Senate unanimously supports Vermonts 1st environmental justice policy by ReTime.org March 26, 2022 Studies and testimony before state lawmakers this session has shown that Vermonters experience environmental burdens in different ways and lawmakers have advanced a bill that attempts to address the issue. On an initial voice vote Friday, lawmakers in the state Senate unanimously supported a bill, S.148, that would establish an environmental justice policy. If it passes, Vermont will join the vast majority of states in the country that already have such a law. The Senate is set to take a final vote on the bill next week. If approved, it would be sent to the House of Representatives. This bill is fundamentally about fairness in operations of government, said Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, who chairs the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy and spoke about the bill on the Senate floor on Friday. The policy would require the state government to acknowledge and address environmental harms, and to include people who are most burdened by those harms in decisions about projects and funding that could touch their lives. Throughout the session, lawmakers have heard how some Vermonters including those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, have low incomes or are not fluent in English generally are harmed more than others by environmental dangers such as pollution and extreme weather. Those same Vermonters are less likely than others to have access to environmental benefits such as affordable energy, fresh food and green space. Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, introduced the bill this session. Shes been working to pass environmental justice legislation for more than a decade. Through her work, Ram Hinsdale said, she has seen an intersection between poverty, pollution and political power that we must understand in this state and this country in order to make progress. Ram Hinsdale cited a number of statistics in the findings section of the bill. During Tropical Storm Irene, people living in mobile home communities made up 8% of the state population but 40% of the flooding victims, she said. What we heard 10 years later was lingering trauma from Tropical Storm Irene, a feeling that people were left behind and still are to some extent. That they never fully recovered, she said. Vermonters who are Black, Indigenous or people of color were seven times more likely than white Vermonters to have gone without heat in the past year, more than twice as likely to have trouble affording electricity and seven times less likely to own a solar panel, according to the bill. For many of these issues, climate change acts as a threat multiplier, according to the bill. Rutland has the highest asthma rates in the state, Ram Hinsdale said, and Newport has the highest rates of energy poverty. When she and others traveled the state and spoke to those burdened by these impacts, they could list so many problems, she said. When residents were asked where they went for a solution, they were often brought to tears, she said. People would say, I don’t know. I look at a website, and I don’t know what to do next. Nobody ever comes to my community. They tell me if I want to make a difference, I have to go to Montpelier in the middle of the day to be heard on some docket that I don’t understand, she said. According to the findings section of the bill, Vermonts lack of a policy has resulted in a piecemeal approach to understanding and addressing environmental justice in Vermont and creates a barrier to establishing clear definitions, metrics and strategies to ensure meaningful engagement and more equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. S.148, Ram Hinsdale said, provides a framework to make sure, when people have questions, they have somewhere to go for answers. That they don’t experience the rural isolation of poverty and pollution without also experiencing the political power needed to remedy their situation. The bill The policy would establish that no segment of the population of the state should, because of its racial, cultural, or economic makeup, bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens or be denied an equitable share of environmental benefits. It would address existing environmental burdens in several ways. First, it defines an environmental justice population. Those populations include Census blocks where the annual median household income is 80% or less than the states median household income, where people of color and Indigenous people comprise 6% of the population and where one or more households have limited English proficiency. The Agency of Natural Resources would review and recommend updates to the definition every five years. The policy says the state should provide opportunities ensuring environmental justice populations can meaningfully participate in the development and implementation of laws, regulations and policies. By July 1, 2025, it requires every state agency to develop a community engagement plan that articulates its inclusion of environmental justice populations when evaluating its new and existing programs. Were dropping a stone into a pond, Bray said, referring to the Agency of Natural Resources as the first agency to take on the work. The ripple, he said, will travel to all of the other state agencies. Agencies would be required to report publicly on their spending in environmental justice populations. At least 55% of the benefits from investments should go toward those populations, according to the bill. The bill creates two new bodies: an Interagency Environmental Justice Committee, which would give state agencies advice about implementing the policy and revising definitions, and an Environmental Justice Advisory Council to provide independent advice and recommendations to State agencies and the General Assembly on matters relating to environmental justice. The 17-member Advisory Council would review state agencies and provide feedback about their implementation of the policy and would review any complaints alleging environmental injustices, suggesting potential solutions. More than half of those 17 members would reside in environmental justice populations. They would include: the states director of racial equity; representatives of municipal government; environmental justice populations and organizations; groups working on food security and mobile home park issues; state-recognized Native American tribes; immigrant communities; environmental organizations; the executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board; and the chair of the Natural Resources Conservation Council. Finally, the policy would create an environmental justice mapping tool that would depict environmental justice populations and measure environmental burdens at the smallest geographic level practicable, maintained by the Agency of Natural Resources. Reactions Environmentalists and environmental justice organizations applauded the Senates support of the bill on Friday. In a statement, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray called the bill an important first step in establishing a whole-of-government approach to addressing inequities and promoting environmental justice. Johanna Miller, energy and climate program director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said the bill has benefited from the leadership of many Black, Indigenous and people of color and environmental justice experts. Some said details about how the proposed policy is implemented will determine its strength. This work must be done in a way that brings most impacted communities to the table. This bill represents essential progress towards that end, Sebbi Wu, climate and equity advocate for Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement. Bindu Panikkar, a researcher with the University of Vermonts Rubenstein School of Natural Resources and Environment who has extensively researched environmental justice issues, said the bill is just the first big step. Environmental justice, she said, is not just about particular facts and instrumental policy means. We should not forget that justice is inherently about social values. It is about questioning hierarchies and particular social orderings. Participation is key to building true democracy and creating meaningful solutions, she said. If we can truly implement these guidelines presented in this bill on distributional, procedural and recognition justice, she said, we can surely do transformative work of building a more just, equitable and sustainable future for all. Don’t miss a thing. Sign up here to get VTDigger’s weekly email on the energy industry and the environment. Did you know VTDigger is a nonprofit? Our journalism is made possible by member donations. If you value what we do, please contribute and help keep this vital resource accessible to all. 0 Comments 0 0 Climate action has been a calamity says Senator Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.| Climate crisis Previous Article FAA delays SpaceX Starship environmental reviews another month, to April 29 Next Article View Comments (0) Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published.Name* E-mail* Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
