacy of harm, by promptly passing the bill out of Committee and 
sending it on to the full House of Representatives.

    Women's Voices for the Earth strongly supports (HR 2021).

            Sincerely,

                                           Jamie McConnell,
                                                    Deputy Director

                                 ______
                                 

    The Chairman. The members of the Committee may also have 
some additional questions to the witnesses, as I do, and we 
will ask you to respond to those in writing.
    Under the Committee Rules, Members can submit additional 
questions to the witnesses within 3 business days following the 
hearing, and the record will be kept open for 10 days for these 
responses.
    Let me just close by again thanking the Members and the 
Committee.
    There are so many things that Congress is dealing with and 
the people of this nation are dealing with right now, and one 
would wonder, and it sort of came up either by implication or 
by direct statement, why are we focusing on this right now when 
we have so many other things that we should be worried about.
    And there is child slave labor, the China and Russia 
threat, and the economic pain that this bill would inflict, 
inflation, the cost of fuel, cost of energy, and the fact 
remains that what this legislation is about is fundamental to 
what we do in Congress and what our role is and what we should 
support. And that is fairness and equal protection under the 
law. It is about corrective action. There are efforts ongoing 
to erase history, to rewrite history, and you cannot do either. 
But you can correct what occurred and make sure that we put in 
place those protections for generations to come so we are not 
revisiting this issue over and over again.
    And I think that Congresswoman Stansbury said this is not a 
hypothetical, and it is not. It is quantifiable, and the means 
to empower and protect all communities equally is before us.
    So, as we go forward heading toward a markup, I think we 
need to keep in mind that this bill is not about ending 
anything that is positive. It is about ending everything and 
the legacy that has created a situation.
    It is no coincidence, this is not just mere happenstance, 
that the concentration of polluting and endangering emissions 
and discharges in this country happen to be in communities that 
are predominantly poor, predominantly of color, and adjacent to 
Indigenous and tribal lands in terms of impact.
    It is no coincidence that when Bismarck did not want the 
pipeline going through their town because, ``it would endanger 
their water quality and their groundwater,'' that the Dakota 
Pipeline was moved, so it now affects the Sioux Tribe, and you 
wonder why you have a controversy.
    Here in Tucson, the local county, municipalities, the City, 
want more stringent standards on an emission plan, but as the 
state and the Environmental Quality Board says, and the local 
ones, ``we don't have the authority to look at EJ impact, at 
cumulative impact, and to have higher standards because there 
is no overarching Federal guidance and law.''
    That is what we are trying to address.
    So, I look forward to it. I look forward to your comments 
and, in terms of the letter to the Mayor, no disrespect. I 
would hope that everybody----
    Would somebody mute?
    And, Representative Stauber, the position in the letter 
really boils down to sending a letter demanding more public 
input. After the court decision delayed the action on the 
Willow Development Project, there was an opportunity, a pause, 
and that is when that letter went to Interior demanding more 
local input. It was a flawed and questionable process that 
occurred in the initial study.
    That is all. So, if I am being castigated for not seeking 
local input before I send a letter seeking more local input, I 
plead guilty.

    With that, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much.

    [Whereupon, at 1:22 p.m., the Committee meeting was 
adjourned.]

            [ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]

Submission for the Record by Rep. Porter

Deep Dive

Oil is the hottest sector, and Wall Street analysts see upside of up to 
48% for favored stocks

Last Updated: Feb. 15, 2022 at 8:15 a.m. ET

First Published: Feb. 11, 2022 at 8:07 a.m. ET

Analysts favor Canadian oil companies but also some large U.S. players, 
            such as ConocoPhillips, Schlumberger and Valero

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


Energy is the best-performing stock-market sector this year. Given 
today's strong economic growth and inflation, many believe oil prices 
could remain at current levels for years or maybe even move higher.

Below are two screens of stocks derived from the holdings of three 
exchange-traded funds that invest in oil and natural gas companies.

An oil price review
First, here's a chart showing the price movement of forward-month 
delivery contracts for West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil CL00 over the 
past 10 years:

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                      FACTSET
That steep but brief plunge on the chart is April 2020, when demand for 
oil tanked during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, storage 
sites were full and those holding front-month futures contracts 
essentially had to pay people to take the oil off their hands.
Oil price expectations from here
So what lies ahead for oil prices?

In a report provided to clients on Feb. 10, analysts at BCA Research 
said they believe prices will rise over the next decade in the face of 
increasing demand and declining supplies. Those threats to supplies 
include government action that curbs fossil-fuel production as well as 
``climate activism at the board level at major energy suppliers and in 
the courtroom.''

In other words, the best intentions to reduce carbon emissions can push 
oil pries higher because alternate energy sources take a long time to 
be available in sufficient quantity to curb demand for fossil fuels.

The BCA analysts favor long-term exposure to oil through ETFs.
Three energy ETFs
If you agree with the above scenario you might want to consider a broad 
investment in the sector through one or more ETFs. Here's a quick look 
at three of them:

     The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF XLE tracks the energy 
            sector of the S&P 500 SPX. That's a group of 21 stocks. 
            This is the only sector of the S&P 500 that is up this 
            year--a total return of 24.4% through Feb. 9, with 
            dividends reinvested. XLE has $35.7 billion in assets and 
            annual expenses of 0.12% of assets. It is highly 
            concentrated, with shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM and 
            Chevron Corp. CVX making up 44% of the portfolio.

     The iShares Global Energy ETF IXC holds 46 stocks, 
            including all the stocks held by XLE. It brings in large 
            non-U.S. companies, such as Shell PLC UK:SHEL SHEL, 
            TotalEnergies SE FR:TTE TTE and BP PLC UK:BP BP. (For the 
            three companies just listed, the first ticker is the local 
            one, the second is the American depositary receipt, or ADR. 
            Many of the locally traded non-U.S. companies listed below 
            also have ADRs.) IXC has $1.8 billion in assets, with an 
            expense ratio of 0.43%. The fund's largest two holdings are 
            Exxon Mobil and Chevron, which together make up 25.5% of 
            the portfolio.

     The iShares S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index ETF CA:XEG holds 
            20 stocks of Canadian energy producers. It is also heavily 
            concentrated, with the largest three holdings, Canadian 
            Natural Resources Ltd CNQ., Suncor Energy Inc. SU and 
            Cenovus Energy Inc. CVE making up half the portfolio. The 
            ETF has 2 billion Canadian dollars in total assets, with an 
            expense ratio of 0.63%.

You might wonder why a foreign single-country ETF is included in the 
list, but Canada stands out with its expansion of fossil-fuel 
production. The iShares S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index ETF has 
outperformed the other two ETFs in recent years, while underperforming 
longer term.

Here's a comparison of total returns, with dividends reinvested, for 
the three ETFs and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY through Feb. 9:

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The iShares S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index ETF has shined over the 
past one and three years. You can also see how dramatically the oil 
price decline from mid 2014 through early 2016 hurt the energy sector's 
long-term performance.
A look ahead for the ETFs
Here are forward price-to-earnings ratios for the three energy ETFs and 
SPY, along with expected compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for 
revenue and earnings per share through 2023, based on consensus 
estimates among analysts polled by FactSet:

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From the forward P/E ratios, the energy ETFs might be considered 
cheap relative to SPY, however, they ``earned'' investors' mistrust 
during the long decline of stock prices from mid-2014 through early 
2016, and, of course, early in the pandemic.

Analysts don't expect to see spectacular revenue growth for the energy 
portfolios over the next two years. However, they do expect better 
earnings growth than they do for the broad U.S. market--especially for 
XLE.
Two energy stock screens
The three energy ETFs together hold 63 stocks. The two screens below 
show which ETF or ETFs hold each stock.
First screen: dividend yields
Given what appears to be a healthy environment for oil prices, a broad 
round of dividend cuts, such as those we saw early in the pandemic, 
appears unlikely. With that in mind, the first screen of the 63 stocks 
held by the three ETFs is simply by dividend yield.
Here are the 21 stocks held by the three ETFs with the highest dividend 
yield (over 4%), along with a summary of analysts' opinions of the 
stocks. Share prices and consensus price targets are in the currencies 
of the country where the stocks are listed.

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You can click on the tickers for more about each company.
Then read Tomi Kilgore's detailed guide to the wealth of information 
available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

Don't assume dividends are distributed quarterly, as is common for U.S. 
stocks. Some companies only distribute annually.

Also note that the highest-yielding stocks on the list are American 
depositary receipts of Petroleo Brasileiro SA (known as ``Petrobas'') 
common shares PBR and preferred shares PBR. Unlike traditional 
preferred stocks issued in the U.S., this Petrobas preferred issue has 
no par value. (More information about the Petrobas ADRs is available in 
this filing from Dec. 21, 2021 with the Securities and Exchange 
Commission.)

Any stock with a dividend yield above 14% has a built-in warning. If 
investors expected the dividend to be safe, the share price would be 
higher and the dividend yield lower. So this is an investment that 
might best be left to professionals or other sophisticated investors.
Second screen: analysts' picks
Going back to our combined list of 63 stocks, here are the 18 favored 
by at least 80% of analysts polled by FactSet, sorted by 12-month 
upside potential as implied by consensus price targets. You can see 
that analysts favor many of the Canadian oil and gas producers in 
lockstep:

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As always, do your own research and form your own opinions about 
which investments, whether through ETFs or other funds or a combination 
of those and/or individual stocks, match your investment objectives.

                                 ______
                                 

Submission for the Record by Rep. Maloney

                HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
                     Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney

         Endorsers of the Justice in Power Plant Permitting Act

     Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy

     Ironbound Community Corporation

     Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition

     New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance

     New York Communities for Change

     PEAK Coalition (New York City Environmental Justice 
            Alliance, The Point CDC, UPROSE, New York Lawyers for the 
            Public Interest, Clean Energy Group)

     South Bronx Unite

     WE ACT for Environmental Justice

     Earthjustice

     Evergreen Action

     League of Conservation Voters

     Sierra Club

     Sunrise Movement

 Supporters of the Justice in Power Plant Permitting Act's Key Policies

     Equitable and Just National Climate Platform

          + Center for American Progress

          +  Center for Urban Environment, John S. Watson Institute for 
        Public Policy, Thomas Edison State University

          + Deep South Center for Environmental Justice

          + Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy 
        Reform

          + Harambee House--Citizens for Environmental Justice

          + Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

          + Los Jardines Institute

          + Natural Resources Defense Council

          + ReGenesis Project

          + Tishman Environmental and Design Center at the New School

          + Union of Concerned Scientists

     Rewiring America

        Co-Sponsors of the Justice in Power Plant Permitting Act

        Jamaal Bowman                 Barbara Lee

        Andre Carson                  Stephen F. Lynch

        Yvette D. Clarke              Gwen Moore

        Emanuel Cleaver               Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

        Adriano Espaillat             Mike Quigley

        Eleanor Holmes Norton         Ritchie Torres

        Mondaire Jones                Nydia Velazquez