Recommendations for Equitable and Just Economic Stimulus Spending in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
As Congress considers legislation to address the growing public health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the principles of justice and equity must be centered in the response. Environmental justice communities, Tribal communities, low income communities and communities of color are hit hardest by economic downturns and must be prioritized. Members of these communities are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because they are often exposed to disproportionately high levels of pollution and have underlying health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes and cancer.
Congress must also ensure that the pathway for economic recovery works for everyone and that the benefits of a stimulus package are distributed equitably and justly. In addition, stimulus legislation must include safeguards to ensure that stimulus dollars are spent in ways that comply with environmental regulations to avoid increasing public health and safety risks. Projects supported by stimulus legislation should reduce locally harmful air pollution in communities coping with the cumulative impacts of multiple pollution sources. Companies receiving stimulus support with facilities located in or near low-income neighborhoods, tribal communities and communities must significantly reduce locally harmful pollution, such as airborne particulate matter, in these communities.
To safeguard environmental justice communities, Tribal communities, low-income communities, and communities of color, Congress must include in economic stimulus legislation the spending priorities recommended below.
WATER
Access to affordable clean water is critical, especially as households nationwide respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend the following specific actions and funding:
Immediately implement a national moratorium on water shutoffs for all households. Fund $100 million for the immediate restoration of all residential water services.
Include $25 million for immediate potable water distribution, filter installation and sanitation systems for homes without access to these necessities. Spending should prioritize urban, rural, and Tribal communities who currently lack access to safe drinking water and adequate water and sanitation systems.
Include $45 million in grants and technical assistance dollars for the replacement of both household plumbing and lead services lines. Spending should prioritize households’ whose plumbing systems have been corroded by municipal drinking water systems, such as in Flint, Michigan. This should also allow for home waters filters for contaminants including but not limited to lead and PFAS. Trust in municipal water systems must be rebuilt.
Include $150 million to establish three Community Water and Energy Resource Centers (CWERCs) in Michigan. CWERCs will resolve many ratepayer, infrastructure, and environmental issues to improve Michigan’s essential freshwater resources through a decentralized approach to water treatment and infrastructure.
Fund $30 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. These funds support investments in infrastructure and programs that are essential to providing safe and affordable drinking water to communities, protecting water systems, managing waste- and stormwater, building climate resilience and expanding economic opportunities for low-income communities and communities of color. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. drinking water and wastewater infrastructure “D” and “D+” grades, respectively, and estimates that the investment gap for these critical systems will reach $105 billion by 2025.
ENERGY
Households must have access to affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity to ensure public health and safety and to support an inclusive, just and pollution-free energy economy with high-quality jobs. We recommend funding for the following programs:
Fund $3.2 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program. According to DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, “Through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program provided $3.2 billion in block grants to cities, communities, states, U.S. territories, and Indian tribes to develop, promote, implement, and manage energy efficiency and conservation projects that ultimately created jobs.” Economic stimulus legislation should provide $3.2 billion to the EECBG program. The EECBG program should prioritize spending in communities left behind by past and ongoing energy efficiency programs.
Fund $7 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. LIHEAP assists families with energy costs related to energy bills and weatherization and energy-related home minor repairs. Stimulus legislation should include $7 billion for LIHEAP.
Fund $7 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). WAP provides weatherization for low-income households, leading to $238 or more in average savings on energy costs. WAP lowers energy bills for mid- and low-income families by supporting home energy efficiency improvements and supports clean energy jobs. Every year the requests for WAP support far exceed the funds available, leaving many households without the support they need to improve their energy efficiency and reduce energy costs. Congress should include $7 billion for WAP in stimulus legislation and strengthen the program to better reach and serve low-income families.
POLLUTION FREE TRANSPORTATION AND GOODS MOVEMENT
Existing federal programs, with adequate funding, can substantially reduce air pollution from transportation and goods movement. These programs provide critical funds to shift fleets and equipment from diesel to zero emissions, while improving air quality and public health. We recommend that Congress supporting the following programs:
Fund $500 million annually for Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emissions Vehicle Program.
Fund $500 million annually for the Diesel Emissions Reductions Act (DERA) and prioritize zero emissions replacement equipment.
Prioritize programs for communities confronted with the cumulative impacts of disproportionately high levels of pollution.
SAFE, HEALTHY AND POLLUTION-FREE COMMUNITIES
To build safe and healthy communities and infrastructure, we recommend that Congress fund the following programs:
Fund $100 million for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) Environmental Career Worker Training. The NIEHS Environmental Career Worker Training Program (ECWTP) provides job and safety training for disadvantaged and underrepresented members of communities of color and low-income communities to secure jobs in environmental restoration, construction, handling hazardous materials and waste, and emergency response. A 2015 report assessing the program found that “an annual federal investment of $3.5 million in the ECWTP generates a $100 million return.” The report found that the program increases the earning potential of those trained, increases tax revenue, lowers workplace injury and hiring costs, and reduces crime..
Fund $6 billion for the EPA Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) Program. This program provides small grants to communities to address environmental risks associated with high concentrations of pollution, to prepare for climate change effects, and to improve public health. In 2019, the EJSG program provided roughly $1.5 million for one-year grants of up to $30,000 each. Given the disproportionate exposure to high levels of pollution, climate change effects and other impacts of historic economic and racial inequality, these grants provide critical resources to low-income communities, tribal communities and communities of color to improve community health and support job creation. Congress should increase the annual funding for the EJSG program to $6 billion, increase the grant size to up to $500,000, and increase the grant period from one to two years.
Fund $20 billion for Superfund Site Cleanup to protect communities from toxic pollution. Hurricanes Harvey, Florence, and Maria spotlighted the elevated public health and safety risks that Superfund sites pose to communities. Superfund cleanup spending is crucial to protect the 53 million people living within three miles of the existing 1,836 Superfund sites. Stimulus legislation should increase Superfund site cleanup funding to $20 billion.
Fund $560 million for EPA to enforce environmental regulations. Industrial facilities and other companies must continue to comply with environmental regulations to avoid increasing public health and safety risks at a time when public health is already threatened by the corona virus pandemic. To protect public health and safety and hold companies accountable when they violate environmental regulations, Congress should provide $560 million for EPA to ensure compliance and enforcement with environmental regulations.
Fund $30 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). The CDBG program provides grants to states to support community development and address economic and public health challenges created by historic racial and economic inequality. CDBG grants support construction of affordable housing, programs to create economic opportunities and jobs, services for those in need, job creation, and improvement of community living conditions and quality of life. In light of current public health and safety risks, Congress should provide $30 billion for CDBG to support equitable and just community development and access to safe, affordable, resilient and energy efficient housing.
Fund $2 billion for Brownfields Redevelopment. EPA’s Brownfields Program supports economic redevelopment by helping states and communities safely clean up and sustainably reuse former industrial and contaminated sites. Congress should increase the FY 2019 annual appropriation of $250 million for EPA’s Brownfields redevelopment program to $2 billion to support economic development and sustainable approaches to local land use. This program should be implemented through community-driven planning that protects against community displacement.
CUMULATIVE IMPACTS
Environmental regulation does not necessarily mean healthy environments for all communities. Many communities suffer from the cumulative effects of multiple pollution sources. National climate legislation must not abandon or diminish the important goal of reducing toxic pollution in all its forms. The stimulus is an important opportunity for an innovative and comprehensive approach to reducing legacy environmental and economic impacts on communities and be designed intentionally to ensure that it does not impose further risks. Therefore all the items noted above, should integrate criteria and mechanisms for prioritizing those communities which are the most vulnerable economically and environmentally.
SIGN ON TO THIS LETTER URGING CONGRESS TO SUPPORT COMMUNITIES at this link.
Author: Lois Gibbs
This is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules. Communities around these chemical plants and refineries now have one more threat to their health and well-being. If no one is watching and there is no financial or legal consequences for dumping toxic chemicals into the air, water and land this country has another crisis lurking in the near future.
Houston, Texas has at least six major chemical fires since last March, incidents that killed three workers, injured dozens, exposed thousands to pollutants and, in the case of the Watson Grinding blast, may cost dozens of residents their homes. That was when the industries were monitored and had to abide by the laws. Read more.
The Center for Health, Environment & Justice team and I send our compassion, support and affection to those whose health and livelihoods may be affected by COVID-19. This is a worldwide crisis on a scale we have not seen in our lifetimes. We are thinking of you, your family, friends and neighbors.
As you know our team has always been about families, communities and people and at all times working on issues from the grassroots to the White House not the other way around. For the first time, the entire country now has a better understanding of the horrors of “sheltering in place.” Hundreds of our member’s communities, maybe you live in one, have been told to shelter in place because of an explosion from a pipeline, refinery, chemical plant and other releases.
I feel safe in my home, even though I’m in the high risk age range. I am also grateful that I have a place to stay with food, water and clean air, until the public health crisis is over. I can work from home, hold virtual meetings, talk with my friends through the phone, Facebook or e-mail. As terrifying as this virus is I still feel safe, maybe I shouldn’t.
Unfortunately, safe is not how so many of communities CHEJ works with feel, when asked to shelter in place because of an environmental release or explosion. There are a number of reason for their fears.
–No one told them something was going to happen and they should seek safe shelter, stock up on food, water and toilet paper.
–There wasn’t days of news castors telling folks what scientists think the real dangers are, what health symptoms people should look out for or the speed of the poison touching communities as it moves across the world.
–No federal or state health agency was working around the clock to ensure everyone exposed would receive critical health care if needed, regardless of whether they’re insured.
I invite you to read or reread the article we reprinted on our web from the New York Times authored by Ana Parras a local activist in TX.
In Texas and across the country, the E.P.A.’s gutting of the Chemical Disaster Rule is a matter of life or death.
While families across the country celebrated Thanksgiving with their loved ones, more than 50,000 people in Port Neches, Tex., were forced to evacuate from their homes and spend the holiday in makeshift shelters. The reason? Two explosions at the Texas Petroleum Chemical plant sent flames into the sky, injured eight people, and released plumes of butadiene, a carcinogen, into the air.
The disaster erupted six days after the Trump administration gutted Obama-era regulations meant to improve safety at 12,000 chemical plants around the country.
It’s too soon to say whether these now abandoned rules would have made a difference in Port Neches. But there is no question that the communities that surround these thousands of plants are less safe now.
This regulatory rollback gives chemical plants across the country a free pass, in pursuit of greater profits, to operate in a way that endangers families and workers.
There are over 2,500 chemical facilities in the Houston area. Manchester, the neighborhood where Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services works, is among those most affected by this negligence. There are 30 chemical plants and waste sites in the Manchester area that report to the Environmental Protection Agency. When an explosion happens, nearby neighborhoods, mostly Latinx and people of color, are exposed to this toxicity.
And these toxic blasts are not infrequent. The last chemical explosion in Houston to garner national attention was in March at the Intercontinental Terminals Co., a few miles east of Manchester. This explosion led to high benzene levels in the air, school closures and community shelter-in-place orders for days: stay where you are, turn off air conditioning. Some advisories told people to put a plastic tarp over their windows, sealed with duct tape, to prevent air from coming in.
Federal regulations were supposed to protect us. For years, organizations like United Steelworkers, Greenpeace and dozens of other community and environmental organizations pressured the E.P.A. to make chemical disaster prevention a priority.
The turning point happened in 2013 when an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Tex., 200 miles northwest of Houston, killed 15 people and injured over 260.
Later that year, President Barack Obama signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to create a task force. What emerged was the Chemical Disaster Rule, a proposal to improve plant safety and protect surrounding communities, which the former E.P.A. administrator Gina McCarthy approved one month before President Trump took office.
Two months later, the Trump administration blocked the regulations from taking effect, and now the E.P.A. has released a final rule that eviscerates the Obama-era requirements. The agency rescinded major accident prevention provisions, including requirements to consider safer technology, audits of accidents by outside parties and “root cause” analyses of accidents.
While Texas has the largest number of chemical facilities in the country, Illinois, California, Iowa and Louisiana are riddled with them, too. As The Houston Chronicle has documented, no state is spared from having at least one facility that could have toxic or flammable chemical accidents with consequences that extend beyond the site.
The E.P.A. calls these communities — areas that could be affected by a release from a chemical accident — “vulnerable zones.” One in three children in America attends a school in a vulnerable zone. This means that over 19 million children are at risk of exposure to the harmful chemicals that these plants use, store and can emit when they produce plastics, pesticides, adhesives and other products.
Our neighborhoods in Houston are a case in point. The oil and gas facilities and chemical plants along the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel have turned the air in Harris County into a public health hazard, significantly increasing the likelihood of residents’ developing cancer and respiratory problems — and shortening the lives of children. Children living near the Houston Ship Channel are 56 percent more likely to develop leukemia than those who live more than 10 miles away.
To me this issue is personal. Yes, explosions from chemical facilities can be deadly. But the long-term impact of exposure to toxic chemicals also kills. In 2016, I was found to have hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare autoimmune system disorder that arises from breathing in dust or toxins repeatedly. The doctors blamed indoor air, but I am convinced that exposure to chemicals in Houston led to my condition. In this town, there’s little distinction between the air indoors and what’s outside.
When traveling — I am now at the U.N. Climate talks in Madrid — I bring a portable oxygen machine in case I need it. I am unable to walk long distances, and I move slowly because of my shortness of breath. Public speaking is difficult, as is any exertion. My life expectancy is not long (10 years, one doctor told me). I hope it is more.
In my family, lung diseases are the norm. My diagnosis came the same year that my father, Gregorio V. García, died of lung cancer at 79. He worked in the Asarco Refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex., and was a member of United Steelworkers for 30 years. Workers in these refineries are the first exposed to toxic substances. Many, like him, have died of cancer.
Plants like the nearby Valero facility emit a slew of poisonous chemicals like benzene and hydrogen cyanide into our neighborhoods. Far too often, they fail to meet Clean Air Act requirements.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, I felt what it was like to breathe in a concentrated amount of toxic air. On the day of the worst flooding, my husband and I drove his pickup truck into Manchester to document what was happening at the Valero refinery. We saw water running from Valero into Hartman Park, where children gather to play baseball and soccer, and down the streets we knew well. As we drove, we had to cover our nose and mouth with our hands. My lips turned numb. The odor was so strong that it made me nauseated.
Three days later we found out that we had driven into one of the largest benzene spills. Benzene is clear, colorless and flammable. To date, this spill has not been adequately addressed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
In Houston, we struggle to get chemical facilities to follow the law. We ask our state to protect us from chemicals that no one should breathe. Now the federal government is ending safeguards that the E.P.A. only a few years ago said the industry needed to protect the lives of workers, emergency medical workers and communities like mine.
My life should not be a pawn for leveraging industry profits. Nor should those of my neighbors and their children. Families and workers in these neighborhoods deserve to be safe.
As disasters continue to happen, we — those most affected, those who breathe and live and play in toxicity — condemn the E.P.A.’s decision to repeal the Chemical Disaster Rule. We are denied basic health protections simply because the industry does not want to invest in our safety.
Families and workers across the country should not have to pay the ultimate cost of this administration’s refusal to do its job: our lives.
Ana Parras is a co-executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (@tejasbarrios).
20 years of waiting and finally The Portland Harbor will be cleaned up. It’s highly contaminated with dozens of pollutants from more than a century of industrial use. Yesterday, EPA announced additional agreements with more than a dozen companies for cleanups of the river.
The companies that have signed agreements include NW Natural, Arkema Inc., Bayer Crop Science Inc., General Electric Company, Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC, McCall Oil and Chemical Corporation, Phillips 66 Company, Shell Oil Company, Atlantic Richfield Company, BP Products North America Inc., Brix Maritime Co., Exxon Mobil Corporation, Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC, Union Pacific Railroad Company and FMC Corporation, PacifiCorp, Cargill, Inc., CBS Corporation and DIL Trust, Glacier Northwest, Inc. Read More.
Last year, a team of independent researchers collected samples of baby poop from 32 infants born in Butte and Columbia, South Carolina and tested them for heavy metals. The results of the peer-reviewed study dominated local headlines, grabbing the attention of the community and government agencies. Federal officials this week called for the study to be retracted from the academic journal.
“I don’t think that we should attack scientific data because we don’t like the data that came from that scientific study. And I feel like that’s what has happened here.” Read more.
The Virginia House and Senate passed sweeping energy legislation yesterday that would overhaul how Virginia’s utilities generate electricity and moves the state to the forefront of renewable energy policy in the United States.
The measure, called the Clean Economy Act, lays out a plan to get Virginia to 100% renewable generation. Read more.
The federal house of representatives passed a bill that would designate certain types of PFAS “hazardous” under Superfund. (PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, man-made chemicals.) Many of our friends on capital hill sponsored this bill and voted in favor.
Trump has been very clear that he has no intentions of signing the bill if it was ever to get through the Senate and land on his desk. But what is the bill really about? It’s about what to do about this chemical that is showing up all across the country in drinking water. It is also a backdoor way to set a safe level or standard for PFAS in drinking water and for the Superfund program to cleanup and hold accountable those who are responsible for the pollution.
As this idea was being described to me by congressional staff this past summer, I just scratched my head. The Superfund program HAS NO MONEY. In fact, there are 34 unfunded Superfund sites that are shovel ready that can’t afford a shovel. This is the largest number of unfunded shovel ready sites, meaning everything is ready to begin cleanup, in decades if not longer.
The recent bill authorizes $800 million to fund infrastructure upgrades that reduce PFAS exposure and to local entities for cleanups. Again, I just scratch my head. Does Congress really think that amount of money is enough to clean up all the PFSA contaminated lands, water and dumpsites? There are thousands of places where towns, cities and states are concerned about this chemical impacting people’s drinking water.
How exactly does this bill work with the 1,3000 plus Superfund sites, some that have waited for decades to get testing or clean up plans. Trump gave Superfund in his EPA budget $2,878 million for the entire program why does congress think he would be willing to give PFAS $800 million?
Is this legislation about dumping a serious public health problem into a deep hole (Superfund) so no one can be held responsible? The Superfund program should be used to cleanup the country’s most dangerous sites, not serve as a dumping ground for serious complicated problems Congress can’t or doesn’t want to deal with.
By Lois Marie Gibbs, Founder of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Attorneys general from 14 states filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Environmental Protection Agency over its rollback of Obama-era chemical plant safety regulations.
“The Trump EPA is gutting critical safeguards against explosions, fires, poisonous gas releases, and other accidents at these facilities, putting New Yorkers in harm’s way,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. Read more.
“Of 20 key officials across several agencies, 15 came from careers in the oil, gas, coal, chemical or agriculture industries, while another three hail from state governments that have spent years resisting environmental regulations.” Read NYT Story.
At the New Hampshire Women’s March, Naomi Klein took the stage and spoke about why climate change — and many of the natural disasters occurring as a result — is a feminist issue. “We have seen in the aftermath of all of the disasters that I’ve mentioned, that rates of domestic violence increase — that femicide, the killing of women increases — so of course, all of these issues are interrelated,” she said. She continued, saying that we need to recognize the work that many women do in these situations. “The other thing that we see is that women on the ground in these disaster zones are actually first responders. That it is nurses who are saving lives, that it is home care workers and teachers who are saving lives, saving the lives of the people they care for, of the kids that they teach in their schools.” Read more.