Key members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council say one year into the Biden Administration’s commitment that 40% of all benefits from climate investment go to disenfranchised communities, not enough has been done.
Speaking Tuesday at a press briefing ahead of the HBCU Climate Change Conference in New Orleans, they say they’ve secured $14 million from the Bezos Earth Fund for a program called Engage, Enlighten and Empower to hold the Biden administration accountable for carrying out its Justice40 initiative.
On his first day in office, President Biden made this commitment in an executive order. The initiative has been seen as a remarkable push to bring environmental justice and justice to communities that have been suffering from pollution and climate inaction for a long time.
Beverly Wright, Peggy Shepard, Robert Bullard are three members of federal environmental justice council who are leading the $14-million-dollar effort. They have been closely working together with the administration on Justice40.
But Wright told members of the press that more needs to be done to turn a novel idea into a project that works.”
The trio are combining philanthropic grants from the Bezos Earth Fund, $6 million from Shepard’s WE ACT for Environmental Justice, $4 million from Wright’s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and $4 million from the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, to ensure federal funding from Justice40 goes where it’s intended, Shepard said.
According to a press release, the effort will ensure that the Justice40 initiative is implemented at both the state and local levels in an equitable manner and that local communities are able to participate in policy-making that results from the initiative.
The funds will be used to educate grassroots organizations about the resources available through Justice40, inform the state and local governments on how to use the money, and create a screening tool that includes racial demographic information to determine where Justice40 funds most are needed. A federal screening tool used to screen applicants for federal funds is controversial because it does not consider the racial makeups of communities.
There has been very little progress since the Justice40 pledge. This is because the federal government is still trying determine which communities most need the investment. Many respected environmental justice advocates advocated for a systematic, deliberate process to identify disadvantaged communities and disburse funds.
At the briefing, Wright and Bullard said they’ve seen past federal social and infrastructure projects fail to deliver on promises to disadvantaged communities and don’t want to see it happen again.
There’s been a lot of really novel approaches at changing the lives of Americans in general that have worked out” benefitting just white Americans, Wright said.
Bullard highlighted discrimination in the distribution of flood relief in Texas, where Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice can be found, as an example.
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