Author: CHEJ Intern

By: Tony Aguilar, Organizing Intern
In constructing his cabinet, President Biden appointed Deb Haaland, a Native American woman and former U.S. representative from New Mexico to be the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior manages America’s natural resources and Native American relations in Bureaus such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Since Haaland’s confirmation, she has put together a diverse team in the DOI, including other Native American additions like Lawrence Roberts and Heidi Todacheene. Since the colonization of America, Indigenous voices have only been silenced, especially when it came to issues like land management. The appointment of Deb Halaand seems to be a step in the right direction in reversing the contentious history between the American Government and Indigenous communities. 
Before America’s colonization, Indigenous peoples practiced an engagement with nature that was full of reverence and respect for Earth’s natural resources. Many Indigenous cultures view our resources as entities themselves that we have familial relationships with, implying a sense of responsibility to take care of things like water and soil. This attitude toward the natural world is apparent in the way that Indegenous peoples built societies that sustained themselves for generations before Western colonization without depleting the Earth’s resources. Frequent relocation, industrialization, and other land rights infringements have not only kept Indigenous peoples from practicing the same level of sustainability of their ancestors, it has also disproportionately threatened or damaged many of the natural resources that surround or belong to Indigenous lands.  
The United States has yet to achieve a level of sustainability that Indigenous communities once had, but a restructuring of Native American affairs that Deb Haaland is committed to, may allow Indigenous communities the sovereignty and self-determination to keep pollution out of their communities and go back to the practices that built and sustained their communities for so many generations before them. These communities may then even serve as an example to the rest of America of what sustainability really means.
 As a 35th generation New Mexican and member of the Pueblo of Laguna (a Native American tribe in west-central New Mexico), Haaland has spent her career in politics fighting for environmental justice as well as many other Native American Issues. During her time in the House of Representatives, Haaland served as vice chair of the Committee on Natural Resources and also co-sponsored the Environmental Justice for All Act. As the Secretary of the Department of Interior, Haaland understands that Native American communities, along with communities of color more generally, take on most of the burden when it comes to environmental problems and has made it a point to ensure that these communities are being helped. Coming from such a community herself, Haaland serves as a beam of hope to all of the communities that suffer from environmental injustice, especially Native American communities that have not only lost their land, but also much of their culture to colonial industrialization. 
 
Photo credits: United States Department of the Interior

By: Kristen Millstein, Communications Intern
After several months of working on the Make Polluters Pay campaign with CHEJ, hearing that President Biden’s infrastructure bill included a Polluters Pay Tax felt like a breath of fresh air. The Polluters Pay Tax, which expired in 1995, funded the Superfund program and was used to clean up toxic waste sites when the responsible party could not be identified or was unable to pay. Since then, money to clean up toxic sites has come from general tax revenue. These funds are not sufficient, and they force ordinary taxpayers to pay for the mess corporate polluters made. The number of cleanups has steadily declined due to a lack of funding and the backlog of toxic sites has increased. Efforts by environmental groups and lawmakers to reinstate this tax have failed thus far. However, it is difficult not to feel some hope for this new push to reinstate the tax and finally hold corporations accountable for pollution and toxic waste. The current political moment might be just what we need to right a 26-year-old wrong.
It’s easy to miss the Polluters Pay Tax among all the other policies and priorities included in President Biden’s proposal. It’s all the way at the bottom, under a tiny subheading that says “Eliminate Tax Preferences for Fossil Fuels and Make Sure Polluting Industries Pay for Environmental Clean Up.” But though it’s only a small part of a much larger plan, its impact could be life-changing for the communities living near toxic sites. From California to New Jersey, CHEJ works with communities suffering from health problems like cancer, kidney disease, and autoimmune conditions due to toxic exposure from Superfund sites. Some communities have been on the National Priority List for forty years and are still waiting for clean up, and the list is only growing. With the reinstatement of this tax, the EPA could finally begin to do the clean-up work it is supposed to do and protect the health of the 73 million Americans living within 3 miles of a Superfund site.
This is an incredible opportunity, but we can’t assume the tax will pass. Industry is already ramping up its attacks against the legislation, and no Congressional Republicans have expressed any support for raising taxes on corporations. Slim Democratic majorities in the House and Senate mean we must unify all Democratic congresspeople behind this infrastructure package and the Polluters Pay Tax in particular. Democrats Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) have already introduced Polluters Pay bills. Now is the time to call our representatives, activate our frontline communities, and put the pressure on lawmakers from every state to support the Polluters Pay Tax–we’ve waited 26 years, and we cannot wait any longer.
Photo Credit: CHEJ