Susan Melkisethian via Creative Commons
Thirty years ago, I helped organize the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, which began in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 24, 1991. It was the first time in U.S. history that leaders would come together to address human rights with a focus on environmental justice.
An English teacher by love and training, I came to the environmental justice movement through nuclear weapons issues. The federal government’s Savannah River Site, which produced radioactive material used in nuclear weapons, contaminated the river and environment near my hometown of Savannah, Georgia. Witnessing its impact on my community growing up ultimately caused me to expand my work beyond voting and civil rights issues.
The bill’s comprehensive solutions would help address the enormous harm that people and the Earth are suffering—infractions that did not occur overnight.
At the summit, sitting next to giants who had been fighting for more than a decade against Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, I felt like I was being baptized in an incredible sea of movement work. Feeling the empathy from summit participants and knowing that people cared was overwhelming. For the first time, I felt like I wasn’t alone in fighting against environmental injustices and racism.
The individual agendas we all brought to the summit became a collective agenda to go home and develop local, state and regional networks that would build power to advance equitable policies.
As for nuclear weapons complexes, we were able to get the federal government to establish a site-specific advisory board, which included community and environmental justice groups for every facility. It was monumental.
Nationally, the ethics around community engagement also began to change. At the time of the summit, when federal agencies received public input, it meant men in suits would use a stenographer to capture people’s two-minute statements. It was a check-the-box exercise.
We worked to change that. The National Environmental Policy Act became the mechanism for ordinary people to weigh in on projects that would affect them. Community members were provided with resources to travel to meetings and could use their own scientists to assess the data.
But many of those gains were eroded under the Trump administration. Enforcement of public health and environmental safeguards ground to a halt, and Environmental Protection Agency officials had limited contact with communities and environmental groups. As a result, hundreds of EPA officials retired or quit.
Now, we must build the EPA back up and move on past these setbacks.
Congress is currently considering the Build Back Better Act, which would address environmental injustices in myriad ways. One example of this is a provision that would beef up the EPA system that tracks companies’ air pollution and river waste discharges to ensure they follow federal laws.
The bill would also reduce air pollution concentrated in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods by addressing diesel truck emissions and providing climate justice grants to communities.
In addition, the bill would clean up legacy pollution and hazardous waste sites, assist in making affordable housing resilient to extreme weather events caused by climate change and provide training for people to enter the new green economy.
The bill’s comprehensive solutions would help address the enormous harm that people and the Earth are suffering—infractions that did not occur overnight. Now Congress must ensure that these vital provisions stay strong and are robustly funded. They must do the right thing by ensuring that the country builds back far better compared to what we had.
It’s time—past time—to deliver on what environmental justice leaders called for at the National Summit 30 years ago.
This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.