HEALTHY & SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
Within the context of the Mission of the Environmental Justice Caucus, the Healthy and Sustainable Communities Working Group will work in solidarity with frontline communities to remediate the harms caused by decades of environmental injustice, to build instead healthy and sustainable communities through massive investments in infrastructure developed by and for the people; and to preclude future pollution in these communities through the consideration of cumulative impacts from multiple pollutants and sources and mandatory limits on fossil fuel emissions in already polluted communities.[1]
[1] Democratic Party of New Mexico, State Platform, approved by State Central Committee, 2022, “Energy and Environment.”
- Communities where the majority of residents lives within five miles of hazardous facilities.
- Disproportionately communities of color or low income or both.
- Subject to health hazards from chemical disasters, lack of access to healthy foods, and daily exposure to toxic chemicals.]
[1] Life at the Fenceline, Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in Environmental Justice Communities, Coming Clean, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, and Campaign for Healthier Solutions, https://ej4all.org/assets/media/documents/Albuquerque%20Life%20at%20the%20Fenceline%20FINAL%20English.pdf
[Environmental injustice, rampant in frontline communities, include
- Radiation poisoning of people living “downwind” from nuclear weapons detonations in the Tularosa Basin and uranium miners in Native American communities.[1]
- South Valley communities in Albuquerque, “industrial sacrifice zones,” where oil and gasoline, asphalt, and concrete processing and transportation facilities, recycling facilities, salvage yards, and a sewage treatment plant were “dumped” in a rural/agricultural community beginning in the 1970s without any public input.
Justice 40 requires federal agencies to allocate 40% of their investments to frontline (“disadvantaged”) communities.[1]]
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/
The Environmental Justice Act (“EJ for All”) would require that state and federal officials consider the cumulative impact of multiple polluting facilities (from any source) and the persistent violations of an applicant in any permitting process.[1]]
[1] S. 2630, Environmental Justice Act of 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2630; and https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/08/05/2021/booker-reintroduces-sweeping-environmental-justice-bill
The Healthy and Sustainable Communities Working Group works to achieve environmental justice through
- Community Education on Justice 40 reparations and cumulative impact permitting.
- Organizing to establish Justice 40 Oversight Commissions to ensure that government agencies comply with the federal mandate and to enact EJ for All, as well as other laws and programs that achieve environmental justice.