October, 07 2020, 12:00am EDT
![Climate Justice Alliance](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012592/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Summer Sandoval, summer@uprose.org  Â
Olivia Burlingame, olivia@climatejusticealliance.org
Climate Justice Alliance Demands States Step Back From the Inequitable Transportation & Climate Initiative Due to Its Policy of Sacrificing Environmental Justice Communities
Calls on states to work directly with frontline environmental justice communities to address local emissions & pollution.
WASHINGTON
Missing for over 10 years from the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) equation have been the voices, insights and policy recommendations from those very communities impacted first and worst by these incremental big money initiatives that profess to tackle climate change and equity, while bolstering the corporate business models of the most harmful and profitable polluters on the planet.
The outright disregard for the historical and present day impacts of such devastating policies on black, brown and poor communities, despite claims to the contrary, continues to be demonstrated throughout TCI's inequitable policy and process. A point made crystal clear last week when most frontline environmental justice communities were notified a mere day in advance that they would be given 3 minutes during the last section of the TCI Northeast & Mid-Atlantic States' webinar, slated to address environmental justice but actually minimized the very communities impacted by it.
Given the emboldened white supremacist environment we currently face in this country, this approach is tone deaf at best and racist at worst, explained Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) steering committee member Maria Lopez-Nunez of Ironbound Community Corporation in New Jersey during the Q&A.
This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. In response to criticism during the webinar, Kathleen Theodharides, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for Massachusetts admitted, "we do know that environmental decisions made historically have been too white, and have not had enough voices, diverse voices at the table." A practice that appears hard for TCI to break.
Late last month, a handful of transportation, health, business and big green interests announced a related campaign to support TCI in the NY region, disingenuously citing the disproportionate burdens placed on communities of color from pollution. According to Renae Reynolds, Transportation Planner for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, "It is clear that the proponents of TCI are not committed to and are woefully incapable of ensuring an equitable policy development process, therefore we have no confidence that there will be equitable results for our communities should TCI get implemented. One only need look at the proponents of it, which include oil giants like British Petroleum (BP), who have harmed frontline communities for decades." This comes after CJA delivered letters to big green NGOs such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and others to cease support for TCI because it expands sacrifice zones for those most impacted by the climate crisis.
Other states' experiences tell a cautionary tale. An analysis of California's Cap and Trade (1) program revealed that greenhouse gas and co-pollutant emissions actually went up in environmental justice communities after the program began. While States in the Northeast are beginning down a failed road, governors like Gavin Newsom in California are reconsidering similar policies in California due to their inefficiency. Even California's Clean Vehicle Rebate Project benefited high income communities and left out BIPOC communities from any benefit in access to the program or reduced emissions(2). Given TCI's heavy reliance on electrifying personal vehicles, it will likely go down a similar path of favoring the rich and almost rich who can pay upfront for these vehicles as they wait on rebates.
According to Basav Sen, Climate Policy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, "There is not a single example of a cap, trade and invest model that's been successful in significant emission reductions in historically disenfranchised communities who suffer the most from air pollution. Can TCI guarantee targeted emission reductions and prevent future pollution hotspots that have been the signature of so many other cap and trade models?" he asked. To ensure no disproportionate impacts on frontline communities, a good place for states to start is with the Climate Justice Equity Principles for TCI.
During the webinar discussion Maria Belen Power, Associate Executive Director of GreenRoots based in Chelsea, Massachusetts asked, "The Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI) is a market mechanism that is designed to reduce emissions in the transportation sector, but will it reduce emissions for Black and Brown communities... or will it only do that for wealthy white communities, who have always gotten the benefit, while we receive the environmental and public health burden?"
"Rather than advocate for truly transformative and unprecedented legislation, such as the recently passed NY Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (a result of five years of community organizing work), states are spreading themselves thin advocating for a policy that marginalizes our communities and does not reduce emissions at the source where BIPOC communities are dying of air pollution today. We need reductions in air pollution now, not false promises for the future," said Summer Sandoval, Energy Democracy Coordinator at UPROSE in Brooklyn, New York.
In step with TCI's failed equity process thus far, earlier this week Harvard, Boston, and Columbia Universities contacted CJA environmental justice communities just 24 hours before the release of their New TRECH Project Research Update on Health Benefits of TCI Policy Scenarios to share results.
CJA and Environmental Justice groups challenge Harvard's preliminary findings for not including historical environmental justice communities and rather, focusing on the narrow health impacts of biking, walking, and on-road emissions. We were disappointed to understand that as of yet, the study's "back-of-the-envelope" findings are still inconclusive on the impacts of TCI on the combined transportation and power sectors, especially given the disproportionate emphasis of TCI on electric vehicles. At the same time, the study finds large disparities in air pollution exposures that persist by race/ethnicity under policy scenarios in 2032.
"The electricity to power electric vehicles has to come from somewhere. Those power plants and extractive industries are in environmental justice communities. Those are the kinds of studies we need, not results that show that biking and walking improve health. Researchers should be partnering with those most impacted to support community solutions, not stale bread solutions that are clearly dated and do not reduce emissions at the source of production, which is where we learn, live, play, and pray," emphasized Angela Mahecha Adrar, Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance.
Current science and world events call unequivocally for bold NOT incremental strategies to address the climate crisis and equity. Due to the pandemic many people are traveling less, living and working closer to home, and a number of policies that have been central to our shared struggle for equity across the Northeast are far better investments than TCI. Unequivocally, TCI should not move forward; it will waste millions of dollars and divert energy away from core equitable policies being organized now by those on the ground.
Frontline communities need programs that address local emissions, not programs that disregard disparities in place-based pollution and continue the destructive practice of sacrifice zones, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. TCI is simply unacceptable. If states truly want to address inequity they should work directly with those already living with the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis.
To learn more please read the Climate Justice Equity Principles for TCI.
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed in 2013 to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement by uniting frontline communities and organizations into a formidable force. Our translocal organizing strategy and mobilizing capacity is building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression, and towards resilient, regenerative and equitable economies. We believe that the process of transition must place race, gender and class at the center of the solutions equation in order to make it a truly Just Transition.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
ordered county election offices to stop registering voters with past felony convictions who have not received official pardons. The move came after the state's unicameral Legislature passed a bill granting voting eligibility to felons immediately after they have completed their sentences instead of waiting two years.
"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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