Climate Change and Health Seminar Series: “Navigating to climate equity through policy methods”

June 26, 2023

Information

Ms. Suzi Ruhl joined YCCCH to discuss her work in strengthening community social support and tackling environmental challenges in CT.

Speaker:

Suzi Ruhl, JD, MPH, Senior Research Scientist, Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center and Director of Policy, Elevate Policy Lab at the Yale School of Public Health

March 27, 2023

ID10079

To CiteDCA Citation Guide

00:00<v ->So these guys had a wonderful break</v>
00:04and today it is my great pleasure to introduce Suzi Ruhl.
00:09She's a Senior Research Scientist at Child Study Center
00:13and also the Director of Policy at Elevate Policy Lab.
00:20Suzi's interest,
00:23child, maternal, and family mental health and social support
00:27and equitably build an individual and community resilience
00:30by tackling the highest priority communities.
00:37One thing I want to highlight
00:40is that Suzi co-founded the Brownfields to Healthfields,
00:46a community driven policy holder approach,
00:49really getting the community
00:53to talk about environmental justice and climate justice.
00:56Just want to make last one thing
00:59is that prior to her (incoherent),
01:02she has been serving more than a decade
01:03at the best EPA office of the environmental justice
01:08at the same hospital.
01:10So without further ado, let's welcome Suzi Ruhl.
01:17<v ->Thank you all so much for coming to my talk.</v>
01:20I know you had to,
01:21but I looked at each and every one of you
01:23as the new reinforcement,
01:26like baseball season is coming up
01:28and you're the new pinch hitters
01:30or you can do a basketball analogy,
01:31and today I'll be using a sailing analogy,
01:34but your role is vital in helping the world
01:37from local to global really address climate change.
01:41And every news cycle brings to us
01:44a sense of urgency of what's happening
01:47and who's it's happening to.
01:49As we know from the "Rolling Stone" report
01:52over this past weekend,
01:53of the 60% of the community that is Black,
01:56one in four are living below the poverty line.
01:59And what I'm trying to do
02:01with the approach I'm gonna be sharing with you today
02:04is highlight and really drill down on an approach that,
02:09in my opinion, is anemic at this time,
02:11which gives you a great opportunity to step into this place
02:14and really shape it.
02:17And what's anemic
02:17is this recognition of this disproportionate burden
02:20on people of color and low wealth,
02:24and the lack of effective and robust use of policy measures.
02:30And so today you better put your seatbelt on
02:32because we're gonna be going through a lot of information.
02:34Don't worry about this,
02:35consider this to be the appetizer where I just taste it,
02:40because what I really wanna do is inspire you
02:42and incentivize you to really pay close attention
02:45again to this equity piece,
02:46but also to the method of policy.
02:50So that's what we're gonna do today.
02:52And as context,
02:54I want to give you a little bit of a background
02:58on how I got to where I am today
03:00because that clearly delineates the approach
03:03that I'm proposing and that I'm using,
03:06I'm implementing,
03:07and I feel like I've learned from the best.
03:08I've learned from the people
03:09who do bear the burden of pollution, disease, poverty,
03:12and crime, but who are brilliant
03:14and who have done so much to protect
03:16the life of their families and their community.
03:20I also wanna emphasize
03:21that I'm going to be covering the federal approach.
03:24There are enormous opportunities
03:26at the non-federal approach at the state level,
03:29but I do wanna start with the federal approach.
03:32And from the lens of what I've done,
03:35as I started my career working
03:37with a public interest law firm
03:38that I started in my basement of my house
03:40in Birmingham, Alabama,
03:42a good company with Martin Luther King
03:44coming out of the Birmingham Jail.
03:46And it was a law firm that was created to work with,
03:51arm in arm, hand in hand
03:53with the people again, who were bearing the burden
03:55of pollution, disease, poverty, and crime.
03:57We didn't have much money, but we had a lot of energy.
04:00And we had major victories,
04:02we sued the Department of Energy
04:04for losing 2.4 million pounds of mercury
04:07in a creek in Tennessee that the community relied on
04:09for subsistence eating.
04:11We won that lawsuit in summary judgment,
04:13and now there's a billion-dollar program
04:15to deal with legacy contamination.
04:17And the Department of Energy even recognized that lawsuit,
04:22Lee vs O'Dell,
04:23as one of the top 10 actions of the 1980s,
04:26along with the fall of communism.
04:28So that shows you the power
04:29that people can come and bring to the table.
04:33I spent my time there, did a little bit of work on nonprofit
04:35on the national level,
04:36but I spent a number of decades suing the federal government
04:40and multinational corporations.
04:41Then when Obama was elected,
04:43I got recruited to be senior counsel at EPA.
04:47And I wanna say, as an aside,
04:48some of the great questions
04:50that y'all have presented already
04:51talk about that interface
04:53between EPA and the other departments.
04:55I have to say that the most glorious time
04:58was working with the other federal departments
05:00'cause I think that's where we made the most progress.
05:02And I'll talk more about that today.
05:04But coming back to today, and where I am,
05:07and where you are,
05:08was the recognition that trying to save the world
05:11out of the beltway in DC
05:14or the beltways of the state capitals
05:16where you have the regional agencies is not enough.
05:19It's simply not enough.
05:20Premature deaths are not slowing down,
05:23it's getting worse, exacerbated by COVID and continuing.
05:27And that creates the opportunity,
05:28the need for everything that you're doing
05:30as a student of public health to really make a difference.
05:33And it's to make a difference
05:35both from the lens of looking at the stressors,
05:38the environmental stressors and adversity,
05:40and really seizing the day with policy.
05:43So with that, because I'm giving you so much,
05:47and I always like to introduce a little bit of fun
05:49and excitement, I love to do the sailing analogy.
05:52I'm the person who thought I was gonna go
05:54on a nice relaxing vacation
05:56from the northwest corner of Spain
05:57to an island off of Africa.
05:59Turns out we ran into the tail end of a hurricane
06:01and we were a thousand miles in the North Atlantic
06:04dealing with a hurricane.
06:05So that taught me a lot about survival,
06:07survival and sailing,
06:10but also survival and the work that we're trying to do.
06:14And when we start talking about climate equity,
06:17which is our destination,
06:19and when we start talking about policy,
06:22the first thing we need to ask ourselves is, what is policy?
06:26And I think that I'm gonna actually read this
06:29in terms of a definition.
06:32It's generally defined as a system of laws,
06:35regulatory measures, courses of action
06:37and funding opportunities concerning a given topic
06:41that's promulgated by government.
06:43And I think that my three years of experience
06:46in an academic setting
06:47has been that the understanding of policy is anemic at best.
06:51It's very limited.
06:53It's not recognized as being multidimensional
06:56and having different types.
06:58But most importantly, in coming to this class
07:00and the concept of methods,
07:03is that just like the wind is the movement of air over land,
07:08policy has to be thought of as not a noun, but a verb.
07:12And what I wanna do today is break down
07:15the components of what you need to do to really dive into
07:19or jump into the oceans of sailing
07:22and think about what are those methods
07:24and what is the foundation
07:25that you need to be able to navigate
07:27and chart your course for policy to get to climate equity.
07:32And again, making the analogy between the sea state
07:35and the conditions of the impacted population,
07:38thinking and knowing what are your coordinates,
07:40where are you gonna get to with the decisions
07:42and the decision makers,
07:44understanding the authorities,
07:46the full range of authorities that we have
07:47that are gonna influence climate
07:49and climate's impact on people and the natural systems.
07:53And then I wanna end
07:54with some case examples of the application of this process
08:00for charting your course to climate equity
08:03through policy methods.
08:05So to get started,
08:07how many of you are familiar with the mapping tools
08:11and how many of you have used the mapping tools
08:14that either the federal or the state government have created
08:17for environmental justice and climate justice?
08:20See, that's great.
08:22That's great.
08:23And there are some very interesting nuances
08:25because I'm sure that you're aware
08:26that the seminal tool was EJ Screen.
08:30I was in EPA at the time that was created.
08:33I wasn't involved hand-on-hand,
08:34but I really emphasized the need to recognize
08:37the public health component.
08:39Even though every environmental statute
08:41talks about environment of public health,
08:42most of EPA's focus has been on the environment
08:45and not on public health.
08:46As you know, there are 12 indicators.
08:49It looks at environmental indicators,
08:51as well as socioeconomic status, race, income,
08:55English proficiency, educational level, so on and so forth.
08:58And so that's been the historical one.
09:00But under the Biden administration,
09:02we've had two new EJ mapping tools come out.
09:05The first two, and I'll talk more about it later
09:08in terms of authority,
09:09was dealing with Executive Order 14008.
09:13And looking at the Justice 40 initiative,
09:15again, talking about it a little bit
09:17later on in the lecture.
09:20It's coming out of the CEQ,
09:22the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
09:27which is pretty much the policy voice
09:30for the federal government,
09:31even though it doesn't have a lot of legs
09:33and doesn't have a lot of staff.
09:35But again, they indicated, obviously front and center,
09:38climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution,
09:42transportation, water, wastewater,
09:45workforce development,
09:46common themes of what this administration is doing
09:48to deal not only with climate mitigation,
09:50but also climate adaptation.
09:53For me, the most exciting new tool is what HHS
09:56has just recently released in the last few months,
09:59which is once again really zeroing in on the public health,
10:04human health aspect of climate and environmental injustices.
10:08And it is declared as the first tool
10:11that's gonna be looking at the cumulative impact.
10:14And they're looking at three different modules,
10:16one on the environment, one on social vulnerability,
10:19and one on health vulnerability.
10:21And coming from both of the entities in which I serve
10:25with the focus on mental health,
10:26I'm delighted to say
10:28that one of the five health vulnerabilities
10:31is mental health.
10:32And I think as we're seeing in the field of climate
10:34with climate anxiety and the extension of that
10:38into the EJ lens of climate anxiety,
10:40that is a very, very, very powerful new tool
10:43and a very powerful statement coming out of the US HHS.
10:49We have our federal mapping tools,
10:53we now have three,
10:54we have huge amounts of money
10:56going into these mapping tools.
10:58Well, the states have actually dwarfed
11:00what the Feds are doing.
11:02In fact, California predated EJ Screen and now,
11:06and this was a 2021 mapping,
11:10but we can see that states are taking action,
11:15and I don't even wanna say in addition to what the Feds
11:20are doing because they're taking different approaches.
11:23But we have some exciting tools in the next slide,
11:28I'm gonna get into the nuances,
11:30but I wanted to highlight the fact
11:33that right now the state of Connecticut,
11:35with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection,
11:39is developing its own mapping tool
11:41and they're doing their beta testing now,
11:43and there'll be a window of opportunity
11:45for you to participate in its review and adaptation,
11:51so I would strongly encourage you to do that.
11:54From the policy and equity lens,
11:56what I really wanna emphasize is,
11:59alright, well now we have such an important opportunity
12:04to assess the sea state,
12:05to assess what's going on in the communities.
12:08The question then becomes, well,
12:09what are we gonna do with this information?
12:11And again, coming back to some of the questions
12:14that you also astutely presented in advance of this class,
12:18what is EPA gonna do
12:20now that we've got environmental justice established
12:22as a major priority?
12:24And with my career at EPA,
12:27I actually jumped in
12:28at the tail end of the Bush administration
12:31because there's a carryover,
12:32elections are in November,
12:34the new administration starts in January,
12:37and then it takes time for some of these people to leave.
12:39So I got a little bit of that lens
12:41from the Bush administration, then I had the Obama,
12:43and then I stayed with the Trump just to annoy them
12:45and kind of get bloody fingerprints and paper trails.
12:50But the conversation has been,
12:52we're doing a really good job on diagnosing the problem,
12:54we're getting better and better about that.
12:56But then what does that mean for the community?
12:59And actually last Monday, or maybe it was last Tuesday,
13:03I participated with DEEP in its beta testing of its new tool
13:07in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
13:08in a community that I'll be telling you more about
13:10in the future.
13:11But after they went through the beta test,
13:13these were some of the profound remarks.
13:15And the first was, "Well, now I know what it means.
13:17I'm gonna die
13:19and I'm gonna die faster than my white neighbors,
13:23'cause we know that Bridgeport is in Fairfield County,
13:24which has the highest income disparity in the nation."
13:28One person also said,
13:29"Well, I really can't see where my address is
13:31because it's too dark."
13:32That's because there were so many layers of the dark colors,
13:35which means you have the highest risk.
13:37And the ultimate walkaway was,
13:39"Okay, so now that we know we're gonna die sooner,
13:41now we know that we have 10 layers of risk,
13:43which means I can't even see my street address.
13:45What's gonna happen?"
13:48And there's radio silence, right?
13:48What are we gonna be doing about it?
13:50And so I think when we look at the mapping tools,
13:52and again, for you,
13:53because you're at the start of your career,
13:56this is a chance for you to get embedded at the front end,
13:59change the Connecticut EJ mapping tool.
14:03And you've got amazing staff at DEEP,
14:05you've got an amazing EJ coordinator,
14:06so you've got a very receptive audience.
14:08But we've gotta look at the fact
14:10that so many of these tools, not all of 'em,
14:12but so many really are servicing the researchers,
14:16their serving the grant writers,
14:18the organizations external to the community,
14:20and we have to confront that.
14:21We have to confront how much money's being put in
14:23and who is that supporting?
14:25It's also from a very pragmatic perspective,
14:29don't bring in the community
14:30that should be the primary beneficiary at the backend.
14:34Bring them in at the front end.
14:36Also, it's looking at that lack of gap
14:41between the data findings and some policies.
14:44I wanna give a huge shout out to the state of New Jersey
14:46because their EJ mapping tool,
14:49I see you smiling?
14:50Are you from New Jersey?
14:51Good for you.
14:52Actually uses its mapping tools as a decisional,
14:57not a predecisional, not to inform,
14:59but help decide whether certain types of facilities
15:02can be permitted in that area.
15:04That is huge, that is precedent-setting.
15:06We need that in the state of Connecticut,
15:07and you guys can champion that as one of your things to do.
15:12And then like I said, above all, it's a huge opportunity.
15:14It's a huge playing field for you to get engaged
15:17in policy and policy methods.
15:21So that's understanding the sea state of what's happening
15:24in the communities, what's happening with climate,
15:26who's getting impacted,
15:28where you might find some beachheads
15:30and toeholds to get involved.
15:32Now I wanna switch,
15:33going beyond the who of climate equity,
15:36I wanna talk about the coordinates.
15:39When we set sail off the northwest corner of Spain,
15:41we just couldn't say we wanted to get to Madeira.
15:44I had to have the latitude and longitude
15:45'cause if we didn't have the latitude and longitude,
15:47we would've ended up maybe in the Canary Island
15:50or some other island.
15:52But even though this is basic civics,
15:56and I'm sure that you learned this a long time ago,
16:01you have to pull that back up and let that be your chart.
16:05And the key is to understand the decision makers
16:09to begin with.
16:10Because again, in policy from the academic lens,
16:13too much of the time is spent at the congressional level,
16:17which makes the legislation set the appropriations,
16:22but it doesn't have the details.
16:24And the details and implementation
16:25come out of the executive branch.
16:28And within the executive branch,
16:29you have the president
16:30who is the ultimate boss of the federal government.
16:33I'm sure you've heard of many of Biden's executive orders.
16:36I think he's done the most for environmental justice
16:39of all the presidents,
16:41at this point, building on the legacy of Obama and Clinton.
16:44And then in the agencies,
16:46that's where the rubber meets the road,
16:48so you need to be thinking about that.
16:50And then you need to be thinking about
16:51the role of the courts.
16:52Because today, when it comes to climate,
16:55when it comes to environmental justice,
16:56no matter where there's one decision in this continuum,
16:59there will be an action by another part.
17:02Whether it's a good law
17:03and somebody will sue to challenge it,
17:04whether it's a bad law, somebody will sue to challenge it,
17:07whether it's a good court decision and so on and so forth.
17:09But you really need to narrow down and don't just say,
17:13"We wanna do climate policy, we wanna do climate equity."
17:16But really find out who the decision makers are
17:19and what branch of government did they come from.
17:23Equally important, again,
17:26with the complexity of climate policy,
17:29you have to understand not just the levels of government
17:32and where that action is taken,
17:33but the interrelationship between those levels of government
17:36because the lines between federal, state, and local
17:39are dotted.
17:40They're not bright lines,
17:41but there are certain pieces,
17:43certain rules of the road that you need to understand
17:45when you're trying to navigate that.
17:47Number one, that the federal government
17:50and the state government
17:51uses the same branches of government,
17:52with the executive, the administrative,
17:55you've got the legislative and the judicial.
17:58It's also important to be familiar
18:00with the constitutional supremacy clause
18:03and which authority takes priority, knowing,
18:06and given that the federal law
18:08generally preempts the state law, but there are exceptions,
18:11but you need to understand that playing field.
18:14It's also important to know
18:16that the federal government usually sets the floor,
18:18not the ceiling.
18:19And states can be more protective,
18:21and that's where you get that dynamic
18:23between touching the local power structure
18:26with the local voice.
18:28And then also a very important part,
18:30and I use this quite a lot
18:31in my old public interest law days,
18:33is that the federal laws give EPA the authority
18:37to delegate programs to the state.
18:39And so not only do you have to say,
18:41"Well, who is the primary decision maker being the state?"
18:44When the state doesn't do what it's supposed to do,
18:46you need to know who to go to
18:47and that brings you back to the federal level of government.
18:50Like I said, this is basic civics,
18:52but this understanding just produces so many ripe
18:57and rich opportunities to move policy,
19:00to get to the outcomes that we want.
19:04Again, basic civics,
19:06but it's really important to understand
19:08the types of legal authorities out there
19:10recognizing that legal authorities are policy.
19:14The two are not separated.
19:17And when you look at
19:19the different types of legal authorities,
19:22you can also need to say,
19:24"Well, where does this authority come from?"
19:26Does it come from Congress?
19:28Does it come from the executive branch with the agency?
19:31Does it come from the courts?
19:32And it's also important to think about which of these
19:34are judicially enforceable,
19:37and when do you have to apply the arbitrary
19:40and capricious clause
19:41or when can you use numbers of the voice of the public,
19:46the political wins.
19:49I'll be going over more of these
19:51as I talk about the specifics.
19:53But in general,
19:55when you look at the enforceability,
19:57constitutions, statutes, rules and regulations
20:01are judicially enforceable.
20:03That's where you have your checks and balances.
20:06Generally speaking,
20:08executive orders are not judicially enforceable
20:11unless they are carrying a statute with them.
20:14And NEPA is a perfect example of where
20:17an environmental justice analysis,
20:19under the executive order on environmental justice
20:22can be judicially enforceable
20:23when the decision comes in under NEPA.
20:25And then you have to be mindful
20:27of the different court decisions.
20:30One of the nuances and the experience
20:33that I had under the Obama administration
20:35is despite the political interest
20:39and maybe will to put forth
20:41some really aggressive provisions, Biden's policy reports,
20:47the politics meant that most things did not go
20:51from that unenforceable to that enforceable realm,
20:55and most of the good thinking
20:57was then labeled under reports.
20:59And so we had to find ways to work around that,
21:01and I'll talk about that later.
21:04But again, always be mindful of,
21:05what is the type of authority,
21:07who is responsible for it,
21:08and what is the accountability for implementing that?
21:14Another point, again, this is the appetizer here, right?
21:17Or I don't know what other analogy you may use,
21:21but in addition to knowing the whom,
21:24and in addition to knowing the types of laws,
21:27the policy framework for the federal government
21:32and the executive branch
21:33where most of the depth of the work is undertaken
21:36is governed by administrative law,
21:39which is the branch of law that deals with the creation
21:43as well as the operation of the agencies,
21:46and the statute that governs this
21:48is the Administrative Procedures Act.
21:50Again, it could be a whole course on the APA,
21:56but that sets up provisions explaining how to do rulemaking,
22:02how to do permitting, how to do enforcement.
22:05And so again,
22:06when you're diving deep into the policy development
22:10or the policy challenging it,
22:12then you have to understand the APA.
22:16It's common knowledge that the law sets a broad scope of it,
22:24but it gives that agency
22:25that broad discretion to dive deeper.
22:28And this is again a space of really active practice
22:31on policy.
22:34As I mentioned before,
22:36not only do you have to know what the law says,
22:39you have to know how to legally work around any roadblocks
22:43that you get because of politics
22:44that are particular to the agency.
22:47But just keep that in mind
22:49as you're navigating the policy methods.
22:53So again, what we have here is you have your sea state,
22:59you know the conditions in the community,
23:01you now know your coordinates, your latitude, longitude,
23:03the decision and the decision makers
23:04on how they're operating.
23:06So the next level that you're gonna jump into
23:09is this rhumb line.
23:11And when I was on that boat in the North Atlantic
23:15with a hurricane, they said,
23:17"We've gotta do the rhumb line."
23:19Well, I thought that meant we were gonna have happy hour
23:21because it was a pretty rough trip,
23:23we ran into a rogue wave that went 20 feet into the air.
23:26But a rhumb line is not that.
23:28The rhumb line is basically those points
23:31literally on the Earth
23:34that you're gonna set your course,
23:36and it's gonna guide you from your point
23:38that you wanna get to, to where you need to be.
23:41And I'm sure you know this, I could ask this as a question,
23:45but there is no climate justice law.
23:48There is no one law that's considered climate.
23:51It reminds me of what happened with our drinking water
23:54and our groundwater
23:57because there is no law
23:58that's designed to protect the groundwater.
24:01So it's important to start from that position
24:04because that means that climate justice, climate equity,
24:09climate change law is really a patchwork
24:12of a whole range of authorities enforceable,
24:16non-enforceable.
24:17The bad news is there's a lot to cover,
24:20the good news is there's a lot to choose from.
24:22There's a lot of opportunity to harvest,
24:24to patch together what you wanna do
24:25to get to your destination.
24:28There has been a bill filed,
24:30the Climate Justice Act in 2021,
24:32just like numerable environmental justice laws
24:36that were filed over the course of the decades,
24:38but none of them ever got adopted,
24:41but you just keep moving on.
24:45So when we think of the rhumb line,
24:48those points on the map
24:49that are gonna help get us to our destination,
24:52and when we think of climate equity specifically,
24:57but it also has broader applicability,
25:00we do need to start
25:01with the authorities for environmental justice
25:04because this administration has married the two,
25:06they haven't separated them.
25:08And so I was gonna do a little bit of a run-through
25:13on these authorities,
25:15even though some of them are historical
25:17and they've been added on to by the Biden administration.
25:20The executive order on environmental justice
25:23signed by President Clinton in 1994
25:25really is that architecture for doing environmental justice
25:29even with the new executive orders.
25:31And the action-inducing provision
25:34for Executive Order 12898,
25:37the action-inducing is the identification
25:41and the addressing of a disproportionately
25:44high and adverse human health or environmental effects,
25:47so that's the action-inducing piece.
25:48But what's really important is that it's not just EPA,
25:52and too many people have limited their focus
25:54on environmental justice and climate justice on EPA,
25:57it's all the federal departments.
25:59There were 17 different departments that I worked with
26:01and that it's their policies, their programs,
26:04it's all of their activities looking at minority
26:07and low-income populations.
26:08Well, that was the language used in '94,
26:12it's been updated, but it also included tribal
26:14and indigenous communities.
26:17The executive order on its face
26:19is not judicially enforceable
26:20unless it's applied to another statute.
26:22But the design of the executive orders we're seeing today
26:25use that same framework.
26:29But perhaps more powerful than the executive order
26:33was the presidential proclamation
26:36accompanying the executive order.
26:38And the presidential memorandum
26:42accompanied the executive order said
26:45that while executive orders aren't judicially enforceable,
26:48your power to enforce is through our environmental laws.
26:51And the president advised and directed
26:54all the agencies to consider
26:57these existing environmental laws,
26:59as well as the civil rights law,
27:00plus your Freedom of Information Act,
27:03other statutes like that
27:05to address the environmental hazards in the community.
27:08And so as a little bit of a pause button
27:10and a commercial break,
27:12I talked to Rob and I've talked to Kai about this
27:14is the creation of your own grab and go bag.
27:17I dunno if y'all saw the UN report last week
27:19when they talked about a survival kit,
27:20but we were ahead of that.
27:21Each of you needs to have your own grab and go bag.
27:24That's what we have to have on a boat
27:25when it gets ready to sink, right?
27:26So you need to prepare your own grab and go bag.
27:29But in this particular instance,
27:31it's looking at executive orders,
27:33it's looking at presidential memorandum like this one,
27:37it's also this presidential proclamations.
27:40And I wrote several of these, didn't get adopted,
27:42but I wrote 'em, but at least I had that game plan
27:45and then persuasive authority.
27:46So you need to be thinking about that.
27:48So with that emphasis on environmental justice authorities,
27:56this is the suite of environmental laws
27:57that we have at our disposal to craft the vessel
28:02that's gonna take us to climate equity.
28:04And when you look at these laws,
28:06there's a couple of ways to cluster them
28:09to kind of navigate it.
28:10Obviously the first is, well, what resource does it address?
28:13You've got the Clean Air Act, obviously air,
28:16then you have two that are dealing with water,
28:20Clean Water Act, which deals with surface water protection,
28:24and Safe Drinking Water Act,
28:25which is not a groundwater protection statute.
28:28It deals with underground injection
28:28and it deals with public water supply systems.
28:33Both of those have huge opportunities for policy levers
28:38for climate.
28:40I'll talk a little bit more later,
28:42one of my favorite statutes, NEPA,
28:44and I loved all the questions
28:45that y'all were asking about that.
28:47Those are spot on questions.
28:49Then you have a series of laws that are designed to deal
28:52with land pollution,
28:54with the Resource Conservation Recovery Act,
28:55that's regulating the ongoing operation of facilities
29:00that treat, store, dispose of hazardous materials.
29:03And one may say,
29:05"Does this have anything to do with climate?"
29:06It has everything to do with climate
29:08because when you have a storm event,
29:09guess where that stuff is going?
29:11Same with the CERCLA, which deals with superfund,
29:14the past contamination.
29:16And then today we have actually
29:18several different Brownfields laws,
29:21which is fundamental to climate adaptation.
29:25My last example will be us telling you how we're doing that.
29:28And then you've got some more of the process laws
29:29dealing with right to know the releases,
29:32emergency response notification,
29:34who is the team of people that need to be in place
29:36so that people can get notified when there is a storm event,
29:40when there's a release, so on and so forth.
29:43With TSCA, it deals with lead, it deals with PCPs,
29:46another important statute.
29:48And then obviously the pesticide law,
29:51which is important
29:53because some of the big sources of money these days
29:55are coming into agriculture.
29:57Again, after you think about what the laws do,
30:01then you can also think about which of these laws
30:04are appropriate for climate mitigation,
30:06which of them are appropriate for climate adaptation.
30:10We've got some exciting things I'll talk about in a minute
30:13with some of the new laws coming in
30:14that really do amplify the ability
30:16to apply the Clean Air Act and these land laws.
30:20So again, there's a law school career
30:24in just studying those laws,
30:26and I know that's something you'll run into in the future,
30:28but it's exciting and it's fun
30:29because it's a huge amount of policy to access.
30:33And then when you think about your grab and go bag,
30:37not just the executive branch authorities
30:39at the presidential level,
30:42these laws, many of them set up the rules,
30:44the regulations, and the standards.
30:46You've got your Safe Drinking Water Act
30:48with your drinking water standards,
30:49which also apply to your land-based laws
30:51to determine how clean is clean.
30:54You've got permits,
30:55which are basically the policy
30:57and the law governing the site-specific operations,
31:02and you need to understand their connectivity of the scale.
31:05But that can have a very direct influence
31:07on the individual community that's exposed,
31:11but also, as we know,
31:12power plants that releases into the atmosphere.
31:15Interestingly,
31:18a lot of these laws do provide for advisory councils,
31:22and I'm very sad to say that the advisory council
31:25that I served on in the '90s
31:26for the Safe Drinking Water Act,
31:28the National Drinking Advisory Council,
31:31that decision back in the '90s that I lost,
31:34I lost this battle,
31:35set in place the Flint Michigan's that we have today
31:40because we addressed the decision then,
31:42where do you measure points of compliance?
31:44Do you measure it at the point of distribution
31:47or the point of use?
31:48Because of money, it was set at the point of distribution.
31:52So they failed to consider the pipes
31:55and therefore not the point of use,
31:57which in essence is costing this country
32:00billions of dollars, communities, and health,
32:03and that was the policy decision in 1990.
32:08Those are places for you to get involved
32:11in terms of your policy level as well,
32:14maybe serving on some of these councils
32:16or at least tracking what they're doing.
32:20A couple of other non-regulatory functions,
32:22which are vitally important, again,
32:23coming to some of the questions that somebody asked
32:26for the class today
32:28is there are non-regulatory functions
32:30and in fact, plan EJ 2014,
32:33which was the launch of the Biden administration's effort
32:37to address environmental justice,
32:39looked at regulatory functions
32:41and then the non-regulatory function.
32:43But it's a huge opportunity to not only implement
32:46and address climate adaptation,
32:48you can move that into the policy realm.
32:50So again, a very exciting realm.
32:52I could talk for lifetimes on it 'cause it's all exciting,
32:57and I would love to talk with y'all afterwards
32:58if you have any questions.
33:00So then you have your environmental statutes.
33:03Now, what's very exciting is that you have,
33:07under the Biden administration, a lot more action.
33:10And while under Obama,
33:12the lead was environmental justice,
33:14now it's climate and environmental justice.
33:17You have great quotes by federal agencies
33:21about some of the statutes.
33:24Let me just ask you this,
33:25have y'all looked into the Inflation Reduction Act
33:28or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law?
33:31Good, 'cause there's huge money
33:33and there's huge authorities
33:34and there are some really exciting, sneaky little things
33:37that were put in the IRA
33:38that a lot of people are paying attention to.
33:41But with the IRA,
33:43it's been touted as the most significant climate legislation
33:47in US history.
33:50This is the big deal on the fact that we got it passed.
33:53Most of the focus has actually been on the funding
33:55coming from that, which is huge.
33:59I know that the American Engineering Society
34:00has been doing report cards of infrastructure
34:02in the country for the last 20 or 30 years.
34:05And routinely, whether it's bridges,
34:07whether it's water infrastructure, you name it,
34:11this country's getting like a D
34:12or maybe a C- if they're doing well.
34:15This is putting money into fixing that,
34:17and it's putting money into fixing that
34:19not so that they continue the same bad approach,
34:22but they fix it to get that multiple benefit for climate.
34:25But you've got funding for energy and electric vehicles,
34:28for energy efficiency, for a climate bank.
34:32I mentioned before that the amount of work going down
34:34in the USDA, the US Department of Agriculture, is huge,
34:38and there are enormous policy opportunities
34:40that are having the multiple benefit of addressing
34:43the release of climate pollutants,
34:48but also getting into that climate equity
34:51and how do you really help those people
34:52who are suffering today.
34:56And then again, a big issue that has been recurrent
34:59since the executive order was signed
35:01was air pollution at the ports
35:03because there's so much pollution,
35:04so much environmental injustice that's taking place,
35:07also very specifically drilling down to equity
35:11with the 3 billion set aside for the equity grant
35:14dealing with transportation, walkability,
35:17lot of transportation things
35:19as well as dealing with the heat island effect.
35:22But one of the sticks that's stuck in the IRA
35:25is the designation of carbon dioxide as an air pollutant.
35:32And I don't know if y'all track that,
35:34but it's interesting
35:35because that one particular topic
35:37really does touch upon the need to understand,
35:39well what is congress doing?
35:41What are the courts doing?
35:42What are the agencies doing?
35:44Because under the Obama administration,
35:45there was an effort to regulate carbon dioxide
35:48as an air pollutant
35:49and it was struck down by the US Supreme Court,
35:53but there was a provision put into this law to say
35:55that it was an air pollutant and that's big
35:58and that's really exciting,
35:59and that's something that somebody,
36:01if you wanna do a special project or a paper,
36:04you could track that whole provision
36:06because it has such profound influences.
36:12The next law, like I mentioned,
36:13is under the Biden administration
36:16is the bipartisan infrastructure law,
36:19the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
36:23And what's interesting is that this was a law
36:27that was passed in this timeline
36:29that gives us $1.4 trillion to go in and help address
36:34equity, climate equity, prevention for climate justice.
36:39And you can see the full range of investments
36:43that are being made now today to combat climate
36:49and other challenges that are being faced.
36:52The challenge that we have right now
36:54is despite all of this money
36:56and all this money that is intended to go
36:59to benefit the poorest
37:01and the most overburdened and underserved,
37:04there's a huge cliff in getting that money to them.
37:07And it's interesting to see,
37:10when I was with the administration, again,
37:13I was pounding the table
37:14because the focus was on the diagnosis
37:16and not the treatment.
37:18And there is a huge recognition
37:20that they do need to get to the treatment,
37:22but the challenge that the federal government has
37:24is they don't know what the treatment should be.
37:27And that's why each of you is so important
37:29because your voice and your ideas
37:31can really make a difference
37:33and can help move the ball forward.
37:36To give you an example
37:37on the environmental justice piece specifically,
37:39and I am referring to some of the questions that you asked,
37:42it took from 1994 until the Biden administration,
37:50roughly 26 years,
37:55that The Office of Environmental Justice had $40 million,
37:59now they have $6 billion to spend.
38:02They're going from 20 years at 40 million
38:04to five years at 6 billion.
38:08And they need help in spending it,
38:10and they need help in getting that money
38:12and those resources to communities.
38:14And there are some opportunities
38:16that are gonna be announced very soon
38:18about setting up
38:19thriving community technical assistance centers
38:22and that will be a place to make some of this happen.
38:26You could come up with examples in each one of these,
38:31but just for example in terms of water infrastructure,
38:34there's a lot of work being done by the federal government,
38:39by EPA, but also by a lot of the associations
38:42on what are some practical tools
38:44and practical approaches to achieve that
38:46so that not only do you make your facility less polluting
38:50from a climate perspective,
38:51how do you make them more resilient
38:53when you have those storm events?
38:55So again,
38:56if that's an example of the practice to policy cycle.
39:02It's also really valuable and rich
39:08to look at some of the non-legislative efforts
39:12that Biden has championed.
39:14And on day one, the first week,
39:19we had Executive Order 13985 and Executive Order 14008.
39:26With 13985, is that something y'all have looked at?
39:30Have y'all explored that?
39:3513985 is the executive order
39:38with the commitment of the administration for equity.
39:43What's powerful is that it defines equity
39:47and also expands the definition of who is considered
39:53in that world of heightened protection
39:56because of heightened vulnerabilities.
39:58And as we saw in Executive Order 12898,
40:02where it was minority, low-income,
40:04and tribal and indigenous populations,
40:06it's bringing in a lot of people
40:10who deal with sensitivities from health vulnerabilities,
40:16like pregnant women, young children, and the elderly.
40:21It comes out with a whole range of those
40:23who need to be protected.
40:25It also establishes the requirement
40:29and burden for every department to do an equity analysis,
40:32and not just an equity analysis but an equity plan.
40:37So those are policy opportunities to latch onto,
40:43set your coordinates on that to evaluate,
40:45and see how you can use some of those provisions
40:48to achieve what you want to achieve.
40:51Executive Order 14008 is straight on in it's title
40:56about environmental justice as well as climate justice.
41:01What's interesting about 14008
41:05is that it specifically requires
41:11that they wanted to use the whole-of-government approach,
41:13so the notion that governments could act in silos
41:16sometimes at cross purposes was put to rest.
41:20And so I think that's a really important executive order.
41:23Also, it has the Justice 40 initiative
41:29that I'm gonna talk about, but I wanna ask a question.
41:31That clock says it's five minutes after nine.
41:35I don't think that's accurate,
41:37so I'm losing track of time here.
41:39So what time is it?
41:41It's 42?
41:43So we only have three minutes?
41:45Oh, dear.
41:47See, we could go on forever.
41:48So I was looking at that clock and I said,
41:49"Man, I'm going really fast."
41:51I do apologize, but I did ask for that in advance.
41:56Long story short,
41:58you can look for authorities within the executive orders.
42:02Interestingly, non-executive orders reports
42:05on the unity agenda for mental health
42:07on the blueprint for maternal health
42:09specifically mentioned climate,
42:10and there are provisions there to address that.
42:13So again, it's a place to harvest.
42:15In terms of Justice 40, again,
42:19that's where 40% of the federal government's budget
42:22needs to be going into these particular categories.
42:25Climate change is bold face, set out as one.
42:28All of these others have relationships to climate
42:31and should be factored in and should be considered.
42:35There's probably at least 300-400 programs
42:38that federal departments have identified.
42:40The Department of Energy has identified
42:41146 of their programs that are relevant to Justice 40.
42:47Again, have a lot of conversation,
42:48can have a lot of information
42:50to provide you on these pieces.
42:53But each of those gives you a strong beachhead
42:55that has money attached to it,
42:57it has authorities attached to it,
42:58it has your coordinates with decisions
43:00and decision makers attached to it.
43:03So wonderful roadmap to get to your destination.
43:07Okay, good.
43:08We're not too far off.
43:09The last few minutes, what I was gonna share with you
43:12and what I was gonna go over with you
43:14from a discussion perspective are when we get to Waypoint,
43:17it's the notion, okay, you've got your rhumb line,
43:19you know you wanna get from the northwest corner of Spain
43:22to an island off of Africa,
43:23you've gotta have points in between to make sure
43:25you're on course
43:26and you're not heading to the United States
43:29or the Caribbean.
43:30How many of you have heard of the Willow Project?
43:35Good.
43:36And those of you that have heard of the Willow Project,
43:37how many of you know which law it applies?
43:41So my favorite statute,
43:43it's the National Environmental Policy Act.
43:46And within the statute, I've done the analysis for it.
43:50Obviously, you've got the Native Alaskan villages
43:53that are gonna be wiped off the map.
43:57You've got concerns with the population at large,
43:59we know the sea state of what their conditions are
44:01in terms of subsistence fishing, some of the sacred trust.
44:06You look at the coordinates being the executive branch,
44:10not just Department of Interior,
44:11but looking at Bureau of Land Management
44:13as well as Fish and Wildlife Service.
44:16You need to drill down
44:16because that's where you're gonna find
44:17the actionable provisions to get some enforceability.
44:21You also have the courts involved here.
44:23You've got the court at the district court level.
44:25Can ask the question, why did they go to Alaska?
44:28Why didn't they go to the DC circuit,
44:29when the DC circuit is usually more friendly
44:32to environmental justice concerns?
44:34Something to think about.
44:36Rhumb line is in the National Environmental Policy Act
44:38within that.
44:39The legal issues that are coming to bear
44:42is the sufficiency of the assessment
44:43because NEPA requires consideration of the environment
44:46and the human environment.
44:48And the human and environment is defined as health,
44:51economics, history, culture, aesthetics,
44:54the whole range,
44:56consideration of alternatives is what a lot of the NGOs
44:59are suing on,
45:00and then there's also the issue of mitigation.
45:03This is a little bit more about NEPA.
45:08We can have a whole class on that, so I'm gonna skip that.
45:11But one of the specific questions that y'all ask is,
45:14how can we get EPA to do a better job on NEPA and EJ?
45:19When I co-chaired
45:20the NEPA committee of the Federal Interagency Working Group
45:24on Environmental Justice,
45:2617 departments and I produced
45:27an environmental justice methodology
45:29that laid down the components of NEPA analysis
45:32that are required by law.
45:35And the 17 different departments said
45:38that this is an effective and efficient
45:40and consistent opportunity
45:42to consider environmental justice.
45:44And most importantly, that's the report card
45:46that should be used right now
45:48when you're evaluating any NEPA decision.
45:51So we have the promising practices report,
45:53which is available.
45:54We also produced a companion community guide
45:57on teaching communities how to do this.
45:59I'll say this,
46:00my office, Environmental Justice and EPA,
46:02refused to post the community guide for three years.
46:07They never posted it,
46:08this was even including under the Obama administration.
46:10Finally, I said enough is enough,
46:12I went to the Department of Energy and I got it put on.
46:14I got it posted in three days,
46:16but again, that's an example of the nuances
46:18in how you have to do workarounds.
46:21And there's a whole strategy and it's all based in law
46:22and our policy,
46:23but that is a very important roadmap
46:26to get to climate justice using NEPA.
46:31It'll be one of the major statutes for that.
46:34Last but not least is a wonderful example
46:36coming out of Bridgeport, Connecticut, our own backyard,
46:39where we're using policy
46:41but in a less kind of a regulatory structure
46:44where we're taking a three-story-high landfill
46:47known as Mount Trashmore, turning it into Mount Growmore.
46:51That's gonna provide fresh food in the food desert,
46:53but it's also gonna provide a wellness campus.
46:55And somebody can say,
46:57"Well, what does that have to do with climate?"
46:59Well, that neighborhood lives on Johnson's Creek,
47:03which is routinely flooded
47:05because of climate and because of stormwater,
47:07and that flooding has got bacteria
47:11and other pathogens from the sewage treatment plant
47:13that is in noncompliance,
47:15and it's also spreading all the chemicals
47:17and the contamination.
47:18And right now,
47:20we have been invoked EPA to work for us to come in
47:21and help do the site assessments and the remediation.
47:24And we've raised almost $4 million to do that,
47:28plus build the hydroponic farm and wellness campus.
47:30Bridgeport, Connecticut, we invite all you to come visit.
47:33We'd love to have anybody
47:34who wants to do any particular projects.
47:36And that's a really strong climate, equity,
47:39policy to practice approach.
47:44So with that,
47:45and that clock is still at three minutes after nine,
47:46I should have figured that out,
47:47is that I could tell you a little bit more
47:50about the approach that we use.
47:51But again, you all are at a point in your career
47:55where you're getting so much knowledge
47:58and so much information.
48:00And what I'm hoping to do is continue to work with you
48:04on when you set your individual coordinates
48:06with your destination and what you want it to be,
48:09and really think of the depth and the breadth
48:11and the dimensions of policy and policy methods
48:14so that you can get to that destination we want to get to
48:17which is climate equity.
48:18So thank you very much.
48:27<v ->So I think we can have two peer questions</v>
48:33until they kick us out.
48:37<v ->They're gonna kick us out?</v>
48:38We could also be squatters, we could not leave.
48:42<v ->Having been working for a nonprofit</v>
48:44that was suing federal agencies
48:45and then also working for EPA,
48:48what do you think about the efficiency of resources
48:51when environmental groups sue environmental agencies?
48:55<v ->Well, that's a really important question</v>
48:57because when you think about the litigation
49:00from outside of government to government,
49:03so many of the lawsuits and the well-funded are your NRDCs,
49:07your Environmental Defense, your Earth Justice.
49:09NRDC has more money
49:10than I think half the countries in the world,
49:13so they have got a lot of money.
49:15The issue is, are they dealing with the global issues?
49:19And then the question is,
49:20who's representing the interest of the individual?
49:23And too often, the huge resources
49:26that are available for suing
49:27are for these global theoretical matters,
49:31which are important but aren't getting to those basic needs.
49:33But then I come back to what the lawsuits that we filed
49:38with my public interest law firm.
49:39I had to raffle off a Baskin-Robbins ice cream bin
49:42that my best friend's boyfriend's cousin worked at
49:46to pay our first month's rent.
49:47But the hydraulic fracturing issue that you know,
49:51that was our lawsuit when we sued EPA
49:54because toilets were blowing up in rural Alabama.
49:57So resources are an issue and it's very unbalanced,
50:05but that's a hurdle, it's not a barrier.
50:12And so I think that there needs to be greater attention
50:15by the big organizations
50:17in support of the smaller organizations
50:19that are looking at the people
50:20and the human health aspect
50:22of all these environmental issues including climate.
50:26<v ->You mentioned that a lot of departments</v>
50:28are already identifying programs
50:30that they think funding could go to.
50:32With such a short time before administration changes,
50:36do you think most money will end up getting funneled
50:38to pre-existing government programs versus community groups?
50:44What do you see?
50:45<v ->See, that's such a wonderful, wonderful question,</v>
50:47and I'm happy to report that at least my old office
50:51and EPA is really trying to do something differently.
50:55With respect to getting more money
50:59into the hands of community,
51:00the old office that's getting billions of dollars
51:02is doing thriving communities technical assistance centers,
51:05one for each region.
51:07It has two purposes,
51:08one is to help communities
51:11know how to access the federal government dollars.
51:13And number two, how do they participate in decision making?
51:16They're answering the question that I pounded on the table
51:17when I left on, they're doing it now.
51:19But there is an RFA now for $50 million per region,
51:2440 million of that will be going to community organizations.
51:29So EPA is doing its best
51:31to get the money out the door to do that.
51:33So there is an effort, again, you guys are the experts here.
51:37They need you, right?
51:39When I say they, there's a lot of they's
51:40that we could define.
51:41The other part to keep in mind is that the budget
51:45for bipartisan infrastructure on IRA is five years.
51:48So even though there's been a lot of stress
51:51and anxiety in the first couple of years,
51:53it's not getting to the people that need it.
51:56There is still that commitment
51:57and we have three more years to get that money going.
52:00So we're not even halfway through that time period.
52:04Again, you guys are experts that are needed.
52:10Rob, can you come up with a way to get people connected?
52:13Yes?
52:15<v ->Yeah, thanks for the good talk.</v>
52:15I have a question about the mapping tools.
52:18You mentioned that the impacted communities
52:19should be involved at the very beginning, right?
52:23I understand that the engagement of the communities
52:26can help with the selection and validation of the tool,
52:30but it can also be highly subjective
52:32because of the individual knowledge
52:35and perspective of some representatives.
52:38So my question is,
52:40how can we ensure that the process really improves the tool?
52:44<v ->That is a fundamental question,</v>
52:46and I'm so glad you're asking it,
52:47and it should be asked for everything
52:49that's under the label of environmental justice.
52:52And that really comes down to the training
52:55and technical assistance to buttress the community members
52:59as they're getting involved.
53:01And I'll say this,
53:01when I was with my public interest law firm,
53:03I would walk in with myself,
53:05but everybody I was suing had their lawyers,
53:08they had their engineers, they had their economists,
53:11so it's not a surprising phenomenon
53:16that communities need that information.
53:18So part of it is making sure they have that information,
53:22the training, and the time to have that exchange.
53:24The other point, though,
53:25that's really become very powerful now
53:27is the recognition of lived experience,
53:30expertise of these community members.
53:32And I could give you a lot of examples
53:34where the high-tech folks out of EPA
53:38on a Clean Water Act permit decision
53:41were using all of their US Geological Survey data,
53:43but they didn't realize there was a beaver dam on the river,
53:45which affected the flow, which affected the mixing zone,
53:48which affected the amount of pollutant
53:50that could be discharged.
53:52So once again,
53:53as emerging public health experts,
53:57grasping hold of that very issue
54:01and reverse engineering the problem-solving
54:03of what needs to take place.
54:05And again, for y'all,
54:06these centers that are being set up are five-year centers.
54:09So think about potential job opportunities
54:13with your expertise to get to that point.
54:17<v ->There's an online question.</v>
54:19<v ->Okay.</v>
54:29I love that question,
54:30and I like to admit bias upfront.
54:38For me,
54:40I think that the most progress we're gonna make
54:42is when you drill down and start with the human being,
54:46especially those that are most vulnerable
54:48because that political wind transfers into votes.
54:53And I think that we, for example,
54:56could take the new EJ index out of HHS,
55:00which is looking very directly at the cumulative impact.
55:04Cumulative impact is related to NEPA.
55:07We lost it under Trump, we got it back under Biden.
55:11So it's kind of coming up
55:12with a couple of these decision points
55:14and then applying that public health component to it.
55:18I will say, as an example,
55:20even under non-friendly administrations
55:24in Florida as an example,
55:26there was an effort to waive the drinking water standard
55:29for cold form to allow the injection of wastewater
55:32and stormwater into aquifers for storage.
55:35And we were able to channel a Republican House,
55:39a Republican Senate, Republican governor, not DeSantis,
55:42it was actually Bush, to support what we want to do,
55:46which is prevent that from happening.
55:48I would say that the broader answer would be
55:51that we need to latch onto
55:56the real dire human health impacts
56:00but attach that to a whole list of policy decisions
56:06that have to be made and then try to influence that.
56:10And like I said, starting with HHS and their new tool,
56:14seeing what you could add some sort of decisions to that.
56:18Sorry, that was probably not a crisp answer,
56:20but at least it's the playing field we're operating in.
56:25<v ->Thanks Suzi.</v>
56:25Thank you for the wonderful talk.