Since the beginning of 2017, when Donald Trump became President, there’s been a major sea change, figuratively and literally, too. According to an analysis conducted by the New York Times earlier this year, the EPA and the Interior Department under Trump have dismantled scores of environmental rules on power plant and vehicle emissions, and on wetland, aquifer and wildlife protections. At the same time, this administration has loosened dozens of regulations on drilling and mining, while restricting the time allowed for environmental reviews.
Looking at the long list of rollbacks, it seems clear that the current executive branch of government seems hell-bent on environmental plunder, with an accompanying disregard for vulnerable populations. But there are some folks up on Capitol Hill who are working toward a very different result.
In June of last year, Congressman Raúl Grijalva (AZ-03), Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, and his colleague Congressman A. Donald McEachin (Virginia-04) hosted a daylong convening in Washington D.C. They brought together environmental justice stakeholders from around the nation. There were fellow lawmakers in attendance like Representatives Deb Haaland (NM-01) and Rashida Tlaib (MI-13). There were scholars like Professor Bullard, now considered by many to be one of the fathers of the environmental justice movement. There were activists from teenaged to gray-haired.
And there were battle-tested directors of environmental nonprofits like Richard Moore of the Environmental Health Justice Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, who confessed to the gathering, “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
But – just as the 1992 Environmental Leadership Summit had done – bringing people together in 2019 energized everyone all over again. In large part, that’s because the need for climate action has become too urgent for anyone to ignore at this point. But it’s also because Grjjalva and McEachin supplied an opportunity to take meaningful steps to do something about it. They announced the launch of a yearlong bill-writing project that depended on the input of attendees.
Their new Environmental Justice for All Initiative was reminiscent of the Environmental Justice Act first sponsored by Congressman Lewis back in 1992. The legislation would address how to remedy racial disparities in the application of environmental protections. But since Lewis had first introduced his bill, global warming driven by human-made emissions into the atmosphere has accelerated climate change in a way that is now tangible to all. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and Maria have happened. In the American West, the annual wildfire season is expanding in length and magnitude and frightening ferocity. And according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the acidification of the world’s oceans is increasing drastically as the upper layers of oceanic waters are now absorbing some two billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.
In other words, it’s no longer just the people in those front line communities who are affected by the toxic byproducts of our industrial economy. Increasingly, it’s everyone.
Congressman Raul Grijalva Congressman A. Donald McEachin