(I cited Bullard in an article
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/28/class-reductionism-and-environmental-racism/>
on class reductionism and environmental racism.)
NYT, June 29, 2021
OPINION
I Wrote About This Environmental Injustice Decades Ago. It Hasn’t Changed.
By Robert Bullard
HOUSTON — A majority of people who live in the Texas coastal communities
of Brownsville, Corpus Christi and Port Arthur are brown and Black.
These communities are also locations for proposed terminals to load
liquefied natural gas on tankers bound for overseas markets.
This correlation is not unusual. Discrimination in housing forced Black
and brown people into areas near polluting industries that threatened
their health and safety and continue to do so.
I documented this pattern in my book “Dumping in Dixie” more than three
decades ago, finding that “toxic-waste dumps, municipal landfills,
garbage incinerators and similar noxious facilities” tended to be in
minority neighborhoods with little access to the levers of government power.
The consequences have been devastating. A study published in April in
the journal Science Advances, for instance, found that “racial-ethnic
minorities in the United States are exposed to disproportionately high
levels of ambient fine particulate air pollution, the largest
environmental cause of human mortality.” The researchers found that
“because of a legacy of racist housing policy and other factors,
racial-ethnic exposure disparities have persisted even as overall
exposure has decreased.”
Now President Biden has the opportunity to change that dynamic. A
vacancy looms on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which
regulates the siting and construction of interstate natural gas
pipelines and liquefied natural gas plants and export facilities. The
term of one of the commission’s members, a Trump appointee, expires this
month, though he could remain until a replacement is confirmed by the
Senate. A Biden appointment would shift the balance of power on this
obscure but powerful board to three Democrats and two Republicans.
To date, the commission has never rejected a project on environmental
justice grounds. Mr. Biden promised to make environmental justice a
cornerstone of his climate change agenda and repair the inequities that
have left minority communities bearing the impacts of fossil fuel
production. His Justice40 initiative sets a goal of delivering 40
percent of the overall benefits of government climate investments to
disadvantaged communities.
Brownsville, for example, is nearly 94 percent Latino and would be the
home of two new terminals, Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG. And that’s just
one city out of many, along the gulf and across the United States, where
marginalized communities bear the brunt of fossil fuel infrastructure
that spew harmful pollutants into the air and water.
These terminals would release thousands of tons of particulate and
nitrogen oxide into already polluted air. They also pose risks of fire
and explosion. Indeed, The Washington Post reported this month that
“federal regulators approved the construction of export terminals along
the Atlantic and Gulf C oasts while relying on industry safety
calculations that critics say significantly understate the potential
force” of what’s known as a vapor cloud explosion.
Over the past two decades, FERC has approved nearly 500 pipelines and
rejected just two. The board’s approval process is flawed and unfair,
systematically giving pipeline companies the advantage over landowners.
Until recently, FERC had steadfastly refused to consider climate impacts
when deciding to issue permits to new gas pipeline projects.
Mr. Biden’s first appointment to the agency, Richard Glick, the new
chairman, has taken steps to make the commission’s decisions more
environmentally just. In May he appointed Montina Cole, a former lawyer
with the Natural Resources Defense Council, to a new position to help
the agency incorporate environmental justice and equity concerns in its
decision making.
But the commission has a long way to go. In a March hearing before a
federal appeals court on the proposed Rio Grande terminal, an agency
lawyer made a logical pretzel of an argument that the project did not
disproportionately affect minority and low-income populations. The
reason, he said, was that all of the communities within the affected
zone were minority or low-income. Thus, they were not disproportionately
affected.
FERC must also bar utilities from forcing their customers to pay the
membership fees to trade associations whose anti-climate efforts promote
policies that harm the communities they serve. In a recent petition to
the agency, the Center for Biological Diversity urged it to disallow the
practice. More than 90 environmental groups across the country endorsed
the request.
FERC’s decisions over the coming years will go a long way to determine
whether Mr. Biden’s climate goals are attainable. The path to net-zero
carbon emissions is impossible if the expansion of fossil fuel
facilities continues.
Mr. Biden appears earnest in his climate efforts and protecting Black
and brown Americans from further sacrifice. Nominating a progressive
environmental justice champion to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission is an important step.
Robert Bullard is a professor of urban planning and environmental policy
at Texas Southern University, where he focuses on issues of
environmental justice.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#9568): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/9568
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83905577/21656
-=-=-
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
#4 Do not exceed five posts a day.
-=-=-
Group Owner: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy
[[email protected]]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
