[Senate Hearing 117-73]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-73
EXAMINING CURRENT ISSUES ADVERSELY AFFECT-
ING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE POPULATIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHEMICAL SAFETY, WASTE
MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND
REGULATORY OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
JULY 22, 2021
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
45-657 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont Virginia,
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
JONI ERNST, Iowa
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
----------
Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental
Justice and Regulatory Oversight
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Chairman
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont ROGER WICKER, Mississippi, Ranking
EDWARD J. MARKELY, Massachussetts Member
MARK KELLY, Arizona RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
ALEX PADILLA, California DON SULLIVAN, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware (ex JONI ERNST, Iowa
officio) LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
Virginia (ex officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
JULY 22, 2021
OPENING STATEMENTS
Merkley, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon........ 1
Wicker, Hon. Roger A., U.S. Senator from the State of Mississippi 2
WITNESSES
Pulido Laura, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies and
Geography, University of Oregon................................ 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Flowers, Catherine Coleman, Founder and Director, The Center for
Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice..................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Harden, Tracy, Owner, Chuck's Dairy Bar.......................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Wicker........................................... 28
Rexford, Delbert, President and Ceo, Ukpeagvik Inupiat
Corporation.................................................... 32
Prepared statement........................................... 35
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Spatially Informed Analysisi of Environmental Justice............ 60
Ducks Unlimited.................................................. 64
Science Direct Environmental Justice: Evidence from Superfund
Clean up Durations............................................. 88
New York Times; FEMA : Why Does Disaster Aid Often Favor White
People?........................................................ 91
Washington Post; Canada Sets New All-Time heat Record of 121
Degrees Amid Unprecedented Heat Wave........................... 99
Historically Racist Housing Policies Exacerbating Climate Change
Effects in Low-income Portland Neighborhoods................... 105
Air Pollution, Health and Racial Disparities Evidence from Ports. 115
Yazoo Backwater Pumps Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement...................................................... 217
Article, Meet You at the Bar..................................... 236
Briefing, Minority Rights Group International, The Impact of
Climate Change on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples............ 249
Article, Natural disasters widen racial wealth gap, Rice
University, University of Pittsburgh study also finds FEMA aid
increased inequlity............................................ 261
Environmental Research and Public Health, Playing it safe:
Assessing Cumulative Impact and Social Vulnerability through
and Environmental Justice Screening Method in the South Coast
Air Basin, California.......................................... 267
Article, Plumbing Poverty: Mapping Hot Spots of Racial and
Geographic Inequality in U.S. Households Water Insecurity...... 285
Environmental Health, Spatial disparity in the distribution of
superfund sites in South Carilina: and ecological study........ 324
Article, Journal of Poverty: The Role of Class, Status, and Power
in the Distribution of Toxic Superfund Sites in Texas and
Louisiana...................................................... 358
Article, The unequal vulnerability of communities of coloor to
wildfire....................................................... 362
Article, Dr, Vivek Shandas: This is the Hottest Place in Portland 371
Article, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States.............. 386
Article, Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007: About the
United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries........... 397
Article, Anals of the American Associatioin of Geographers:
Urban-Rural Differences in Disaster Resiliance................. 571
Letter, IOPScience: Which came first, people or pollution?
Assecing the dispartate siteing and post-siting demographic
change hypothesis of environmental injustice................... 581
EXAMINING CURRENT ISSUES ADVERSELY AFFECTING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
POPULATIONS
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management,
Environmental
Justice and Regulatory Oversight,
Washington, DC.
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management,
Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight Washington, DC.
The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Wicker, Carper, Markey,
Duckworth, Kelly, Capito, Sullivan, Ernst.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Senator Merkley. The subcommittee will come to order.
Ranking Member Wicker, colleagues and guests, welcome to
the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste
Management, Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight in
the 117th Congress.
Today's hearing will explore critical issues of
environmental justice and adverse impacts on at-risk
communities. It is fitting that these important issues are the
subject for our first hearing, as just earlier this year, the
term ``environmental justice'' was added to the name of this
subcommittee, highlighting the growing awareness of and public
conversation around environmental justice in America.
As climate change ravages our Country and our planet, from
the 80 fires burning across 13 States, the biggest, the Bootleg
Fire, in my home State of Oregon, coastal communities
confronting flooding, ever more frequent powerful, destructive
storms, we cannot ignore the fact that while we all feel its
effects, the worst consequences of pollution and the ravages of
climate chaos disproportionately fall on communities of color
and communities with the fewest resources for either adapting
or recovering.
Front line communities, low wealth communities, indigenous
communities, communities of color, not only are they more prone
to experiencing extreme weather events, but they also face
greater health burdens, such as asthma and lead poisoning,
along with higher rates of heart-related illnesses and deaths.
Oftentimes, these impacts are the direct result of
decisions and discriminatory policies. Decisions like where to
place a landfill, where to place a factory, the location of
toxic waste dumps, oil refineries, chemical companies, where
water infrastructure projects are prioritized and where they
are ignored, where green spaces are created, and where they are
not created. But while advocates and concerned citizens have
been highlighting these injustices for decades, for far too
long, the cost of these decisions and policies have been
ignored.
Fortunately, that has been changing to the point that
today, we are engaged in an over national conversation about
environmental justice and the well-being of all of our
communities. Over the past 7 months, I have been pleased to see
the Biden Administration actively engage at the forefront of
this conversation. The President's Executive Order directing 40
percent of the Administration's climate and clean energy
investments to disadvantaged communities will not only bring
much-needed resources to bear on cleaning up pollution and
delivering clean water infrastructure, it will begin to course
correct for decades of persistent injustice endured by these
communities.
Beyond that, the Administration has continued to
demonstrate its commitment to environmental justice through the
work of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Made up of a wide range of leaders on the issue, the council is
making contributions to guiding the President's environmental
justice efforts through the recommendations contained within
its landmark report.
Like the renaming of the subcommittee and today's hearing,
the White House's ongoing efforts to address environmental
injustice are significant signs that progress is being made.
Yet, despite growing attention, one has to only look at the
disparate impact of the heat wave out West or the wildfires
burning up rural communities or the outsized impact of COVID to
know that we have barely begun to address environmental
injustice.
That is why we are fortunate today to have leading voices
in this critical and growing national conversation to talk
about issues and challenges. I would like to thank all of our
witnesses for being with us today. Each of you brings a unique
voice, a unique set of experiences to this dialog. In the
pursuit of environmental justice, we need to uplift and listen
to every voice, especially those who have historically not had
a seat at the table. We will only succeed in eliminating
injustices when all communities are listened to, and when we
commit ourselves to addressing the challenges raised.
I would like to now turn to my Ranking Member, Senator
Wicker, for any remarks he would like to make.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER WICKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Senator Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this
hearing. This is a very important topic. I welcome out
witnesses today as the subcommittee considers issues affecting
environmental justice populations.
To begin with, I think we should define what we mean by
environmental justice, and I think really, a better topic, and
you might agree, Mr. Chair, is environmental injustice, because
it is those populations that you are talking about who are
experiencing an injustice.
Although Federal law gives no official definition to the
term, it typically refers to situations in which adverse health
or environmental impacts fall disproportionately on minority or
low-income populations. There has been a growing recognition of
the need to address environmental justice in recent years. The
Flint Water Crisis in Michigan comes to mind as a major
example.
But not all cases of environmental injustice receive the
same attention. One prominent example is in my State of
Mississippi, where residents of the South Delta have long
suffered repeated flooding from the Mississippi River. The
South Delta has a predominantly minority population and faces
unique economic challenges, which are made worse by the
recurrence of flooding.
This region has flooded in eight out of the last 10 years,
the most recent being this year, when nearly 300,000 acres were
inundated. Flooding was even worse in 2019, when over half a
million acres went underwater for months. Water overtop roads
closed three highways, kept many residents from leaving their
homes. Two hundred thirty-one thousand acres of cropland were
flooded, destroying livelihoods in a region where agriculture
is the main economic driver. Wildlife was forced to flee to
high ground. Six hundred eighty-six homes were flooded, 686
families, and two people were tragically killed.
According to one study from Mississippi State University,
the 2019 Backwater Flood resulted in residents spending an
average of more than $42,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. Can you
imagine? People were forced to build levees around their
property to keep the floodwaters from encroaching around them.
These are costs that many residents simply cannot afford.
In five of the six counties of the South Delta, roughly
one-third of the population lives in poverty. For years,
residents have moved away because of the continuing flood risk.
As populations decline, the community fabric has frayed,
leaving many behind who have nowhere else to go. Regular
flooding reinforces this cycle of poverty because residents
lack the certainty they need to build homes and establish new
businesses.
The real tragedy, though, is that these floods are entirely
preventable. In 1941, 80 years ago, Congress made a promise to
the people living along the Mississippi River. That promise was
the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries System, which includes a
series of levees, flood control structures, and pumps to remove
excess rainwater trapped by the levees from the residential
areas and farmland.
Over the years, this system has been built up and down the
Mississippi River, with one major exception: the Yazoo
Backwater Pumps have never been completed. The system has been
completed everywhere else. Of the four backwater areas along
the Mississippi, the Yazoo backwater area is the only one
missing backwater pumps.
If we are here to discuss environmental injustice, I would
suggest that the residents of the South Delta face one of the
most glaring instances of environmental injustice anywhere in
the Nation.
The good news, though, is that today, there is a viable
project to remedy this situation. For years, I have worked with
local stakeholders, Army Corps of Engineers, and Federal
officials to get these pumps finally built, and earlier this
year, the Army Corps finally issued a Record of Decision in
favor of the pump project, a milestone that brings it closer to
final construction.
I am happy to say, Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen,
that this plan is a win for animal life, for plant life, and
for human life. There is no doubt this proposal would have
positive impacts on minority and low-income communities. South
Delta homes and businesses would enjoy a hedge of protection,
allowing for greater economic development to take hold. The
proposal would improve aquatic and wildlife conditions, water
quality, and it would improve the environment. Nearly 2,500
acres of crop land would be reforested, providing quality
habitats for many fish and wildlife.
The science and the economics finally all line up in
support of the backwater pumps. As this project shows, there
are communities across the Nation that need true physical
infrastructure to remedy cases of environmental injustice.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much. We will now introduce
our witnesses. I will introduce the first two, and Senator
Wicker, I believe you are going to introduce Ms. Harden, and
Senator Sullivan will introduce Delbert Rexford.
Professor Laura Pulido will be joining us online from the
University of Oregon. She has been on the front lines of
expanding the school's environmental justice efforts. She is
the Collins Chair and Professor of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic
Studies and Geography, as well as the leading scholar in the
field of environmental justice.
Back in January, she was part of the team that received a
grant to establish the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute
for Racial and Climate Justice, which seeks to tackle the
intertwined issues of racial and climate justice and work
toward a more just future for our region, as well as increase
access to higher education for historically underrepresented
communities.
Professor Pulido has published six books in her field,
received numerous honors for her work, including the
Presidential Achievement Award from the Association of American
Geographers, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American
Geographic Society, and Ford and Guggenheim Fellowships.
Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founding director of the
Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. She is
also the current Co-Vice Chair of the White House Environmental
Justice Advisory Council.
Ms. Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental
activist, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and author. Ms.
Flowers serves as the Rural Development Manager for Brian
Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, is a board member for the
Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and sits
on the board of directors for the Climate Reality Project and
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Thank you to both of them for joining us today, and we will
now turn the microphone over the Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Thank you again, Senator Merkley.
I am honored to introduce Ms. Tracy Harden from the State
of Mississippi. Ms. Harden is a lifelong resident of the South
Delta. She owns Chuck's Dairy Bar, a fixture in the Rolling
Fork community known for its Chuck Burgers and milkshakes.
Tracy and her husband Tim, who is with us today in the
audience, purchased Chuck's in 2006. Tracy has been
successfully operating it since then. Chuck's patrons include
farmers and farm workers and sportsmen, particularly hunters
who travel to the South Delta during hunting season.
Tracy's business has suffered during the pandemic, but as
she will tell you today, her business was far more impacted by
the 2019 flood in the South Delta. Every day, she witnesses the
heavy costs that have come from government delay in building
the Yazoo Backwater Pumps. She has firsthand experience with
many of the issues we will discuss, and I appreciate her
traveling to Washington, DC. and appearing before this
subcommittee.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Merkley. Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking
Member Wicker for holding this hearing.
I am honored to introduce a truly great Alaskan leader,
Delbert Rexford, who certainly will get the award for traveling
the farthest for this hearing, coming from Ukpeagvik, Alaska.
That is the top of the world, the northernmost community in
North America. We are looking up the miles as maybe about 4,000
miles from D.C.
Mr. Rexford, thank you sir, for being here. It is great to
see you.
His experience in community service includes Lay Pastor at
the Ukpeagvik Presbyterian Church, city of Barrow Councilman
for 7 years, North Slope Borough Assemblyman for 6 years,
Alaskan Municipal League Director and President, UIC Board of
Directors and Construction Director, Executive Director, Gates
of the Arctic National Park Subsistence Commission Member and
the Native Village of Barrow Tribal Council, just to name a
few.
He is also a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council
General Assembly, where he focused on contaminants and
pollutant in the high arctic polar regions.
Mr. Rexford learned to read and write English by a seal oil
lamp. Mr. Rexford is a great Alaska Native leader, as I
mentioned, from Ukpeagvik, the most northern community in all
of North America, one of my favorite places in the world in
Alaska. If you haven't been, you should go. It is an amazing
place with wonderful people.
A great time to go is during the celebrations following the
spring and fall whaling seasons. We still do whaling hunts,
legal whaling hunts. Our Native people have been doing that for
thousands of years. Americans still do that; it is incredible.
You can see for yourself how the residents there have kept
their cultural heritage not only alive, but thriving, due to
leaders like Mr. Rexford.
You will no doubt hear from Mr. Rexford that this has not
always been easy, largely because of actions and inactions of
the Federal Government. He will discuss today the contamination
of Federal lands, Federal lands conveyed to the Alaskan Native
people that were all polluted. Unbelievable, and the Feds need
to clean it up. It is an ongoing struggle to clean up these
lands. It is long past time to right this wrong.
Mr. Rexford has also spoken about the frustration he and so
many Alaska Natives feel about their ability to have an
economy, an economy that, yes, is based on resource development
and the proceeds that Alaskan Natives receive from oil and gas
and mining in Alaska on State, Tribal, Native, and Federal
lands. Natural resources on the North Slope of Alaska have been
a lifeline, literally a lifeline for Ukpeagvik and communities
across my State.
Unfortunately, this Administration, some of their extreme
environmental allies are constantly trying to shut down the
resource development in Alaska that has been so vital for the
health and well-being of the Alaska Native people. As the Mayor
of the North Slope Borough and another exceptional Inupiaq
leader, Harry Brower, so eloquently wrote in the Wall Street
Journal recently, ``We treasure and protect our land and
wildlife, the resources that executives and environmental
groups in cities thousands of miles away from Alaska claim to
care about. The way we see it, caring about the land and
wildlife should also mean caring about the indigenous people
who live in these communities.'' I am sure Mr. Rexford would
agree, and I very much look forward to his testimony.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Sullivan.
Now, we get to hear from the witnesses themselves. We will turn
first to Laura Pulido through online.
STATEMENT OF LAURA PULIDO, PH.D., PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
ETHNIC STUDIES AND GEOGRAPHY, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
Ms. Pulido. Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Wicker, and
members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on environmental justice. I am
delighted that the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on
Chemical Safety, Waste Management, and Environmental Justice,
and Regulatory Oversight is being reconfigured to include this
urgent topic.
I am a professor at the University of Oregon and have been
studying environmental justice for over 30 years. I first
became interested in the environment growing up in Los Angeles
and not being able to see the mountains due to the smog. I
still remember the stench and burning in my lungs as a child.
More recently, I moved to Oregon because Southern
California was simply getting too hot, and I suffered from heat
sickness.
Today, I would like to provide a brief introduction to
environmental justice research and highlight what I think are
some of the pressing issues faced today.
Environmental justice refers to the fact that people of
color and low-income populations in both urban and rural areas
are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards. I
really appreciate and agree with what Senator Wicker said, it
should be called environmental injustice.
Environmental justice is also the name of the movement that
has arisen to challenge these problems. Environmental justice
traces its origins to the late 1980's. Several key events
precipitated it, including protests in rural North Carolina
against the dumping of PCBs, farm worker struggles against
pesticides, Native reservations dealing with uranium waste,
urban communities opposed to incinerators, and rural residents
lacking access to clean water.
In 1987, the United Church of Christ conducted the first
national-level study of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites and
their proximity to various demographic groups. Researchers
found that people of color were disproportionately exposed to
toxic waste, what is called environmental racism.
Of course, environmental injustice did not begin in the
1980's; we just previously lacked the language to name it.
Since then, environmental justice has had a major impact on the
large environmental movement and society.
I would like to now briefly highlight some of the pressing
environmental justice challenges that require action. First,
cumulative impacts. Cumulative impacts refer to the need to
take into account multiple forms of pollution and vulnerability
that impact geographic communities. Almost all policy and
permitting systems treat polluters individually while
disregarding the cumulative impacts of industrial
concentrations. This has produced a major mismatch in terms of
public health and regulatory policy.
For example, near the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles,
there is an epidemic of childhood asthma, which is due both to
the logistics industry, as well as individual factories. In
California, scholars have developed prototypes to begin
considering cumulative impacts. What these tools do is they
enable individuals to identify the multiplicity of risks in a
given place. Such tools need to be refined and applied across
the Country.
No. 2, climate change and heat. We know that low-income and
communities of color are the most vulnerable to climate change.
They are vulnerable because they have fewer resources and
capacity to respond to heat, cold, drought, and flooding. The
end result is higher levels of death and displacement.
This past summer in Eastern Oregon, the temperature hit a
record 118 degrees. In that particular heat wave episode, 118
people died in Oregon. In urban areas, there are significant
differences in heat. Wealthier places tend to have more trees
and shade, which led to a 25-degree differential in temperature
in parts of Portland. In places like Mississippi, Louisiana,
and South Carolina, it is the poorest who are most impacted by
hurricanes and flooding, as we saw in Hurricane Katrina, as
well as South Carolina in 2015, as well as Senator Wicker's
story, as well.
Exacerbating the situation is recent evidence that FEMA
relief is far more likely to go to wealthier residents and
homeowners versus low-income populations and renters. Immediate
resources need to be directed toward increasing shade,
weatherization projects, sheltering the unhoused, and building
a more reliant and sustainable energy system.
Last, water access. As a wealthy Country, we assume that
access to clean, potable water is not an issue, but that is
untrue, especially in rural areas. Sometimes, people get
disconnected from the utility, such as in Flint in the
contamination crisis, but rural communities are
disproportionately impacted.
For example, the Navajo Reservation, spanning both Arizona
and New Mexico, has one of the highest proportions of
households without plumbing. In parts of Appalachia, there are
communities that had water boil advisories for over 5 years.
These problems require immediate attention and investments in
infrastructure to solve the problems.
Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pulido follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5657.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5657.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5657.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5657.019
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
We will have all of our testimoneys before we go to
questions. Next, Catherine Coleman Flowers.
STATEMENT OF CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF
THE CENTER FOR RURAL ENTERPRISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Ms. Flowers. Thank you, Chair Merkley, Ranking Member
Wicker, and members of the committee for the opportunity to
testify.
My name is Catherine Coleman Flowers, and I am a proud
native of Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural area located between
Selma and Montgomery. Lowndes County has a proud history of
fighting for equality and the right to vote.
In addition, most of the famous Selma to Montgomery March
Trail goes through Lowndes County. It is where, in the early
1900's, sharecroppers organized for jobs and justice. Many of
its sons, and later, its daughters, including my father, three
brothers, and myself served in the United States military. We
have a deep legacy of holding up core democratic values.
I stand on those values learned as a country girl that grew
up with a healthy respect for nature, and I appreciate what our
creator has provided for us, which includes the knowledge to
know when we are out of balance with creation.
That failure includes what we are seeing today, exemplified
through fish kills, more powerful storms, higher groundwater
tables, seas level rise, heat domes, wildfires, drought,
floods, pollution, straight-piping of raw sewage, or failing
wastewater treatment systems. I have often taken
philanthropists and people from both sides of the aisle, like
Jeff Sessions, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Doug Jones, and Bob
Woodson to Lowndes County to see the infrastructure
inequalities and to hear from local people what is needed to
address them.
At the height of the pandemic, Lowndes County had the
highest death and infection rate per capita in the State of
Alabama. Our national life expectancies are a reminder of what
happens when poverty, inequality, failing or no sanitation
infrastructure, and climate change comes together.
The climate crisis impacts all of us. Throughout our
Nation, we are dealing with failing infrastructure, and it also
includes the most basic infrastructure, sanitation. In the town
of Hayneville, Alabama, the county seat of Lowndes, for more
than 20 years, Ms. Charlie Mae Holcombe has been telling people
about the sewage from a nearby lagoon that is backing up into
her home. She is paying a wastewater treatment fee, yet all the
town can provide is a pump truck to pump the sewage out of her
yard from time to time. The failure is more pronounced whenever
there is a hard rain.
This is indicative of the failing infrastructure and
sanitation inequality that exists throughout the United States,
whether in Montgomery, Alabama, where many older Black
communities are on failing septic tanks, or Martin County,
Kentucky, where poor white families are also seeking sanitation
and environmental justice, as well as good-paying jobs. During
a recent visit to the town of Mount Vernon, New York, I met
families that have been unable to flush their toilets for more
than 20 years.
The American Jobs Plan provides an opportunity to deal with
the climate crisis head-on in forgotten communities. It is a
chance to create jobs, to build infrastructure, and create
sustainable economic development, and make America a model of
ingenuity where we can all have clean air and water in every
community.
With this funding should come guardrails that will ensure
that Ms. Charlie Mae of Lowndes County of Linda McNeill from
Mount Vernon, New York will no longer get sewage in their yards
or homes, lagoons are not built next to schools, and any
sanitation system comes with the same performance and parts
warranty we have come to expect from a car, a hot water heater,
or a heating and cooling system.
I am requesting that you all support investment in
resilient infrastructure, including sanitation for all, and I
request that we come together and confront this climate crisis,
and to ensure the future of our children, grandchildren, and
seven generations to come.
I thank you for this opportunity to speak before you today,
and I look forward to continuing conversation about
environmental justice and climate justice for all Americans.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Flowers follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
Now, we will turn to Tracy Harden. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF TRACY HARDEN, OWNER OF CHUCK'S DAIRY BAR
Ms. Harden. Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Wicker, thank
you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Tracy Harden. I live in Rolling Fork,
Mississippi, and I own and operate Chuck's Dairy Bar. In my
testimony, I would like to provide the committee a real-life
example of how Federal actions or inactions have
disproportionately impacted minority and low-income
populations.
The South Mississippi Delta is one of the poorest areas of
the Nation. Twenty-seven percent live in poverty, and more than
62 percent of residents are minorities. Floods, or the
preparation for floods, are a constant fixture in our lives.
Growing up, I can remember packing every spring and being ready
to leave home at any moment if the water would rise.
My mother was a school bus driver. When the water would
rise, she would have to drive her route on the river levees
hours out of the way to get us to school. But the South Delta
flooding of my childhood has been a regular occurrence even
now, as I see my nieces having to take these long bus rides to
school on unsafe levees.
One of the earliest documented South Delta floods was in
1927, after which the Federal Government assumed responsibility
for managing the Mississippi River system and constructing
structures, including 22 other pumping plants. Later, Congress
expanded the government's responsibility, including in 1941
when it authorized the Yazoo Backwater Project.
The Yazoo Backwater Project is comprised of three key
features: levees along the Yazoo River, completed in 1978 that
keep the water within the river during high water; the Steele
Bayou gates----
Senator Merkley. Hold on just a moment; let us see if we
can get a technical fix to that echo.
Ms. Harden. OK. If I can go back just a little bit, the
Yazoo Backwater Project is comprised of three key features:
levees along the Yazoo River, completed in 1978 that keep the
water within the river during high water, the Steele Bayou
Gates on the Yazoo, completed in 1969 to prevent the
Mississippi from flowing backwater into the South Delta; and
the final, unfinished feature, a set of pumps to pump water
over the levee when the gates are closed. This system is
interconnected, and without all three functioning features, it
just doesn't work.
My husband Tim and I purchased Chuck's Dairy Bar when our
family farm sold in 2006. Chuck's has been in business since
1977, and it is a fixture in Sharkey County, one of the few we
have to serve our small community. It is a local hangout for
everyone in Rolling Fork. We try to keep our prices low to make
sure all of our neighbors, over a third of whom are living
below the poverty line, feel welcomed.
However, since we purchased Chuck's in 2007, we have seen
seven of the 12 worst backwater floods on record since the
levees were completed in 1978. This year, water rose to almost
92 feet. We also had floods in 2008, 2009, 2016, 2018, 2020,
and the worst of all, 2019, when the waster devastatingly rose
to over 98 feet.
The 2019 flood inundated 548,000 acres: 231,000 acres of
cropland, and 686 homes. Water was so high, we were fractions
of an inch away from losing critical infrastructure, like our
sewer systems. We call it the Forgotten Backwater Floods
because it received so little national attention, despite
shattering so many records.
Annual flooding has an enormous lasting impact on our
region well beyond folks not being able to frequent my
restaurant. Because they are not making a paycheck, populations
are decreasing, economic opportunity is fleeting, lives and
livelihoods are being lost. My friend, Anderson Jones, has been
displaced from his home since 2019. Even though he had Federal
flood insurance and built three levees around his home, each
one failed, which highlights the lack of understanding of
environmental extremists who advocate alternatives to the
pumps. If you can't get to your home because it is surrounded
by water, you cannot maintain a levee, and even then, what way
is that to live?
In 2019, we saw the worst of it. Two residents even lost
their lives in that flood. But unfortunately, the residents of
the South Delta know we haven't seen the last of it.
What we desperately need to stop the annual flooding in the
Yazoo Backwater Basin is the final component of the project: we
need the backwater pumps. This project is comprised of and has
the support of environmental groups, including the Mississippi
Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy. In its
environmental justice analysis, the Army Corps concluded that
the backwater pumps would specifically benefit the community of
color.
We have been blessed with strong support from our
representatives, Congressman Thompson, Senator Hyde-Smith, and,
of course, Senator Wicker. Thank you.
Today, I am appealing to the rest of Congress and the Biden
Administration to help fulfill the promise that was made to the
people of the South Delta 80 years ago to complete this
essential project. Not doing so unfairly impacts people of
color and the poor. It is the definition of an environmental
injustice, and we need your help to finish the pumps.
On behalf of my family, my neighbors, my friends, and my
community, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harden follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Ms. Harden.
Mr. Rexford.
STATEMENT OF DELBERT REXFORD, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF UKPEAGVIK
INUPIAT CORPORATION
Mr. Rexford. Good morning. For the record, Mr. Rexford.
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the
subcommittee, I am honored to testify before you today. Senator
Sullivan, thank you for affording me this opportunity.
My name is Delbert J. Rexford. I am a member of the Inupiat
Native Tribe of Barrow. I have lived in the North Slopes since
August 17th, 1959, when we moved from Kotzebue to Borough. That
is a very, very vivid memory in my mind. I am a shareholder and
have been involved with Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation for over
40 years, fighting for the rights of our people and creating
opportunities to provide economic, sustainable projects for
future generations.
I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to provide a
unique perspective, a firsthand perspective, of the impact
Federal Government activity has had on our environment, our
community, our food, our water sources, work force, and human
lives.
In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, better known as ANCSA. Through ANCSA, the
Federal Government agreed to covey to 12 Alaska Native regional
and over 200 village corporations 44 million acres of land and
compensation of $962.5 million in settlement of aboriginal land
claims of Alaska's Native people in fee simple. I want to
emphasize: Alaska Native people gave up 88 percent of their
traditional and customary lands through these settlements.
The Inupiat people of the Arctic Slope were the only people
who did not support ANCSA. We were fighting for 99,000 square
miles of traditional and customary lands, pristine land that
sustains our life. We as a people are heavily dependent on
subsistence resources consisting of migratory birds, caribou,
fish, marine mammals that sustain our culture and healthy way
of life, that supports our spiritual link to nature. It is our
cultural belief in traditional Inupiat values that taking care
of our environment and respecting it will continue to sustain
our way of life for future generations.
Under the terms of ANCSA, Alaska Native Corporations are
mandated, I repeat, mandated to provide for the economy,
social, and cultural well-being of their shareholders in
perpetuity. This means throughout their lifespan.
Today, Alaska Native Corporations have over 100
shareholders who have been impacted by contaminants and
pollutants left behind by certain Federal agencies throughout
decades of occupancy. As detailed in my written testimony, in
1991, Congress also directed the Department of the Interior to
submit a report on contaminated lands conveyed through ANCSA.
Importantly, the Department of Interior report asserted that
ANCs would not be held liable for prior contamination and
reinforce the CERCLA law that requires the Federal Government
to clean the abandoned, contaminated properties left behind by
Federal agencies of the United States.
In 1998, the Department of Interior agreed to take the
leadership role to facilitate the cleanup of ANCSA contaminated
lands. A 2016 update proposed that the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation and Environmental Protection Agency
oversee cleanup of the sites. This 2016 update also stated that
BLM does not, I repeat, does not have the authority to provide
liability relief under CERCLA, for previous landowners that
consisted of Federal agencies occupancy during that period
contaminating the properties.
Also detailed in my written testimony is this report, and
details on historical failure of numerous government agencies
to accept the leadership role to take the lead to clean up our
lands contaminated by the U.S. Government and their agencies.
I am here today to share my firsthand knowledge as a
lifelong Alaska resident, proudly born in the territory of
Alaska, prior to Statehood of the State of Alaska. I am proud
of that, and I have seen that change over my lifetime. I have
grown up on this land. I have hunted; I have fished; I have
whale. I have also worked on cleanup projects that the
government has done over the years on those sites that the
Federal agency abandoned. This land, the Federal Government
contaminated and left behind for previous generations, further
risking human lives. That causes a little emotion in me.
When I was a child, we swam in the lake. Little did we know
that there was contaminants disposed of in the lake that
contained solid waste, transformers, petroleum products. We
were just kids, but we didn't know. We just wanted to have fun
in the water. We didn't know the government had contaminated
this lake.
In 1963, we had a 100-year storm, severely damaging the
Department of Navy's 2.5 million gallon fuel farm. That went
all over what is now the former Naval Arctic Research Facility.
Furthermore, there was heavy equipment that was staged, that
was pushed into the Elson Lagoon. Hubert Harpton and Morgan
Solomon were nearly killed when their boats hit those objects,
and luckily, today, Mr. Harpton is still with us. This is just
an example of things that we live with.
Another example of the Department of Defense's abandonment
of Alaska's North Slope: on occasion, hunters will come across
explosive devices left by the military, which are likely
decades old, and pose a dangerous threat to human life. To my
colleagues and friends in King Cove, Alaska, cumbersome
permitting problems have prevented a 12-mile access road from
being built that would allow local residents to the only life-
saving hospital within 30 miles. Yet people died because they
can't get there. People died. Currently, King Cove residents'
only access to health care are either by air transport or
telehealth.
Thawing permafrost is revealing solid waste burial sites
that were previously unknown. When I walked across the land
with the Bureau of Land Management and the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation, we could smell the diesel in the
fields, and our feet went through the ground, and there was
debris under the ground. This is the kind of contaminants that
we are dealing with that we can't even develop this land. We
can't disturb it.
According to the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation, they have an estimate of approximately 2,400
unknown sites that we don't know of, but they have only
documented what are known and reported and documented.
As many of you are aware, the presence of PFAS on abandoned
military property continues to expose our community to severe
public health threats, where our drinking water sources are
compromised by surface and sub-surface contaminants. Case in
point, Imiaknikpak Lake, the drinking water source for the
United State Air Force since 1959, and drinking water source
for the Barrow Whaling Captain's Association and their whaling
crews where there is no glacial ice available. That is a
contaminated lake now, recently reported with PFAS. Sorry for
my emotions.
This land that they transferred to my people without
complete cleanup and removal of contaminants and debris are a
life-threatening condition. This land where we hunt, fish,
gather subsistence resources, butcher our whales, which is the
most precious activity that we have, are contaminated and needs
to be cleaned up.
The cost of cleaning up the contamination is astronomical,
but we cannot put a price on the health of families, not even
on one human life that could be saved. I know for a fact that
80 percent of a family I know, I personally know, subsist on
contaminated sites from the National Petroleum Reserve of
Alaska, legacy whales, and 80 percent of their family passed
away from cancer. This is a fact. This is a very devastating
fact.
ANCs are the largest private landowners in Alaska, but
burdensome regulatory permitting challenges impede our
environmentally sound economic development plans. We devised a
way to get rid of the contaminants with ADEC, but environmental
permissions allow us to permanently dispose of them in an
approved area. It costs millions of dollars to ship them out of
Alaska.
Senator Merkley. Mr. Rexford, can you wrap up your
testimony?
Mr. Rexford. Yes. In closing, thank you for being patient
with me. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with each of you
today. I am hopeful can work together to ensure contaminated
lands are cleaned up to the benefit of all Americans, without
threats to human life.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rexford follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Great. Thank you very much, for both of
you, providing firsthand testimony of the challenges.
We will go to 5-minute rounds of questions. I will ask
people, myself included, to adhere to that so that we can get
in as many folks as possible.
Ms. Harden, you cited an article, and I think it is this
one, but I wanted to ask. It is called, ``The Real Damage: Why
FEMA is Denying Disaster Aid to Black Families that have Lived
for Generations in the Deep South.'' Yes. The article cites
that many, many families are being denied aid by FEMA because
essentially, people have inherited properties through
generations, but they don't have paperwork to show that it is
inherited.
I was down in Puerto Rico after the Hurricane Katrina, and
this was a terrible problem there. We pushed very hard to have
it remedied, and FEMA worked out a fix allowing people to self-
certify, after enormous pressure. But this article says that
FEMA has been unwilling to extend the same fix to the Deep
South. I think that is a part of your testimony, that this
results in deeply discriminatory impact on communities of
color.
Is it your sense that this is something we have to make
sure FEMA addresses?
Ms. Harden. Yes, we definitely do. Just the fact that we
have already dealt with the floods, the flood has gone down,
and we are trying to get back to some normalcy of life. We are
a strong community, and we support each other fully. But we, in
ourselves, don't have the funds to help each individual family
get back on their feet. FEMA denying them this because of some
paperwork, it makes it even more devastating. We need this
help, and it seems that it continues to be overlooked.
Senator Merkley. We are having the same problem in Oregon
right now for families that were routinely denied help after
the devastating Labor Day Fires of last year, families that
don't have the same documentation that wealthier families might
have, so thank you for pointing that out.
Mr. Rexford, in your testimony, you note that the 2016
report included three recommended steps, the first of which is
just getting that comprehensive inventory of these, I think 650
sites, so that a plan can be developed. Has that inventory been
completed yet?
Mr. Rexford. Not to my knowledge. Again, it has been a
subject of funding availability, according to the Federal
Government.
Senator Merkley. So, are any of the sites, have any of the
sites been cleaned up?
Mr. Rexford. Some of the sites have been cleaned up, but
there are still remnants of contaminants and pollutants, in
many cases, called persistent organic pollutants.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, and I know dealing with
contaminated brownfield sites in my home State, it can be very,
very difficult to get those cleaned up, and part of the reason
we are holding this hearing is to give voice to these types of
challenges, so thank you for sharing your story today.
I want to turn to Professor Pulido, and Professor, I think
we still have you, hopefully, online. Can you address why
certain groups are more impacted by pollution and are more
vulnerable to climate change?
Ms. Pulido. Well, there are different reasons, depending
about which groups we are talking about, and what the specific
problems are. I know there is an effort, oftentimes, just to
talk about disenfranchisement or they are not at the table, but
the reasons and purposes really go far deeper than this.
As some of the other witnesses testified, there is deep
processes of colonization, which are very different, for
example, from why a farm worker experiences pesticide exposure
and illnesses and death, even, in California, or in the cases
around Cancer Alley, the areas around the Mississippi River,
like Louisiana, where there are very high levels of oil
refinery. Those are a different set of reasons.
What we have to do, I think, is always be looking at the
historical processes of what created these problems, but we do
see the consistency of both different forms of racism, as well
as exclusion that is happening that are causing the problems.
So we can codify them in broad terms, but there is always
very specific ones for each group that we are talking about, in
terms of both environmental problems as well as in terms of the
various population that we are talking about, including, for
example, like poor white populations, as well.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much. Since we are going to
stick to the 5-minutes, Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Drat, that means I have to stick to the 5-
minutes.
I want to thank our witnesses. Professor Pulido helps make
my point. She agrees with me that we ought to call this
environmental injustice. Thank you for that. Also, in her
testimony, she says in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and
South Carolina, it is the poorest who are the most impacted by
hurricanes and flooding, so I appreciate the professor agreeing
with me in that regard.
For Ms. Coleman Flowers, it occurs to me, and I think you
will agree, Ms. Harden, that Sharkey County, where you live,
sounds an awful lot like Lowndes County, Alabama, which was
described in her testimony.
Ms. Harden. Right. Yes, sir.
Senator Wicker. She mentions fish kills, floods, pollution,
that is exactly what we are experiencing and more in Sharkey
County, Mississippi. Is that correct?
Ms. Harden. Yes, it is.
Senator Wicker. I would just note, Mr. Chairman and my
fellow Senators, that the population loss during the time that
the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Program has been
promised has been astounding. In 1940, the population of
Sharkey County was 15,000, Mr. Chairman. In 2018, the latest
figures I have, just under 4,400 people. The entire population
of Sharkey County, it has gone from 15,000 plus to 4,400 plus
since 1940, the very time when the residents of the South Delta
have been crying out to complete this.
Ms. Harden, let us make sure we understand. This was a
three-part promise?
Ms. Harden. Correct.
Senator Wicker. Levees, the gate at Steele Bayou, and what
else?
Ms. Harden. The pumps.
Senator Wicker. The pumps. So the Federal Government, in
its wisdom, was able to complete two parts of this, leaving the
pumps undone. There will still be flooding after we have the
pumps. It is just that we will know where the flooding will
stop, and there will be the certainty. Can you elaborate on
that, Ms. Harden?
Ms. Harden. Just a sense of knowing for us, and we do know
if those pumps are in, the floods would not be as high. Our
farmers would be able to be in the fields working, which means
they are able to employ some of the lower income people.
If the farmers can't plant, then they can't hire, so it
becomes hectic on some other employees, some other businesses,
to try and make sure that these people working for us, their
husbands are working on these farms. We are trying to ensure
that if they don't have a job, how do we get more income into
their home so that they can still live sufficiently until the
flood is gone again?
Senator Wicker. Thank you for that.
And I appreciate Senator Merkley mentioning the problem we
have with title to property. I think large families without a
will, the laws of descent and distributions, sometimes, back
when I was trying to eke out a living as a small-town lawyer,
it was very difficult to find all the heirs. So I appreciate
Senator Merkley's efforts with self-certification there with
FEMA.
It is fair to say, though, Ms. Harden, that once we get
this third leg of the project done, there will be less need for
FEMA to come in, because the flooding will be in an area where
people will know in advance that you shouldn't build there, you
shouldn't plant there. If you do, you are assuming the risk.
Ms. Harden. Because you know, and we have dealt with this
all these years, and people say, well, move. This is our home.
It has been our home for many years. We can't just up and move.
Then, a lot of the lower income, how are they going to move?
They are stuck.
Senator Wicker. It has been their property for generations.
Ms. Harden. Exactly.
Senator Wicker. Let me ask you briefly, because the chair
is going to wield that gavel. Would this project benefit or
harm wildlife? Would it benefit or harm aquatic species?
Ms. Harden. It is going to benefit the wildlife. We saw so
much devastation in 2019 where you would travel somewhere down
the roads, and you would see all the dead animals on the side
of the road: the deer, the turkeys, just everything. Some
turkeys were extinct.
It should not be. People saying that this will harm
wildlife, well, all they had to do was come to Rolling Fork,
come to the Delta, and look and see how this flooding harmed
our wildlife.
Senator Wicker. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Thank you both. Good to see you.
Thanks for joining us today. Tell me where you are from, both
of you?
Ms. Harden. I am from Rolling Fork, Mississippi.
Senator Carper. I would have guessed Boston, but OK.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. And how about you, sir?
Mr. Rexford. Pardon, sir?
Senator Carper. Where are you from?
Mr. Rexford. Barrow, Alaska, top of the world, as far north
as you can go in the United States.
Senator Carper. Who would you say is your favorite Senator?
Mr. Rexford. Pardon?
Senator Carper. Who is your favorite U.S. Senator in
Alaska?
Mr. Rexford. Right over there.
Senator Carper. You got a couple of good ones, a couple of
good ones. Let me just say to our Chairman and Ranking Member,
thank for convening this hearing today, and we thank both of
you for joining us. We have a couple of other witnesses who are
going to come as well.
Today I believe is the first Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee hearing in almost 15 years on this subject of
environmental justice, first one. The first since the
Subcommittee has been renamed to include the words
environmental justice.
As we all know, this topic and the need for government to
address it is far from new. For decades, minority communities
and low-income Americans have shouldered much of the burden
from pollution and other environmental problems that impact our
Nation.
It is often hard to illustrate the enormity of a problem
such as this. But there is one statistic, one statistic that
stands out in my mind. That is a report last year that found
that 70 percent of the Nation's most environmentally
contaminated sites are located within just one mile of
federally assisted housing. Think about that. Seventy percent
of our Nation's most contaminated sites are all located within
one mile of federally assisted housing. That is just one drop
in the bucket, one funding of myriad, marred, that all paint
the same picture crystal clear. We are long overdue for a
reckoning here.
So when we say environmental justice, it is not a buzz word
or talking point. Environmental justice means that we have a
moral obligation to put justice and fairness at the forefront
of all the work that we do. When I talk about environmental
justice, I say it is another way of saying golden rule, treat
other people the way we want to be treated.
This has to be a top priority for all of us, Democrats,
Republicans, Independents. I could speak for myself to say that
is certainly the case as I approach our work on this committee,
which I am privileged to chair, and through the Environmental
Justice Caucus, which I co-founded with our colleagues Senator
Duckworth and Senator Booker.
So I am pleased that our committee is leading by example.
In April, our committee led Senate passage of the bipartisan
Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act by a margin of
89 to 2. We don't do many things around here by 89 to 2. Our
legislation makes overdue investments in our Nation's water
infrastructure so that our most vulnerable communities will
have access to reliable clean water and the means to pay for
it.
One part of our bill that I am especially proud of, 40
percent of the funds in the legislation are designated to go to
underserved rural and tribal communities, including communities
in Alaska. This funding will be crucial in helping
disadvantaged communities make necessary upgrades and to ensure
families access to clean water and a healthier brighter future
for their kids.
With measures like this, we can start to do right by our
neighbors and help those most in need, whether they are
neighbors around the block, across town, in another community
or county, those are our neighbors, too.
Through the American Rescue Plan, we need to set aside $50
million for environmental justice grants. We also set aside
some $50 million for environmental justice grants at the EPA
and another $50 million to improve air quality monitoring for
our communities most threatened by dangerous air pollutants.
Now, as this body is in the final sprint working on
expansive legislation to invest in our Nation's infrastructure
and economy, we must keep our focus on this core principle of
fairness to fulfill the moral obligation to lift those in
greatest need and pursue justice in all that we do.
This is especially true when it comes to providing a
nurturing environment so critical to livelihoods and prospects
for generations to come. We must make sure that we are working
to create a better future for all of our neighbors, whether
they live, again, in our community or in some other community
or across the town.
That is why I am pleased to have this hearing and
discussion that explores this important issue. We thank you for
coming today.
Now, a long wind-up for a short question. In your
testimony, you mentioned that you wrote a book about how rural
communities have traditionally been denied access to
sustainable and resilient infrastructure. With natural
disasters and extreme weather events on the rise, investing in
these communities as well as other communities that have
suffered from historic disinvestment will become even more
important. Here is the question. How can the Federal Government
help environmental justice communities prepare for climate
change and its effect?
Senator Merkley. Senator, is this for Ms. Flowers?
Senator Carper. This is for Ms. Flowers.
Senator Merkley. Ms. Flowers is online.
Ms. Flowers. Thank you. Thank you for that question.
I think the way the Federal Government can help
environmental justice communities adjust to climate change is
to pass the American Rescue Plan. I think that it is a start in
making sure that 40 percent of those investments are going to
those communities that are the front-line communities and the
most overburdened. I think we have seen some examples of that
today with the other witnesses.
I support that effort. I was just in a community where
people are dealing with raw sewage running into their homes for
over 20 years. But I think this is the first time that I have
heard, since I have been doing this work, an effort to try to
address this in all of America, but certainly rural
communities.
Senator Carper. Thank you for that response, Ms. Flowers.
Can I just mention a question for the record? I will ask
our witnesses to respond for the record. The question would be,
please tell us more, this is for Ms. Pulido. Here is the
question. Please tell us more about how threats to water access
impact environmental justice communities, especially those in
rural areas and how does this threat compare to the threats
from cumulative pollution releases that you mentioned in your
testimony? That is my question, and we will just ask you to
respond to the question for the record.
Again, our thanks to all of you for testifying today, and
for holding this hearing and letting me participate.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Chair Carper. Now,
Co-Chair, the floor is yours.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you all for being here today.
In order to support environmental justice communities, I
think it is imperative that rulemaking and permitting processes
still allow these communities to have economic opportunities.
You have spoken about that. I have supported bills like the USE
IT Act, which helps to maximize development of carbon capture
technology. Those promising technologies are essential to
reducing emissions while protecting jobs.
President Biden has recognized that reducing power sector
emissions requires ``leveraging the carbon pollution free
energy potential of power plants retrofitted with carbon
capture.'' So Ms. Flowers, I was surprised when I read the
recommendations from the White House Environmental Justice
Advisory Council, of which you were the Vice Chair, I think,
that group stated in their report, ``that any support for
carbon capture utilization and storage would harm disadvantaged
communities.''
I am asking you, Ms. Flowers, do you personally agree with
that recommendation that the Administration should stop
supporting carbon capture and utilization technology?
Ms. Flowers. First of all, I don't speak on behalf of the
WHEJAC, I am here as a private citizen.
But I will give you my personal opinion. My personal
opinion is based on my conversations with environmental
activists living in communities in California and other places
that could potentially deal with carbon capture. They are
concerned that carbon capture will harm their communities. I
think that the position of the other folks in the WHEJAC that
made sure that that was there was based on the lived
experiences of people who dealt with carbon capture who believe
that it will do harm. Part of one of the tenets of
environmental justice is to do no harm.
But in my personal opinion, I would like to see air quality
monitoring in Cancer Alley, and whatever needs to happen to
make sure that those plants are either shut down or they are
not polluting those communities as they are today. I don't have
enough information about carbon capture to be able to make an
educated opinion about it. Basically, what I am looking for is
whatever kinds of technologies that will make sure that we all
have access to clean air and clean water.
Senator Capito. Thank you. I appreciate that. The reason I
am interested in this obviously is where I am from, I am from
West Virginia. The report that came from the White House
Environmental Justice Advisory Council is different than what
the actual Administration and Council of Environmental Quality
is saying, that CCUS has a critical role to play in
decarbonizing the global economy.
I think that is a juxtaposition there of two different
positions coming from the same Administration.
I would like to know from Ms. Harden and Mr. Rexford, this
is something I struggle with, again, being a West Virginian,
because we have so many people that are heavily impacted by
regulations or by new policies that have come forward, or by
the inability to fix the problems. Where my frustration comes
from, and I think I hear this from both of you, is that you
actually go to the people who live there, who actually, Mr.
Rexford, you said it well in your statement, nobody is going to
care for your environment, your property, your part of the
world that is so deep in your culture better than you. Nobody
knows how to care for that better than you.
Is that a frustration for you, that sometimes all these
decisions are made and your voice is never heard?
Mr. Rexford. Thank you for the question. We truly believe
that at heart we are by nature, by culture, by how we live off
the land, we are the best stewards of the land.
Senator Capito. Right.
Mr. Rexford. We walk the land, we tend it, we fish, we
hunt, we trap. All these things bring a spiritual link and a
personal link to the land that we care for. That sustains our
way of life.
In terms of the rest of Alaska, I truly believe that the
138,000 Native Alaskans share that philosophy of life. Many of
them are being directly or indirectly impacted by these
contaminants and pollutants.
Senator Capito. Thank you. You would believe that West
Virginians are right there with you, and I think a lot of
people in the Country, and Mississippians, the same. Ms.
Harden, you mentioned, people say, just leave, just go away.
You can't leave, you can't, you don't want to, it is part of
who you are.
Ms. Harden. Yes. And you go out into your community, well,
most of the time the community comes to us.
Mr. Rexford. Yes.
Ms. Harden. Because our Dairy Bar is the center of our
town.
Senator Capito. Right.
Ms. Harden. You get the farmer coming in and telling you
how things are, and how hard it is going to be for their life,
and then you get the farmer's employees coming in and letting
them know how hard it is going to be for their lives. It goes
on and on, from the top to the bottom. I see it all and I hear
it all.
Senator Capito. Right.
Ms. Harden. My job isn't just to be a business owner. My
job is to care for these people and take care of these people,
because they are who takes care of me.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Capito.
Senator Duckworth is next, joining us online.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Flowers, thank you for your work as a fierce advocate
for environmental justice, especially in functional sanitation
for our communities across the United States. Your testimony
has very clearly demonstrated the very urgent needs to address
our failing infrastructure, especially in sanitation and
equality.
As Chair of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and
Water, I agree and believe that access to clean, safe water is
a basic human right. It is unacceptable that these very
vulnerable communities are impacted by poor water quality and
access.
Just look at the town of Centreville, Illinois, to see that
oftentimes these issues occur in neighborhoods of minority or
low-income communities. It takes far too long for the public to
hear about it and for people to get involved. For decades, we
have turned a blind eye to the water issues in this Country and
failed to provide adequate funding for these systems.
My Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act would
invest over $35 billion Federal dollars to assist these
vulnerable communities in receiving the funding they need to
modernize their water and wastewater infrastructure. I know
that this amount of funding would be a great start. But this
must be a continuing legacy in order to really make a
difference.
Ms. Flowers, would you agree that access to safe, reliable
drinking water and wastewater is an environmental justice
issue?
Ms. Flowers. Yes, Senator Duckworth, it is an environmental
justice issue. Clearly, what we saw in Lowndes County, we did a
parasite study. We actually collected fecal blood and water and
soil samples. We found evidence of hookworm and other tropical
parasites in areas, especially in areas where people are not
dealing with proper sanitation. This is a problem throughout
the U.S.
Yes, I went to Centreville, actually saw it first-hand. I
am happy that you are sponsoring this type of fix. There needs
to be a continuous effort, because the problems are worse than
we even know, because there is no central data base that
documents sanitation issues across the U.S.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I think that is a very good
point.
Do you think that major Federal investment in water
infrastructure should be a top environmental justice priority?
Ms. Flowers. Yes, because water is life. None of us can
live without water. We have seen what happens when we really
don't deal with the health consequences of these issues,
especially how it impacts the public. It could very well be
that typhoid and all the other kinds of things that come about
as a result of inadequate sanitation could happen again. COVID
has taught us when it comes to public health that we cannot
turn a blind eye to it, because we are all impacted by it.
Senator Duckworth. Water is life. You are so, so right.
In Illinois, we have more known lead service lines than any
other State in the Country. As you know, there is no known safe
blood level for lead in our children. Therefore, these outdated
pipes are a threat to our children's health. This threat is
especially higher for minority children.
The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of
2021, which passed the full Senate with 89 votes on the floor,
would invest Federal dollars into the testing for and
replacement of lead pipes. The President has made it one of his
top priorities to fund billions of dollars for national full
lead line replacement.
Ms. Pulido and Ms. Flowers, do you think the Federal
Government should prioritize billions of Federal dollars to
remove all of the lead service lines in this Country?
Ms. Flowers. Yes.
Ms. Pulido. Yes.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I know it sounds like a no-
brainer to you and me, but let me tell you, there are others
who would argue otherwise.
People of color are one and a half times more likely to
live in an area with poor air quality. This can lead to major
health problems like asthma, heart attacks, cancer, and
reproductive issues. In fact, if you are in Chicago and you go
just 10 stops on our rapid transit system, the El, from the
heart of Chicago, the Magnificent Mile where you have shops
selling $1,000 Gucci purses, and you go 10 stops on the El to a
black and brown neighborhood, just 10 stops, the life
expectancy drops by 18 years. Not from gun violence, but from
health issues like asthma, heart attacks, cancer. I have been
pushing for efforts to increase air monitoring on a hyper-local
level.
Ms. Pulido, to address the infrastructure inequity, would
better implementation of mapping and screening tools help
address these shortcomings, by identifying the communities that
need it most and connecting them with policy solutions?
Furthermore, what other tools do you think are necessary to
ensure the Federal infrastructure investments that are being
discussed get to the correct, most vulnerable communities they
are intended for?
Ms. Pulido. Thank you, Senator, for the question. Yes, we
have to begin by simply having the right data. We don't have
that. It is a problem on multiple levels. Oftentimes we have
poor quality data, so that needs to be really improved. A lot
of times community scientists or organizations, they do ground
truthing to try to verify the data, like, is there a pollution
source there, and things like that. So improving the quality of
data is really, really important.
Second of all, as I said earlier, we need to address the
cumulative impacts, versus the individual facility or emitter,
which certainly is important but does not capture what is
happening, those stops that have an 18-year difference in
longevity. So that is this cumulative environment that we are
talking about, and we have very limited ability, although I
note Illinois is one of the States that has made steps to begin
talking about cumulative impacts. So we need to absolutely see
that across the board.
And this becomes really very urgent, particularly in
cities, in urban areas, more so than many rural areas, although
not entirely. That is not the case.
One of the last things that you said is what else does the
Federal Government need to be doing. One of the things I think
is really important is to think about, I frankly feel that on
the part of the Federal Government, as well as many other
government agencies, there has been a lack of political will to
really go after and enforce existing environmental laws. We are
not even talking about people that are outside the scope of the
law. We can't even enforce the existing laws.
We have had cases, for example, in Los Angeles of major
polluters such as Excide, their lead emissions were 50 times
over the regulatory limit. It took them decades, and they would
not actually solve the problem. They were forced to finally
close down, after which they decided to declare bankruptcy,
leaving the entire State of California with the cleanup bill
for acres and acres of lead contamination.
So it has to be a higher level of political will to
actually enforce existing laws.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I am over time, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Yes, thank you very much, Senator
Duckworth.
We will turn to Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing.
I think we already have one unanimous agreement from here,
and that is on water and the issues that Senator Duckworth just
mentioned. I will mention in Alaska, and Mr. Rexford certainly
knows this, we have over 30 communities that don't have any
running water. No flush toilets, nothing. No running water.
They are almost all Alaska Native communities. These are
American citizens. I think it is just completely inappropriate.
By the way, some of the most patriotic Americans in the
Country, Alaska Natives. Like the lower 48, Native Americans
serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic
groups in the Country. Yet, they don't have water. That is just
unacceptable. I think we all need to work on it. I think there
is bipartisan support to do that.
Mr. Rexford, thank you again, sir, for being here,
traveling very far for this meeting. I appreciate your
mentioning King Cove in your testimony as well. It is very
magnanimous of you to be talking about a Native community that
is probably 1,000 miles away from your Native community. But it
makes the point, and I think it was a really good point.
Let me go back to your issue of contaminated lands. For my
Senate colleagues here, this is the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, the biggest Native settlement act probably
certainly in American history, maybe world history, 44 million
acres. Yet so much of the land was contaminated.
We have made some progress here. We have clarified, thanks
to the work of Chairman Carper recently, that the CERCLA
liability will not apply to ANCs. Finally clarified that. But
Mr. Rexford, what other types of assistance do communities such
as your need from the Federal Government to address this issue?
Forty-five years, almost 50 years where there hasn't been
cleanup by the Federal Government, which clearly is responsible
for cleaning up these contaminated lands. What more assistance
and other types of assistance would you recommend?
Mr. Rexford. Thank you, Senator Sullivan. In one word it
would be commitment.
Senator Sullivan. Commitment.
Mr. Rexford. Commitment to clean up. I have a reference
docket I have prepared for the committee, referencing to
relative issues that have substance on our continued efforts to
work with the Navy on cleanup. But the message is, we will give
it to you as is, where is, and you are liable for cleanup.
Senator Sullivan. Good.
Mr. Rexford. We cannot live with that. We can't afford it.
Senator Sullivan. Consistent commitment. Your testimony
does a really good at kind of showing how the Feds sometimes
are engaged and they are not engaged. So you want consistent
commitment to this issue.
Mr. Rexford. Yes, commitment.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Let me ask you another question. I
mentioned the resource development opportunities. Senator
Capito mentioned some of the regulatory issues. Can you tell us
how, just one example, the Barrow Natural Gas Field discovery
had a very big beneficial impact on your community?
Can you speak to that as just one example of how resource
development has provided opportunities, provided energy, low-
cost energy, and other things in your community that I think a
lot of times people just take for granted in the lower 48, but
can be very important in Alaska?
Mr. Rexford. Yes. Senator Sullivan, and committee members,
as a child growing up, one of my tasks was to get firewood from
the beaches or from the landfill in order to heat the home and
cook, melt water, et cetera. That escalated to a coal bag I had
to put on a sled and take home from the Indian Education
Service Barrow Native Co-Op Store. That was the process.
Then that escalated to heating oil. They made heating oil
No. 1 to put two and a half gallons into a stove that is on the
back of a heater. And you had to be very careful. And those
were my tasks in our household.
One day I went home and two, 3 days passed by, I was about
8, 9 years old. And I didn't have to go pick up that fuel oil
to heat the house. I said, Mom, are we going to run out of
fuel? She said, no, we have natural gas now.
This is the benefit that we have now, is that we have cost
effective, natural gas to heat our homes.
Senator Sullivan. Clean burning, too, correct?
Mr. Rexford. Yes. It took years for the Native village of
Barrow and the city of Barrow Council to advocate for it from
the Federal Government. But they did. It took a long time. But
it has been resourceful for us in that it has--I would like to
make a comparison.
Senator Sullivan. Please.
Mr. Rexford. When you go into the villages, you are going
to pay up to $2.50 a gallon or $3.50 a gallon to heat a home
for three or 4 days. This is reality in the villages. In the
outlying villages outside Barrow, we are fortunate that through
negotiation and through advocacy in the 1960's that we were
able to get natural gas hooked up to the community.
That made a world of difference. Then we could melt water,
we could have showers and we were fortunate. But still many
today don't have that luxury. We call it a luxury because it is
taken for granted.
Senator Sullivan. A luxury, but people in the lower 48,
they don't view it as a luxury. You do, though.
Mr. Rexford. Let me just put it in this analogy. When I
woke up in the morning, the water basin would be frozen. That
is my analogy of water service that needs to be corrected. For
those communities you mentioned earlier that simple, life-
saving water source that is healthy and sanitary.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Sullivan. Senator
Kelly?
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rexford, I want to followup on Senator Sullivan's first
question about cleanup. Specifically regarding Superfund
cleanup. I appreciate the focus in your testimony on the ways
that tribes are often left behind in the Superfund cleanup
process.
Like Alaska Native Corporations, many tribes in Arizona
have struggled for decades to compete for funding in the
Superfund process. For example, there are more than 500
abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. Despite years of
work on the part of tribal leaders and repeated commitments
from Federal leaders to work to clean up these sites, only four
sites, only four out of 500 are currently undergoing
remediation, in large part because for many sites, it has been
impossible to locate a responsible party with the ability to
pay.
Mr. Rexford, can you expand upon your testimony for why the
existing process used by EPA for prioritizing Superfund cleanup
sites may put tribes at a disadvantage?
Mr. Rexford. In terms of the Superfund or funding programs
for contaminated pollutant cleanup, either we have to work
directly with the Native village of Barrow or the Inupiat
community of the Arctic Slope to receive those funds. We can do
a partnership with the North Slope Borough, a borough-wide home
rule government. The reason why we are not getting what we need
is priorities set by EPA, priorities set by regulation, don't
quite get to our villages.
Now, when an accident occurs, that seems to be the time
that we get a drop in the bucket. Like the Valley of 10,000
Barrows, someone gets hurt, and then they provide NALED
funding. They were able to clean up in a period of 4 years, in
four summer seasons. Or when we applied for CERCLA funds we
didn't qualify because we weren't a tribe.
The White Owl sites and Dulang sites that are infested with
asbestos, PCBs and are still on the ground, when the EPA and
ADEC and BLM called on me to identify the site locations at
Camp Lonely, we had to show them, map out where those locations
were. I worked a lot of those sites in my lifetime with the
labor union, with the Teamsters. We need our share of money to
clean those up.
Now, residuals, in the villages, you can see sheen. I will
use Point Hope as an example. At the North Slope Borough
mayor's office, I was taking the lead on the radioactive
isotopes that were left behind by the Atomic Energy Commission
of the United States in the 1960's. They left isotopes in the
ice, in the sole body of water that the local people use for
water. They had the highest cancer rates in the Nation at the
time. The community couldn't understand why everyone was
getting sick when they were not being exposed to anything they
knew of.
Yet this drinking water source had radioactive isotopes
that the Atomic Energy Commission left buried and said, leave
it alone. Ogotoruk Creek was a water source for the community.
We have had to bury many, many of our relatives in Point Hope
over the years because of that very fact. That has been noted
in reports to the Atomic Energy Commission and the Federal
Government. That is just one example.
Now, the Tupaluk [phonetically] site, National Petroleum
Reserve of Alaska site, a family subsisted there, and 80
percent of that family directly died of cancer. Cancer. People
of promise, people that were very productive in how we support
the community through whaling, through subsistence. Eight of
their family members of 12 died from cancer, 8. This is
devastating. These are facts that we live with.
We need the money. We would like to be able to clean up
Inupiaq Lake that was a water source for the community for
decades. The Air Force used it as a water source. The
Department of the Navy used it as a water source. However, the
contaminants from the 1963 100-year flood devastated that water
source, and now paths are known to be in there. So we are
putting up signs, do not drink water from Inupiaq Lake. After
centuries of access to this water source, we are telling our
own people, do not drink this water source.
So how do you get the money to the impacted community, to
the impacted agency that is responsible for that? They want us
to sign on a document that says we are going to receive it as
is, where it is, and we foot the bill of millions of dollars of
cleanup? We can't do that. We would deprive our next generation
of shareholders opportunities for education, opportunities for
health care and benefits for travel when they need it in
emergencies. This is how we put back what little economic
profit that we have so that we can continue to support them,
especially for those that are needy.
My colleague and my peer to my right has very eloquently
described the very things that we are faced with in the rural
community. We share the same concerns. We have the same
problems. But how do you get Federal Government to say, OK,
this is a priority, we have 3,500 people that are being
affected, we have 8 of 12 people in a family that have died?
How do you balance that in the name of cleanup, or the loss of
a life?
I am passionate about this because they are my people, my
community, and I represent them. But I live with them; I grew
up with them. And I have seen them go.
Thank you for your questions. I do hope I didn't miss your
question.
Senator Kelly. No, you didn't. It is apparent that there
needs to be more direct funding where you do not have to apply
to multiple, or to agencies, that the funds need to get to the
communities to do this cleanup. I appreciate your examples.
They are compelling. We have similar examples all over Arizona
where this cleanup needs to be done. We have to do better. Four
abandoned uranium mines, I mean, 4 out of 500? It is
unacceptable.
Thank you, Mr. Rexford.
Mr. Rexford. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Kelly.
Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
having this very important hearing.
Environmental justice populations have been burdened over
and over again by pollution, disinvestment and designed
neglect, not benign neglect, designed neglect. As discussed by
Professor Pulido, it is critically important to address not
just individual sources of pollution, but the cumulative
impacts of each alongside socio-economic conditions.
In drafting the Environmental Justice Mapping and Data
Collection Act, Senator Duckworth and I worked closely with
environmental justice advocates to create a framework for a
Federal method to map these cumulative impacts and ensure that
communities that are most at risk from environmental injustices
are prioritized as we address the climate crisis.
Professor Pulido, and Ms. Flowers, would you agree that it
is important to consult with communities in the process of
creating these maps as well as in addressing any gaps in data
that would make it harder to understand and tackle
environmental justice issues?
Ms. Flowers. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think
yes, we have to consult those communities. Just to give you a
quick example, in a lot of the rural communities, if you don't
go down those dirt roads and know that people are there, they
will not be counted. I think it is very important that the
people that are impacted are also part of the data collection.
That is why we have so many gaps.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
Ms. Pulido. I would agree with that. I think it is really
essential. One of the things that we have seen, I haven't seen
the Federal model, what it will look like.
But I know in cases like EJ Screen, which has been one
prototype that has been developed, where they go and involve
local community members, they can point out sensitive land uses
that will also impact how we understand cumulative impacts. So
for example, is there a childcare center there, or is there an
elder care facility there, or schools. Those all have big
differences. So it is very essential for this to happen.
Senator Markey. Thank you. And to both of you, again, would
dedicated funding for community engagement, cumulative impact
mapping and data collection make it easier to prioritize and
properly value communities' contributions to these efforts?
Ms. Pulido. Yes.
Ms. Flowers. Yes. I agree.
Senator Markey. Excellent.
Professor Pulido highlighted in her testimony extreme heat
is an environmental justice issue, even within the same city,
due in part to historic redlining and differences in tree
cover. Some neighborhoods, often lower income communities, or
communities of color, can be up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit
warmer. Despite the fact that most heat-related deaths and
illnesses are preventable, extreme heat events kill more
Americans than any other weather event.
As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure. That is why I will soon be reintroducing my
Preventing Heat Illness and Deaths Act to strengthen
interagency efforts to address extreme heat and provide
financial assistance for projects that reduce the health
impacts of extreme heat events such as urban tree plantings,
cool roofs and streets, and cooling centers. Climate change is
only going to worsen the extreme heat crisis. We need
prevention now.
Professor Pulido or Ms. Flowers, would you agree that
additional investment in extreme heat prevention could help
address historic inequities and protect public health?
Ms. Pulido. Absolutely. It is urgently needed. People are
dying.
Ms. Flowers. Again, Senator, I concur that this is
definitely needed, yes.
Senator Markey. Thank you both for that.
Finally, in the grips of a respiratory pandemic, healthy
air shouldn't even be determined by zip code. But even within a
single neighborhood, air quality can vary up to 800 percent. We
can't manage what we don't measure, and Federal funding levels
for air quality support have remained unchanged for nearly two
decades, which is unbelievable. That is why I am working on
legislation that provides grant and contract funding for hyper
local air quality monitoring in environmental justice
communities.
Professor Pulido and Ms. Flowers, would you agree that it
is important for us to be able to identify, communicate about,
and finally, work to resolve air pollution hot spots all across
our Country?
Ms. Pulido. Yes, I would agree, absolutely.
Ms. Flowers. Yes, I also agree. I think that the people in
Cancer Alley would welcome that.
Senator Markey. Yes. And again, Cancer Alley is just one
example that has proliferated across our entire Country. It is
time for us to have environmental justice at the core of any
piece of legislation which we pass this year. Because if we
don't map it, it is impossible then to rectify the historic
injustices.
So thank you both for your work historically, and thanks to
both of our panelists as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
conducting this hearing.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Markey. We are going to
have a second round in which each Senator is allowed one
question. So if you would like to stay and you have something
else, I know Senator Sullivan has a question, and I understand
Senator Wicker might return for an additional question.
So my additional question goes to you, Ms. Flowers. You
refer in your testimony to Cancer Alley along the Mississippi
River, where residents combat very high cancer rates due to
pollution. What is the source of that pollution that is
affecting residents in Cancer Alley?
Ms. Flowers. Thank you for that question, Senator. I had
the opportunity to visit Cancer Alley and was taken on a tour
through the communities, and met with community people, led by
Retired General Russell Honore. I was shocked by what I saw. It
was almost like a Disneyland of petrochemical plants sitting
along the Mississippi River. Even thought I was only there for
several hours, I myself had respiratory issues once I left
there. I had to really go to bed for a week, trying to figure
out what was going on with me.
To me, it made me feel that it is even harder for people
that have to live there. These plants are located next to
homes, they are located next to schools. The people have been
trying out for the longest about getting air quality monitors
there, so they can monitor what is there and be able to show
the correlation between what is being emitted in the area and
the illnesses that they are dealing with.
So that is so needed. Cancer Alley is just one example, as
you stated earlier. But clearly, we have to use that maybe as
an example of how get local people involved and be able to
monitor and track what is happening there.
Senator Markey. Thank you very much for sharing that. I
will just note that one of the side effects of natural gas is
climate change that is driving the tremendous fires out in
Oregon. But another side effect is natural gas is the feedstock
for the petrochemical industry making plastics and results in
very high cancer rates for those who are located nearby.
Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to
raise an issue that I have raised a number of times in this
committee. The Biden Administration's stated focus on racial
equity and environmental justice in my view has not fully
considered the welfare of Alaska Natives, which are certainly
our biggest minority group in Alaska, who have seen great
advances in life expectancy, life expectancy because of the
opportunities and health benefits of resource development.
So this is a chart that shows, that is from an American
Medical Association study on changes in life expectancy in
America from 1980 to 2014. The dark blue and purple are the
biggest increases, up to 13 years, and the yellow and red are
unfortunately for our Country decreases. That is a lot of where
the opioid epidemic has hit communities very hard.
But Alaska had the highest life expectancy increases of any
place in the Country, by far. The reason is twofold. One is
unfortunately the Alaska Native people had a very low life
expectancy to begin with.
But resource development started happening on the North
Slope, the Northwest Arctic Borough, the Aleutian Island Chain.
I am worried that as this Administration starts to focus on
shutting down those opportunities in our rural communities that
these incredible advances, 13-year life expectancy increases, I
don't think there is anything more important than that in terms
of an indicator of policy success than are the people you
represent living longer. And in Alaska, they are living longer
because of these opportunities.
I am worried that we are going to go backward in this
important area if this Administration focuses on shutting down
resource development opportunities in our State, particularly
the rural areas.
Mr. Rexford, you have a lot of experience with this general
issue, seeing life expectancies increase, the economic
opportunity that comes with resource development. Would you
like to comment on this? Do you have concerns that if these
opportunities are shut down, we are going to be going backward?
Mr. Rexford. Yes, thank you, Senator Sullivan, committee
members. In my entire lifetime, my father was with the
Teamsters Union and worked resource development going to remote
sites for 6 months out of a year, and would come home, through
Arctic Constructors and USGS seeking oil and gas exploration,
so that we can have resources to develop. Then he was there
during the discovery of the pipeline at Parson Camp in Dead
Horse, in Prudhoe Bay. I worked the pipeline. There was a
benefit to economic jobs. Also, the State of Alaska enjoyed the
royalties that allowed us to get in some cases basic services,
water, wastewater treatment. Yet today, there are struggles.
The benefits that I have directly seen since 1974 in my
short lifetime after graduating from high school in 1973 is our
ability to tax oil and gas properties. We don't have a royalty.
Don't get me wrong. We don't have royalty. But we had to file a
lawsuit so that we could generate revenue to build roads, to
build health clinics, to build fire stations, to build
airports, high school and junior high facilities. Every program
and service, behavioral health, that comes with infrastructure
needs.
That is basically just from the ad valorem tax of
approximately 2.5 percent, 1.8 to 2.5 percent annually. That
helps support economic jobs, safe water, health clinics so that
we can get better health care, and detect illnesses before it
went too bad.
Now, when we talk about the eight villages, Barrow being
the hub, and the eight villages are still struggling because
infrastructure is now 45, 50 years old. We continue to upgrade
them with what little money that we have to keep them going, to
continue the level of services.
But these are the benefits that we have received. The
subsidy of heating oil to the villages is very crucial,
especially in the economically depressed zone and several of
the villages that have no economy. But there is the North Slope
Borough, the Native villages that tribes and the city, that
provide minimal job opportunities. They have to go outside of
the community to support their families, to provide for their
families. Otherwise, it is welfare. And we are not a welfare-
driven community.
Senator Sullivan. No.
Mr. Rexford. We like to be industrious, industrial. We like
to be productive and give back with our own, with our dignity,
with our self-respect, in the name of a job and employment.
That is what we seek.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you. Very powerful. Best government
program is a good job.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To any of our witnesses, President Biden's plan for job
creation is to have 40 percent of programs, of the revenues, go
toward communities that are environmental justice communities.
What in your opinion is the best way to ensure that 40 percent
of all of the funding goes into those communities? What would
you like to see put in place in order to accomplish that goal?
Senator Merkley. Do we want to direct that to someone? Ms.
Harden, you are ready to speak to that? Go ahead.
Ms. Harden. The money is great, and it is needed. But what
we need to see in the Delta are the pumps. Because without
those pumps----
Senator Markey. The what?
Ms. Harden. The pumps, the backwater pumps. We need those
pumps put in. Without those pumps, we are not able to have many
job opportunities. The businesses are closing. People are
moving. We need to be able to keep the people there.
So with us getting those backwater pumps, that money would
be greatly needed in our area. But we need the pumps before
that.
Senator Markey. Great. Very helpful. Yes, Mr. Rexford?
Mr. Rexford. Yes, Senator Markey, my ears are ringing,
would you repeat the question so I can understand it?
Senator Markey. President Biden intends on 40 percent of
all the funding in his Jobs Creation Act to go to environmental
justice communities. What is the best way to ensure that that
money gets to those communities?
Mr. Rexford. In order to have direct access to those
communities, we need to have an entity that will receive them,
administer and implement the programs intended for it. Now, if
there are provisions in there of that funding, how is it going
to filter down and put back into the community and sustain it?
That is the question; can we sustain after the funding is
available to sustain the program to future generations?
With all due respect, the Sunshine State of Florida has a
lot of sun. But 6 months out of the year, we nearly have none.
So solar energy is limited.
What type of program would generate, what kind of
infrastructure would generate sustainability? That would be a
goal that we could set, this will definitely be sustainable for
future generations and yet reduce the ability to maintain and
operate it to a minimum that it sustains itself. I do hope I
answered your question.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Rexford. If you could, my
time is about to expire, Professor Pulido, Ms. Flowers, would
you have any quick insights that you would like to give to the
committee as to how to make sure that funding does go to
environmental justice communities?
Ms. Flowers. First of all, we should have a scorecard to
make sure that it does in fact go to those communities.
Guardrails should be put in place to make sure that the
business opportunities that are created will be created for
people that live in those communities as well.
Senator Markey. Beautiful. Great. Ms. Pulido.
Ms. Pulido. One of the things I would say is by working
directly with already existing community organizations, groups
doing environmental justice work, that would be a really good
kind of conduit [indiscernible] that are oftentimes already
doing it, like weatherization projects and things like that.
Senator Markey. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you all for
your contributions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Markey, and
to my colleagues for the variety of questions exploring this
issue of economic justice and economic injustice.
There was a gathering back in 1991, and this gathering was
a significant landmark in the national discussion about
environmental justice. There was a 4-day summit attended by
over 1,000 individuals from all 50 States. It was sponsored by
the Commission for Racial Justice and the United Church of
Christ.
Out of that came a set of four principles for environmental
justice that have continued to reverberate through the last
three decades. One is that public policy must be based on
mutual respect and justice for all people. Second, that the
environmental justice communities have the right to participate
as equal partners in decisionmaking, including needs
assessment, implementation, enforcement, and evaluation. That
is the seat at the table.
The third is the use of land and renewable resources must
be ethical, balanced, and responsible in the interest of a
sustainable planet for both humans and other living things. And
fourth, it is important to consider the cumulative impact of
every source of pollution in a community rather than looking at
each source in isolation.
So I wanted to close with those thoughts, as I am sure we
will be continuing the conversation about environmental
justice. It is so important to make sure that we do.
Now, some thank yous, to Professor Pulido, Ms. Coleman
Flowers, Ms. Harden, Mr. Rexford, for your contributions based
on the experiences and knowledge you have accumulated through a
lifetime.
I would like to ask unanimous consent to submit for the
record a number of reports and articles related to today's
hearing. Hearing no objection, thank you.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Additionally, Senators will be allowed to
submit questions for the record through the close of business
on August 5th. We will compile those questions; we will send
them out to our witnesses and ask our witnesses to reply by
August 19th. So if we have questions for you all, in addition
from other members, or members who are here today, we will get
those to you. We would appreciate your sending us the answers
back, and we will make them part of the record.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]