 Good afternoon and welcome to our briefing, Justice 40, the Pass Forward for the Administration's Environmental Justice Initiative. I'm Dan Berset, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute was founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress to provide science-based information about environmental, energy, and climate change topics to policymakers. More recently, we have also developed a program that provides technical assistance to rural utilities interested in on-bill financing programs for their customers. EESI provides informative, objective, nonpartisan coverage of climate change topics in briefings, written materials, and on social media. All of our educational resources, including briefing, recordings, fact sheets, issue briefs, articles, newsletters, and podcasts, are always available for free online at www.esi.org. The best way to stay informed about our latest resources is to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Our briefing today comes after the conclusion of our four-part Agencies in Action series about existing federal programs that deliver multiple climate benefits, like the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Energy Savings program, the Energy Efficiency programs administered by the Department of Energy, Climate Adaptation programs, as well as Landscape Conservation programs. Our next briefing series, Living with Climate Change, will begin next week with a discussion about the polar vortex. You would like to visit any of our previous briefings or revisit them. You can watch the briefing recordings and view the highlight notes by visiting us online at www.esi.org forward slash briefings. And be sure to RSVP for upcoming briefings and subscribe to our newsletter. I'm going to keep my introduction today very short because we have a special guest joining us. But I would still like to share what I will be listening for as our panelists make their presentation. We will learn about the intent of Justice 40, which was launched early last year when President Biden signed executive order 14-0-0-8 on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad on January 27, 2021. And we will also learn about the status of the initiative to target 40% of the benefits from specific federal investments, including clean energy, energy efficiency, and water infrastructure, to disadvantaged and frontline communities. But more than anything else, what I'm really interested in learning about today is how we make the intent behind Justice 40 into tangible results. This briefing is an opportunity to honestly reflect on the first year of the initiative and discuss opportunities to learn from our experience so far to make adjustments going forward. The environmental justice movement is a lot bigger than Justice 40, and it started long before the initiative's launch in January, 2021. But a successful federal initiative will make other efforts more likely to succeed and do right by the communities they serve. Our chances of avoiding the worst outcomes of climate change will be a lot better if we ensure that the opportunities and benefits of climate action are equitably distributed. Our transition to a decarbonized clean energy economy cannot leave anyone behind. And I am eager to learn from our panelists how we can do that and what state and local efforts can teach us about how the federal government can be most helpful. I mentioned a discussion with our panelists. So let me remind everyone at the outset that we will have some time after we hear presentations for questions, and we will do our best to incorporate questions from our audience. If you have a question, you can send it to us by email. The email address to use is askask at EESI.org, or you can follow us on Twitter at EESI online and send it to us that way. Before I turn to the panel, I would like to introduce Representative Donald McEachan, who will share some opening remarks on the importance of the topics being discussed today. Representative McEachan represents the 4th District of Virginia in Congress and is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee on Natural Resources, and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. He is also co-chair of the House Democratic Environmental Message Team, co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus's Transportation Infrastructure, Environment and Energy Policy Council, and vice chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. Representative McEachan is also a co-founder of the United for Climate and Environmental Justice Congressional Task Force, and of special importance today, Representative McEachan is an original co-sponsor of the Environmental Justice for All Act. Thank you, Representative McEachan, for joining us this afternoon. Hi, everyone. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to join you all virtually to discuss the importance of environmental justice, present by this Justice 40 Initiative and our path forward. Every American deserves the ability to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in an environment free of harmful pollutants. Unfortunately, for far too many, those rights are not realized or protected. Low-income communities, communities of color, and tribal and indigenous communities bear the brunt of environmental degradation and injustice. Environmental injustices often exacerbate and amplify existing issues, meaning these vulnerable, frontline, and fence line communities also experience the impact of our worsening climate first and most severely. It is past time that we take steps to ameliorate these longstanding inequities and ensure that every American can live in a healthy environment, regardless of their zip code or their socioeconomic status. President Biden's Justice 40 Initiative demonstrates a historic effort to advance environmental justice for the American people. By committing 40% of benefits from our clean energy transition as direct investments to impacted communities, the federal government can take meaningful steps to right these wrongs and create healthier environments for historically marginalized and oppressed groups. As the Biden administration continues its efforts on Justice 40, I will continue to coordinate and collaborate with the executive branch when possible while working to advance smart, forward-looking policy solutions here in Congress. In order to effectively promote environmental justice, we must be steadfast in our commitments, raise the conscience of the American people and continue to confront injustice whenever and wherever we see it. I am proud of the work Natural Resources Chair Raul Verhover and I have done on our Environmental Justice for All Act. Our legislation is truly drafted by the people, for the people, and that's how it must be. Each and every community has unique challenges that require a tailored solution. Not a one-size-fits-all approach is only through meaningful consultation and creating spaces to engage and construct a dialogue that lawmakers will be able to develop the policies they need. To continue those efforts, Chair Verhover and I have launched a nationwide community input tour to see the realities of environmental justice and, more importantly, to hear from impacted residents, stakeholders, and community leaders on what they need to rectify the problem. You cannot achieve environmental justice without creating space at the table for all parties involved and that's what we're going to continue to do. The Congressional Progressive Caucus recently endorsed our EJ for All Act and I remain optimistic that we will gain the necessary momentum to move this legislation forward expeditiously. I would like to thank the Environmental and Energy Study Institute for organizing today's Justice 40 Briefing and I look forward to our continued collaboration. Thank you and God bless. Well, many thanks to Representative McKeechin for his excellent remarks and helping us get off or start this briefing on the right foot and thanks also to his staff for helping arrange participation today. It means a lot to have you join us given your leadership and position of influence on these issues. We'll now turn to our panel and it is my privilege to introduce our first panelist of the day, Raya Salter. Raya is an attorney, consultant, educator and clean energy law and policy expert with a focus on energy and climate justice. Raya is the founder of the Energy Justice Law and Policy Center and a member of the New York State Climate Action Council, the body that is developing the plan to implement the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which is one of the nation's leading climate laws and the state origin of the Federal Justice 40 Initiative. A special note, Raya also serves on our board of directors here at EESI and she provides us with valuable guidance and insights as we develop educational resources for policymakers including, for example, our briefing today. Raya, great to see you. I'm looking forward to your presentation. Thank you so much, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone. I am thrilled to be here. I am thrilled to be here with my esteemed colleagues. Thank you to EESI. So let's go ahead and jump into it and talk about the path forward for Justice 40. So yes, again, my name is Raya Salter. I'm the founder of the brand new Energy Justice Law and Policy Center. We are the first Energy Justice Law and Policy Center public interest law firm in the country making the connection between people and power. Thank you very much for that. Next slide, please. All right, so let's buckle up because we're going on a ride. It's gonna be fun. It's like Universal Studios because we've only got about 10 minutes and we're gonna talk about Justice 40 and what's going on. So what is Justice 40? 40%, why 40%? What's going on with this? So Justice 40 was established by executive order in January, 2021. And that order said a lot of things, but let's go ahead and talk about some of the operative provisions. One, it requires certain government agencies to make recommendations on how benefits of certain climate investments will reach disadvantaged communities. In particular, 40% of certain climate benefits must go to, quote unquote, disadvantage communities. The idea behind this is a climate justice redirect frame. How do we make sure that we invest in the communities that are most climate vulnerable, most environmentally burdened, have endured systemic and historic racism and marginalization, et cetera. So that is the idea behind it and where the 40% came from. The executive order also required the creation of a geospatial climate and economic justice screening tool. And it also required that the government put forward a report card by February, 2022. Next slide, please. So a couple of other pieces that are important to talk about about this executive order is the way it built in some procedural justice, a participatory justice and the way it attempts to bake in EJ more into the executive branch. So it created a White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council. And within the EPA, a White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council or WEJAC. Now that body is made up of environmental justice advocates and others who were appointed by the president. So the Justice 40 was designed to be part of a whole of government approach to deliver environmental justice the promise to deliver environmental justice by the Biden administration. So I think it's really important, however, we've got this federal initiative and it's really important that folks understand where this came from. And it came from grassroots advocates, climate and environmental justice advocates in New York state. This is a picture of New York Renews shutting down then governor Cuomo's office in Albany. I was there as the legal observer, lawyers always support actions where you can at least as a legal observer demanding the passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. And among the provisions and we won and among the provisions was this idea that 40% of the benefits of climate spending and in New York, it's broad, a lot of climate spending must be directed to disadvantaged communities. And look, it's also folks need to realize in New York, we've identified over 30% of the population is a quote unquote disadvantaged community. So we're not talking about a small, this is a group that needs to be reached if we're going to have any type of progress on climate. And what I also wanna emphasize is that this Justice 40 is not something that's being given to folks from the federal government. It was never gonna work that way. It is a really a part of the long history and legacy of the civil rights movement in the United States that has demanded action from presidents and there's nothing new here. Next slide please. This is just one example. This is a poster from 1941 when A. Philip Randolph went to President Roosevelt and said, in advance of World War II, we want you to desegregate the military. They didn't do that. But he said, if you're gonna be hiring folks and building all this stuff for World War II, black people have to be a part of those jobs. And he went to President Roosevelt and he pushed them and he said he was gonna have a march on Washington if he didn't do it. And that resulted in the passage of an executive order. So it's really important I think for people to understand that this is a lot about activism and this push and pull. This is not something that's being given to us from any particular administration or agency. Next slide please. So back to J40, where are we with our timeline? So the Justice 40 order was signed in January of 2021. Then in May, the Ouijaq, again, that body made up of environmental justice advocates provided recommendations pursuant to the executive order. They have an advisory role to the government on this process. Then in July, the government put out their official interim implementation guidance. They didn't accept a lot of what the Ouijaq wanted, but this is the timeline. That is they put forward the guidance, which is supposed to trigger this interagency work and collaboration on making sure the Justice 40 happens. Then February, the deadline has passed. We have not gotten the Justice 40 report card. We understand that it is forthcoming, but we did get the CEQ tool to identify environmental justice communities as was required by the executive order. Here we are today, and it's an open question. Where the administration is, we don't have our report card yet, but it's an open question. How will Justice 40, if at all, be implemented in these massive funding packages that have already come out and that we anticipate? We saw the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in November. How will Justice 40 apply there, if at all? And we are anticipating a reconciliation package to come that may still have climate provisions in it. It's still an open question as of right now, how Justice 40 will fit into that. We've seen some indications of how it would have fit into earlier versions. Next slide, please. So some very important and critical issues remain. One is defining benefits to disadvantaged communities. Nobody likes this wish-washing benefits concept. The only reason we have the language in New York is because advocates didn't win dollars spent. And that's what we're moving towards in New York, is that at least the initial metric shouldn't be benefits to disadvantaged communities, but actual dollars spent. When we've used that metric, we've seen more success in New York. And many advocates would like to see that in the federal level as well. 40% of what, right? We saw from the debut of Build Back Better initially, that while there was a lot of good stuff in there, it wasn't 40% to quote unquote, disadvantage community. So we need to keep our eye on that. The next very important issue is that the tool that came out, this economic justice tool, does not use race as an indicator. It's one of the indicators now. There's for a lot of reasons that that's true. However, the environmental justice and economic and racial justice community is trying to understand how you can address environmental racism without looking at race. We are looking to see what happens to the report card, unclear what the status will be there, advocates are very concerned about the potential harms that might be done by either the infrastructure package or Build Back Better. And will those outweigh the benefits without real environmental justice guardrails and protections, some key issues. Next slide, please. Oh, I see actually, this was a shorter slide deck than the one I had. I have a few more, a few more comments. One is about important congressional interventions that are happening right now. And I'll just go ahead and briefly say, as you heard Representative McKeech mentioned, natural resources has put forward a very important environmental justice for all, Bill. And that is something to support. Basically, the congressional pieces I'm going to mention that are trying to bake into law, more protections for environmental justice are something that we wanna support in the backdrop that is this Justice 40 initiative. So from natural resources, we have an environmental justice for all. From the Committee on Oversight and Reform, we have the Federal Prep Act. And we've also seen the Committee on Oversight and Reform move forward to press the general accounting office for oversight and accountability on this issue. And we've also seen oversight and reform to bake into previous versions of Build Back Better, funds for oversight for Justice 40. So these are some of the important things that we want to walk forward and support. And so we need to see this all of government approach really take shape and start to sort of move forward. So how do we do that? How do we move forward? We need to support the initiatives that are being put together, put forward by the government. We need to continue to meeting the, sorry, the bills and the environmental justice for all bill and the prep act. We need to continue to push the administration on the tool, look to see what happens on the report card and continue to push the administration to ensure that environmental justice and Justice 40 is represented in all government actions going forward, including Build Back Better. And so with that, I will, apologies for the slide deck, but with that, I will end. Also, I will invite you, you can join me on Instagram, I'm climate auntie on Instagram and anybody out here, you can call me your climate auntie and I wanna welcome everybody to the climate family. And with that, I will turn it back to our host. Thank you climate auntie for an excellent presentation. Raya makes a good point about slide and just as a reminder, everything, all of our slide, all of our presenters will make resources available online. It will all be posted on the briefing page at www.esa.org. And to the extent that there was, there were some slides in the thing, we'll be sure to correct that on the other side, but slides, links to other things, the webcast, all of that stuff will be available online. Next up, we, I'm very pleased to welcome to our panel, Carla Walker. Carla is the director of environmental justice and equity for WRI in this role. She provides leadership to include equity, environmental justice and justice transition in climate change initiatives to expand their visibility and impact and influence decision makers to advance solutions for today's environmental challenges. Previously, Carla worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council as the climate advisor for the city of Cincinnati. And she spearheaded large-scale civic engagement and public service initiatives at the local, state, national and international levels for 20 years. Carla, welcome to our briefing today. I will turn it over to you. Hey, Dan, and thank you EESI for including me on this panel. I'm incredibly excited to be a part of this conversation. That was an amazing setup and overview by RIA on the Justice 40 Initiative. As Dan said, my name is Carla Walker. I use the pronouns, she, her. I'm going to share some recommendations from a recent WRI policy brief that examined some ways in which targeted investment and other spending and policy considerations can direct and retain benefits of clean energy for historically marginalized, underserved and over-polluted communities. Kind of getting at this idea on the premise of Justice 40. So let's start with what we know. Go to the next slide, please. Thank you. So we all know from all of the documentation out there that climate change just proportionately impacts frontline and historically marginalized communities. And we know that these communities also suffer from overlapping social and economic inequities that can limit the effectiveness of investment. So that can look like anything from a lack of access to capital or barriers to business ownership and exclusion from decision-making. So any investment in an inequitable system is undoubtedly going to yield in an equitable result, right? An inequitable result. But federal investments, they actually, they can do something different. They can and they should contribute to an equitable clean energy transition. And for that kind of result, they need to do more than just provide the investment. Those federal investments need to be spent in a just and effective manner. And we're suggesting that they be paired with intentional and enabling policies and processes. So I'm gonna walk you through the six recommendations we offered in our briefing for federal policy makers and other authorities to consider for effective targeting of investments in this next phase of Justice 40. Next slide, please. So we know that targeting is common across federal government, including for energy specific programming, as you see here. Federal clean energy spending and assistance programs and provide a substantial opportunity to address energy injustice. And so in this table, you'll see a few categories of existing targeted federal spending and their connection to energy equity related programs, as well as some of the energy equity issues out there targeting. And just a note for our brief, we only looked at energy burden, clean energy jobs and clean energy access, of course there's some other energy equity issues out there. So let's go to the next slide and this actually gets us to our first recommendation, which is we are suggesting that there be a review of existing forms of current and direct spending for federal spending and programs. We should probably get a good sense of how suitable are these current programs are in addressing energy and equity? What are some of the needed improvements and how do we address those? Next slide, please. So we then looked at data quality, availability and metrics, right? So the federal government is a major collector and aggregator of national data, national data sets, and it is also a technical and financial resource for state and local level data collection. So it can advance complimentary investments and requirements for data collection, disclosure and publication. And this means it can provide an opportunity to address existing data in adequacies, push for more effectively targeted programming and regularly evaluate if a program funding is reaching marginalized community. So in our brief, we highlighted three areas of needed data improvement, completeness, which looks at like the need for, let's say more reporting on clean energy equity indicators, engagement and access, and that could look like making data results and analysis free and open and accessible to communities so that they have the tools and the information to engage adequately and appropriately in the decision-making process. And then we looked at areas around granularity, which could also look like making representative data reflective of local conditions. So that leads us to our next recommendation and the next slide, which is focusing on the implementation of effective data-driven and results-focused programs and programming on energy equity issues. Next slide, please. So states and local governments will no doubt be the recipients of large swaths of these investments and experts, NGOs, CBOs, community-based organizations at the local and regional level usually are the ones with the relationships to better engage with local environmental justice and frontline communities. However, a lack of staff capacity and technical support has been seen throughout the federal funding application process throughout its project design and implementation. And that lack of capacity and technical assistance is often mentioned by local governments as a key factor in preventing them from participating in federal programming. And so that leads us to our third recommendation on the next slide, which is around building the capacity of states, local governments and community groups, and other representatives of communities so that they can apply for federal funds or engage in that programming. And the next slide, look at the way that grants through the federal government can compensate local leaders who have the knowledge and expertise through their lived experience, through that work experience with grassroots and community-based organizations. And these grants can be done and provided while investing in conditions that allow for the engagement of local community voices in a participatory planning process around energy programs. And this leads us to our fourth recommendation, which is about bringing the interests of communities that have been historically excluded to the forefront of federal spending while in equipping and empowering these actors to lead in program design, implementation and monitoring. And the next slide, if we look at the nexus of jobs and clean energy, while the potential to create new jobs with federal spending exists, we want to and should be avoiding the risk that these jobs are low-wage jobs instead of being higher-paying quality jobs. And more importantly, we should be making sure that job creation is not done without a pathway for historically excluded groups to access these jobs. So that leads us to our next recommendation, which focuses on ensuring that clean energy spending creates pathways to high-quality jobs or a diverse workforce. And so the next slide, please. So for clean energy technology to be affordable and accessible for low-income households, financing mechanisms must be designed to be easily accessible. And this is not consistently or currently the case. So for example, programs, federal programs may be seeing low-programmatic uptake and that could be the direct result of how clean energy financing and incentives are designed or through the mechanisms or with cost-share requirements that exclude or potentially exclude certain individuals or communities. And so that leads us to our next and last recommendation, which is to support inclusive financing approaches to deploy clean energy and energy efficiency and low-income Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities as well as other communities of color. So with current federal investments, we know that there are inequities that we face in the energy system, right? Right now, more than one of every four U.S. households faces high-energy burden, spending at least 6% of household income on energy. And unfortunately, the sad truth is that a disproportionate number of Hispanic Black and Native American households holds face of high-energy burden compared to their share of households nationally. When we look at new clean energy spending and clean energy jobs, which are critical, there's no guarantee that there is an equitable distribution of the economic opportunity that goes with those jobs. And as I mentioned at the start of my presentation, any investment in an inequitable system is going to yield an inequitable result, but that does not have to be the case. We know that the clean energy transition is both constrained by and dependent on addressing systemic racism and wealth inequity in the United States. Next slide, please. And Justice 40 is set up to provide an unprecedented federal funding as a part of a historic commitment to cleaner and a more equitable energy system. Clean energy investments that deliver benefits to marginalized, underserved, or disadvantaged communities are central to building a future that is less vulnerable to climate change and more prosperous for all. And that will wrap it up for me. I'm going to turn it back over to you, Dan. Thank you, Carla, for that presentation. We will now move to our third panelist. But before I introduce her, I would just like to remind everyone that we will have time for questions and answers. And so after our fourth panelist, we will move into that. If you have any questions that you would like to submit online, you can do that by sending us an email. And the email address used is askask at EESI.org. You can also follow us on Twitter at EESI online. Our third panelist today, excuse me, is Colleen Callahan. Colleen is co-executive director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles. She previously served as its founding deputy director for 12 years. And she collaborates with colleagues and civic partners and helps ensure that LCI's research shapes evidence-based environmental policy and other solutions. She spends much of her time strategizing, partnering, amplifying LCI's work, and leading or supporting research projects, communications, events, and more. Colleen, welcome to our briefing today. I'm really looking forward to your presentation. Thank you, Dan. It's such an honor to be part of this event, be on the panel with such esteemed colleagues. Thank you to Brea, to Karla for your great presentations, of course, representative vacation for those really insightful framing remarks in the beginning. All of you have made my job today a lot easier because so much important background and contacts and critical statements have been made already and I have to build upon them by giving you highlights from a report that the Lesken Center at UCLA co-authored is kind of part of a collaborative research project funded by the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund in addition to some other foundations. And next slide. And the result was the report, Making Justice 40 a Reality for Frontline Communities, Learning from States, Climate and Clean Energy Investments. And I am going to just share some highlights from that report today. Next slide. Before I share those highlights, I want to acknowledge that our researcher's approach was very grounded in learning from movement leaders and others really engaged on the ground and in all levels of government, state, federal and local and some of those advisors are listed here. Next slide please. So the report provides guidance to federal agencies and Congress on steps to design and implement Justice 40 to be equitably transformational and effectively accountable. We organized the findings and recommendations around five main questions that states have grappled with and for which the federal government should also address when building out the design and implementation of the Justice 40 initiative. Today, I'll just narrow in on two questions and happy to answer those two parts, two questions, but happy to answer and speak to other components of what we studied. And so today I'll focus in on the why and how. Next slide. To answer these questions, the why and how, we assess the lessons, both the good and the bad from states that already have laws authorizing their own climate and clean energy investments. Importantly, most of these states have a Justice 40 equivalent, an investment minimum or set aside for so-called disadvantaged communities or what we here in California refer to as priority populations, long-term households and frontline communities, disproportionately harmed by pollution and poverty. Viya talked about New York and that's a critical example. Washington also has joined New York. It's together they have the highest investment in a 40% target. Washington also has an additional 10% set aside for tribal communities. Here in California, we have the longest running climate investments initiative. California's invested over four billion into disadvantaged communities and low income households much more appropriated in the pipeline. For a full half, 50% of implemented dollars have gone to these so-called priority populations. So even though the target is a little lower, a full half have gone to priority populations far as being that investment minimum and demonstrating a focus on inclusion and equity and climate and clean energy investments. It's not only politically morally important but it's very feasible. Next slide. So the first major lesson from states after that kind of overview is you can see some examples of the states that have their own laws. The first major example to pull from these states is the importance of creating a strong framework for Justice 40. And this strong framework should include guiding principles, goals and objectives for which to measure progress and ensure accountability. Carla talked about the importance of accountability, the data, the metrics that are tracked over time. This is critical. Unfortunately, the framework has not yet been put forth at the federal level. The interim guidelines are not what I would classify as kind of just very strong framework yet for Justice 40. We hope that we will see it. So our report proposes three main principles as part of a strong framework that we'd like all levels of government starting at the federal government and at the state level to adopt. So the first is resources. Justice 40 should reverse the historical wrong and watch some communities have least benefited but have been most harmed from government investments. Communities of color and other areas, the front lines of systemic pollution and also poverty should be at the front lines for investments. This means prioritizing investments in physical infrastructure like clean energy and zero mission transportation. But it also means leveling the playing field, getting on that capacity building that Carla was talking about. Otherwise no amount of government investment will result in more equitable outcomes. The federal government has an important role to play in helping under-resourced communities be prepared for, apply for and manage complex resource-intensive government grants and programs. The second principle that we think is important is empowerment. Justice 40 should be a pathway to achieve transformational change from the ground up. So this requires updating investment programs and processes to ensure community engagement, agency and leadership in local investments. It's really about local self-determination that we want to facilitate with these investments that are designed to be community, at least those designed to be place-based and community-serving. Third is accountability, as well as realizing the opportunity for more systemic reform. The initiative must include strong guardrails to ensure that agencies at all levels of government in all states, further justice-oriented goals. An accountable justice 40 can also be a catalyst to institutional fairness, equity and racial justice into government practices, policies, programs and systems, more broadly speaking. But I'll be honest, the window of opportunity is slipping away and we're not yet seeing that. Next slide. So the report also puts forth objectives for how federal climate clean energy investments should target inequities and disparities that currently block racial and environmental and economic justice. I'm going to provide examples of some states planning to or currently addressing these five disparities through their own climate clean energy investments for disadvantaged communities and low-income households. So in New York, that's been, that states come up a couple of times already, New York has provided as an example of planning to address outside pollution burdens and associated health impacts through their Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. A testament to many years of successful grassroots strategy and organizing, this is arguably the most equity-centered climate clean energy law in the country. And as we've already said, the state origin of Justice 40. Virginia is highlighted as planning to address impacts of climate change, such as intensifying storms and then doing that through the Clean Energy and Community Flood Protection Act of 2020. This is important because forced climate change is here now and so I'm installing exacerbated inequality. In California, it is an example of investing in technical assistance and capacity building support to help priority communities apply for and manage large grants through communities through their Climate Investments Initiative. California has also created new investment programs and processes to really try to empower disadvantaged communities and setting up own investment priorities, avoiding harm from local investments and governing implementation of those investments. Illinois and Maryland are provided examples of planning to provide comprehensive financial and job training support for workers affected by the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel industries. This is critical so that no one is left behind in the transition to a clean economy. And then finally, the state of Washington, which I mentioned just past their bill last year, they're going to be investing in increasing access to clean technology and lowering utility costs for low-income households. And this is important because as low-income households have less access to clean tech like home solar and electric vehicles and also tend to live in older, less-inflated homes, and then of course provide more of that energy burden on them that Carla was mentioning. So the headline here is that there's no state model, but we can take different elements from different states. These are just examples. There's a lot more I can talk about. And together, these lessons and the political mental kind of behind these state efforts could be useful for the justice organization. Nice slide. So now I'm going to just give a couple of examples on how the federal government could do more. Right now we're seeing that the federal government is seeing that we're starting to miss the opportunity to use the Justice Board Initiative to really advance environmental and racial justice. To realize the opportunity, we've put forth some specific operational recommendations. And some of this underscores what Rayette has already talked about. So first, we recommend that Congress establish an investment phenomenon. That's a requirement, not a goal, of at least a 40% so a floor not a ceiling for direct investments in disadvantaged communities. The second order that authorizes J-40 uses the nebulous term benefits for disadvantaged communities which could be nightmare to ensure accountability around. In contrast, the California strategy focuses on direct investments to eligible households or within multiple communities. Using a direct investment approach simplifies the process of assessing compliance and goal achievements for agencies that are overseeing or administering programs while enhancing transparency and accountability to taxpayers. The second, set cross-agency guidelines and required processes to give frontline communities agency and local investment decision-making and to avoid negative consequences of investments such as housing displacement. And we think that California has a strong set of guidelines and requirements that are put on of all agencies and there are well over a dozen agencies that implement a suite of California climate investments that really strive to do these things. Third, establish strong guardrails. This gets back to the accountability piece. So to do so, we cross-agency requirements for justice-oriented funding criteria, transparent reporting of results, objective evaluation, and enforcement mechanisms to ensure justice for the goals and objectives are achieved across administering agencies and across states. We need this to come from the federal government because it's very clear that we can't leave it to the states and expect equitable results throughout the country. Next slide. And I'm gonna stop with there, but I wanted to refer you to the website that puts together a lot of other resources as part of this effort that we've done. And the website is TheJustice40.com. You can also contact me. My email address is on the slide. And I look forward to your questions and the Q&A with my esteemed panelists. That's it for now. Thank you. Thank you, Colleen, for your presentation today. And thank you for the slides. As a reminder, we will be taking questions from our audience. So you can send us questions about what you've heard so far. AskASK at ESI.org, or follow us on Twitter at ESI online. If you'd like to go back and revisit any of the presentations or rewatch the audio or rewatch the recording, everything will be available at ESI's webpage or website, www.esi.org. So now Wilkins is our fourth panelist and it is my pleasure to introduce her. She is the founder of the Green Door Initiative, as you can see in her background, Green Doors, which I just think is a really nice color green. It's kind of like the green in our logo. Where she is not only taking the city of Detroit to the next level of environmental stewardship, but also the nation. Sunel is a leader, visionary, and result-oriented person who has demonstrated servant leadership in her hometown of Detroit for nearly 20 years. First by leading the local movement for environmental justice on the front lines and then by expanding to help achieve true sustainability for all. Her achievements include participating in the development and adoption of an environmental justice policy in the state of Michigan, and conceiving and launching the first green jobs training program in the city. Sunel, welcome to our briefing today and I will turn it over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Dan, for that nice introduction. I can see that I did not get my latest bio and update because I've really been doing this work for 30 years, so we'll have to change that. But anyway, let me say that I am happy to be a part of this conversation as a frontline organization doing this work in the city of Detroit. I am extremely interested in exploring how Justice 40 and other initiatives can benefit my community and communities like mine across the country. So the Green Door Initiative is an environmental justice organization. Next slide, please. Is it an environmental justice organization located in the city of Detroit right here? Thank you. But our mission is to ensure that everyone is environmentally literate, capable of promoting and living out a sustainable lifestyle regardless of zip code, regardless of race, regardless of income. Next slide, please. Our work, we recently, because of the Justice 40 initiative, there were some resources that became available for frontline organizations to compete for to help prepare our organizations for the opportunities to go after some of those resources. And so we were fortunate to be accepted into the Justice 40 Accelerator Program. And we did that by submitting a project that we're working on that focuses on job creation, workforce development, solar and other renewable energy options, installing solar panels and other renewable energies into low-income houses and selling those and providing a workforce that can not only manufacture but also install and maintain these panels. Next slide. So we've been doing a project because for us, being on the ground, climate change is real. This is Detroit last summer and being in the Midwest, we've been a bit sort of insulated and protected from more of the extreme weather events, particularly in Michigan. But the last few years we have been experiencing the evidence and impacts of climate change. So we need strong proactive strategies to protect our community, particularly those that are most vulnerable, low-income, the elderly, handicapped children, those that are in poverty. We may all be in the same storm I've been sharing, but we are certainly in different boats and many of the impacts with regard to those boats determine who is able to bounce back, who's able to be resilient, who's able to be able to adjust after major weather events and floodings and other very debilitating kind of activities as a result of climate change. So there in our mind, there's work around mitigation, adaptation, resiliency. There's an opportunity to really build capacity in our communities. My other, the other speakers, my peers spoke about some of those opportunities and even the barriers that may get in the way of communities at the ground, being able to access these resources and make those resources work to improve the quality of life for people in our communities. Next slide, please. So we aim to work towards climate justice as we address the issues around energy and security, needing to provide renewable energy options and all the things I just discussed earlier in terms of extreme weather events. Next slide, please. This is just an example of energy that is not being, that provides problems in our community. This is a petrochemical company, Marathon Oil, located right in the middle of a densely populated community and neighborhood in the city of Detroit. There are problems that really impact public health, causing chronic diseases such as asthma and other things to influence our community, poor air quality, the inability for our local community even to be consistent and attain and meet the standards of the Clean Air Act and we can go on and on. So we need a strategy that will reduce and mitigate these kinds of exposures and create a carbon footprint that is zero or new to zero as much as possible for all the things I mentioned earlier. Next slide, please. So one of the things that the Green Door has done is established a company called 313 Solar LLC and the model involves workforce development. It involves ensuring that we build the capacity and workforce in our local community to not only carry the burden that we've been carrying but find a way to enjoy the benefits and opportunities for transitioning from an overburden economic model that depends on energy production that is not good and lead us into a more cleaner renewable framework. And so we're excited about the 313 Solar and helping to reach that. The goal of producing jobs and making renewable energy accessible to low-income households and folks in our community. Next slide, please. So we believe that a focus on this approach improves health outcomes. It creates not only wealth at the community level but it really does uphold this idea of community having the power in their hands to make the decisions about how they will resource their energy. And of course, we believe that the opportunities are exponential when it comes to employment opportunities. So the Green Door initiative, we've been in the work of providing job training in the Green Collar environmental sector since our inception in 2010. We have trained 700 individuals, many of them with barriers, structural barriers to employment and many of them about a third of the folks that we train are returning citizens. And we think that it's important to provide opportunities and options so that there are jobs and career pathways that will help to support a family and contribute to their local economy. And that's what we plan to do with this. And the Justice 40 initiative provided a lot of hope for us in terms of tapping it to some resources. We've not had the ability to access to make some of these goals a reality. Next slide, please. Like as others have mentioned, feel back better now that it is time for some big and bold investments to take place in our communities. And while the Justice 40 initiative sort of states that investments at least at a 40% level would be the aim of this, we really are serious about making certain that not only do those investments come to our communities, but those of us that are already working in this space actually have the opportunity to access those resources and make those resources work in the way that we've been able to do with very little resources. We believe there's an opportunity to really improve the number of people that get on board into the green collar sector and renewable energy sector that will also help to reduce the burden around climate change. Next slide, please. So these are opportunities. We want renewable energy and options for all that it would be something that is equitable and accessible. Next slide, please. This is just some examples of a 313 solar. The factory, we're also talking about taking advantage of the overabundance of vacant facilities, Detroit placed the world on wheels. There was a joke a decade or so ago, last one out of Michigan turned off the lights because automobile jobs and others were leaving our area. And when the lights came on, there was a lot of vacant land, abandoned factories. And we see that as an asset that we could take advantage of, those buildings to create sites for actually doing this work. Next slide, please. So there are so many options and opportunities that comes with this. And I mentioned that earlier decarbonization and meeting environmental justice goals, stimulating the local community's economic baseline. We know that people who are in our communities will likely spend their money in our communities and that will circulate and circulate and will benefit the community. Next slide, please. And just a little bit about the competitors. It is very rare to have folks of color, African-Americans, female lead doing this work. And we really want to be a model for that. We find that this is a space, particularly as a not-for-profit organization to take the lead on producing these kind of job opportunities and mitigating the whole energy and security issue. Next slide, please. And again, one, just making certain that we increase the number of folks who live in these communities who are overburdened to take advantage of these opportunities and to benefit so that we can achieve environmental justice. I think I'll leave it here and just say that the Justice 40 opportunities that we saw in the first year, we're really looking forward to seeing those opportunities realized. We have tried our best to follow the money in the local community at the county level, at the state level, at the city is a lot to do as a small nonprofit and a small community of folks that are trying to do that. It takes a lot of resources and we really do need to have that capacity to follow the dollars and the whole people accountable to make certain that groups like ours are participating in this and we have to fight to be there, but it's worth it and we're gonna continue to do that. So I'm gonna end it here and say thank you so much for the opportunity to add to this conversation. I look forward to the questions that follow. Thank you so much. And I'm going to take what you just said, it's a lot to do and use that as a segue into our discussion because the four of you have given us a ton to think about and a lot of additional issues to explore in a little bit more detail. We have about a half an hour, which is really fantastic for our discussion, but before we start that, I just want to acknowledge that we do have a couple folks in our audience who have some audio issues. And I just want to say that when we get to the webcast, when it gets posted online, we'll be able to correct that. And we'll also, some of us is connected by phone as well. So if you had some issues with the audio, you can go back and, sorry about that first of all, but you can go back and listen to it again from here on out, I think we'll have solved everything. And I was able to understand, but I understand there were some folks in our audience who weren't, so sorry about that. But without further ado, let us get into our Q and A. And we will start, Raya, we'll go back to you. You were at the top of the order. It's been a while since we've heard from you, so we'll let you kick off. But we'll, really, I'm eager to hear from all of our panelists on each one of these questions. And I'm going to start with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. And they're recently released draft Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. My question is, how should this be used to inform the Justice 40 Initiative going forward? And are there improvements that we should consider for this tool that would allow it to be a more useful resource in our work to deliver greater benefits or dollars spent to environmental justice communities? Thank you for that. I can speak briefly to that. One thing is that I know a lot of work has gone in to develop this tool to make it state of the art. It's been a big effort. And as I've mentioned, activists, many folks are really questioning why race is not being used as an indicator. And there are a lot of reasons the administration is concerned that there will be legal challenges and they're not wrong about that. Yet it's a lot to swallow that we wanna take, how can you take race out of environmental racism to address that? Another issue happening with the tool is that it is a tool as was required by the executive order and it's really unclear like who is going to be using this tool. There's the one tool, but then as you saw in the language even a build back better in those funds sort of agencies be it the EPA or the Department of Energy really get to decide on what those criteria will be for disadvantaged communities is used sometimes, low income is used in others. So those are a few of the issues. I will mention that New York State pursuant to our CLCPA just finished a two year process where our tool which does include race as an indicator was developed in that tool which was released just a few weeks ago was developed by our climate justice working group by statute which is a group of environmental justice advocates. So we've got that sort of extra layer. There are a lot of layers in New York of what we're doing, but I'll stop there. Thank you for the great question. Thanks, Raya. Carla, let's go to you next and then we'll hear from Colleen and Danelle. So what I was mentioning was that in seconding what Raya was commenting on, yet there has been a tremendous amount of work that has gone into the tool and I would encourage cities, organizations, individuals, experts to take a look at the tool, test it out. This is now the time for the community to provide some comments back. It's a public comments portion of this is open right now. I think the deadline is on April 25th and this is how that tool continues to improve. It's in a beta version right now and so as much as people can provide information about what might be missing, what data sets might be missing, what ideas they have around the methodology, accessing that data, that's how that improves. One of the things that WRI is doing is organizing their comments right now and one of the things we would like to make sure is known is that while this is a useful, quantitative approach to identifying their disadvantaged communities, its methodology and accompanying guidance should also acknowledge the qualitative shortcomings of the approach and identifying and defining the challenges that environmental justice frontline communities are facing. So I'll leave it at that. I'm sure there are a number of other things that people want to comment on with respect to the tool. Okay, so with respect to the tool, I think the one thing that I wanna add because I agree with Rhea and Carla's remarks is that this tool isn't necessarily the be all and all. You can't do everything with one tool. Given the range of climate and clean energy investments that we're hoping the federal government will make, expand their funding as well as kind of the offering of eligible funds, I think that we can't expect kind of one tool to do everything for all of those kind of funny opportunities, but it can be a baseline. It can supplement maybe where states have not developed their own tool or where agencies don't have kind of a more specific tool to use to zero in on kind of what are the most important metrics that are critical to both be part of kind of the funding criteria as well as kind of something we wanna track over time to make sure our investments are really paying off and we're seeing change, that we're seeing improvements toward more environmental equity, addressing racial justice, et cetera. And Donnell, I'm eager to hear what you think in terms of how we can make sure that this tool is useful for communities and organizations that serve communities like yours. Well, I definitely agree with my colleagues in their suggestions and recommendations. I will say as someone who manipulated the tool to try to see how to figure out where the hotspots were and if the tool could pick those things up, I know where the hotspots are, let me say that. Let's say 87% of all the polluting facilities are in Detroit and the County of Wayne where Detroit sits for the entire state of Michigan. So when I while manipulating this tool saw that several of the hot areas in our community would not show up on the tool as being considered a disadvantaged community, it really concerned me and my colleagues. And so yesterday I was with some people who were looking at it based on, I was doing it based on zip codes and they were doing it based on the CISIS tracks. And it seemed to bring up different kinds of results. And so CISIS track seems to be a better way at looking at this situation and then bringing up where those resources need to be targeted. Whereas zip codes seem to knock some neighborhoods out, knock areas out that are real host communities for some of the worst kind of activities. So I agree with Carla or one of you guys said this that it should not be the end-all tool for deciding where these resources should be directed. There needs to be other data information, folks will review to help make those decisions. In the end, we need to make certain that there is a reduction of those burdens in our communities by targeting those resources to what we would consider priority areas. And if that tool doesn't do that, doesn't lend itself to that, we're gonna continue to have neighborhoods and communities disproportionately impacted. And the hope is that that begins to change using the resources that are hopefully will come down the pipe. One last thing I will say, I have to give the town to Wayne some credit because they received some Harper dollars and decided we really wanna make certain that those Harper dollars are targeting environmental justice communities to admit it that we really don't know what we're doing and we really need the guidance of folks who are working on this issue to come in and help us. That's the model. Let's talk about that and figure out how we do it. And if more local communities would do that, I think we could get at what I'm talking about in terms of reducing those impacts and improving the quality of life. Well, thanks for that. And once again, you've given me a good segue. So you just came up with an example of the importance of a federal resource like this tool to help states and local governments understand how to do these issues. Let's move to the state level. And we've discussed some state efforts so far. I'm curious, Carla, maybe we'll start with you and then we'll go through and we'll give Clement Auntie the last word on this one since she's coming out from New York. But what states are currently doing similar work and specifically which states are doing it right? Or at least from your perspective doing it right or maybe providing some lessons that we could be taking up to the federal level to improve the overall effort. Well, there's a, can you hear me? Okay, great. So there's a, there's not much I can add to what Colleen has presented. I will say that there are a couple of states, let me just preface this with saying I'm in Ohio. I know we have a lot of work to do in my state, but I'm impressed by obviously what's happening in New York. Love to see what, I love seeing what's happening in Illinois. I believe their legislation has passed the house and is in the Senate, but I appreciate that that is also legislation, their environmental justice legislation is bubbling up from the grassroots. And I would love to hear what, how Donald sees what's happening in Michigan there. I know that the governor has the Environmental Justice Advisory Board and the E.J. Advocate. I think they just recently released their screening tool. But it's great to see at the state level that hopefully there's a lot more push on the, from the grassroots and local side to help kind of really begin getting those levels of change to move at the state level. Especially if there are states out there that whose governors don't necessarily advocate or are on the side of this kind of equitable transition that we're seeing takeover from the heads. But I would love to hear more from Colleen or others on the panel. Like I said, what Colleen presented was a wonderful breakdown of what's happening at the state level. Well, Colleen, let's go to you next and then we'll hear from Danelle and then we'll wrap this question up with Ry's comments. Great. Well, one thing that I haven't yet talked about is kind of the program level investments. That is where federal agencies I think could learn from some model state programs when they might update their program offerings to achieve justice 40 goals. And one example that we'll give and I can give many others, but one is from California. California is part of its climate investments portfolio. Like I mentioned earlier, put forth this pretty progressive set of guidelines that then gave direction to a wide range of state agencies to incorporate into their kind of investment portfolios. And the state strategic growth council developed several new programs to basically achieve the goals. One being the transformative climate communities program. This would not have been possible if it were not for very strong climate equity advocates that for many years did grassroots organizing and state advocacy work. It resulted in a law that then became part of the California climate portfolio. Why is this program a good model for several reasons? One, because it's so holistic. It sets basically all the different climate investment buckets, so clean energy, zero emission transportation, natural resources and urban greening all into one program that streamlines things and prioritizes actually mandates the programs only for those communities that score high on the state screening tool called CalEnviroScrainy. And CalEnviroScrainy scores similar to the federal government's kind of new beta tool, communities that are kind of most vulnerable to poverty and pollution and climate change. And so certain communities, priority populations are eligible and they can apply for one big multi-million, tens of millions of dollar grant to do a wide range of climate and clean energy investments. And here's the other important thing. It's community identified priorities. So communities go through a planning process. They identify their climate action priorities to achieve local health environmental economic goals in addition to GHG reductions. And then they work together through the collaborative stakeholder engagement process that involves leadership development, partnership development, capacity building, which is so critical as I mentioned earlier and Carla emphasized as well. And together they move forward their community identified goals. Transform the plant communities. I think it's an important model. I know the federal government is considering it. So I wanted to flag that as an example of, I think one of the best equity oriented, place-based, community-driven climate action programs that I'm aware of and you are in the country. Thanks. Yeah, Michigan wants to be like California. But I will say more seriously that, yeah, Michigan is stepping into a good role around identifying the priority communities and issues around this. And to be honest, the tool, someone I just got the tool in my hands yesterday, I have not really gone through it, but I will say I'm familiar with the folks who were behind the designing and development of it. And I have a lot of confidence and they've been able to hear from some folks who've reviewed the tool and feel like comparing it to the FADS tool, it is far better. And so I'm optimistic about it, even though I haven't had a chance to really put my hands on it, I will also say that the governor's office has extended an invitation to several of the EJ groups around the state and our group included to serve as an advisor around this. And so that gives me a lot of confidence. Yes, an optimism that we could get to the place we need to get to, even if it's incrementally. So that's a good promise option for us going forward. And I just think that there's room to grow around all of this and we're grateful in Michigan that the governor is stepping up and trying to be an example of that. And Gretchen is not someone that would shy away from these kind of issues. And don't mess with Gretchen, she's going to stand up for what she believes in. And so anyway, I'm looking forward to that, even though I'm making a little light of this, I'm looking forward to working with the committee. Raya, as someone who sort of worked on this at the state level and saw some of that work reflected in the federal level, what other states or what's happening at the state level that we should be looking at as an example of how to do this the right way or the most impactful way? All right, and I think that's a great question. I will speak to some of the efforts that are happening around the country, including New York, to organize and empower communities to have oversight and voice in how these funds are implemented. And there are a lot of folks who are activated around this. This is a tremendous challenge. So New York state, as you mentioned, I talked about the New York law. Right now, I'm a member of our Climate Action Council. We approved our state climate action plan. It is now in public comment. Our Climate Justice Working Group has released our tool. That's also in public comment. And really the piece that I'm gonna get to here is the fact that there is a Climate Action Council with appointees and there is a Climate Justice Working Group and there's actually another environmental justice group that hasn't been appointed. And even these things are not yet good enough to provide that type of oversight that we need in order to continue this being the people's plan. And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done. I was actually just on a call with a official from Delaware. Delaware has gotten through, there are these efforts called justice 40 legislation. So Delaware has gotten forward an effort that would create a kind of, J40 citizen-based advisory and process. North Carolina has been looking at this and several other states as well. And so there's a real push to make that happen. And so I think each state effort is gonna be, different and based on what's happening there. And I like what Carla was saying about how these things and also Colleen, of course, Donnell, everyone was saying, while we do have progressive, more progressive or less progressive representatives in various states, these things come from the ground up, the people demanding these type of policies. So anyway, I'll pass it back to you. Thanks. Yeah, it strikes me to a certain degree that maybe it's okay that states are taking different approaches, right? States are different, different needs, different circumstances. And if we end up with all sorts of 50 good ideas, well, that might be better than just one good idea. I wanted, Donnell, I think I'm gonna start with you on this one because you sort of brought it up in your presentation. That is this issue of barriers. So there's a way this could go where all of these federal investments are being made available and communities are simply not able to access them because there are barriers to frontline and disadvantaged communities when it comes to accessing federal money. What are some of those barriers that you see in your experience and what can we do to overcome them? Well, number one, capacity to be able to access and to go after it, to pursue it. You know, folks, they're limited staffing. There is a lack of understanding in some cases of what's required. And so for example, setting up a SAM account or at sam.gov or something, those are barriers and people don't know that they have to do all of that and do that early enough so that when it's time to actually upload a grant proposal, they don't run into the issues of, you know, not having the kind of technology that's needed. Capacity around writing proposals that meet the federal government's requirements. They're pretty tricky. Accessing technical assistance to help write it, pay for consultants or developers, fund developers or whatever that could assist with some of the more complicated application processes. Even the technology and fiscal systems that need to be in place. So those capacity issues, structural issues. The other one is not knowing when something's coming down the pike and by the time it comes down the pike, you got a week, two weeks to respond. And that in itself can be a huge barrier planning around a particular proposal, convening the right kind of partnerships, the relationships that help you deliver on that or creating a relationship with someone or an entity that can help be a fiscal representative or whatever for your organization, those barriers. Oh shoot, being in the room at the right time with the right people, being invited to the table. Not knowing a table exists. There are bigger organizations that kind of come in and automatically get the resources. You all have heard this, that for every dollar an environmental organization receives to do the work, environmental justice get a penny of that or less. And so, but the lion's share of the problems are in the EJ community. So just not enough money and resources to make it happen. And that sustainability long-term planning so that you could carry out the work so that the work can get done. I can write a list of those barriers. So, the Justice 40 Accelerator programs and other technical assistance resources have to be, there has to be a transparency about how to access those resources. Grants made available to help a smaller organization access technical assistance. And it shouldn't require 20 page dissertation to get a few hours of technical assistance support, for example. So, yeah, those are some of the barriers that over the years I've encountered and have learned from and I tell you there need to be mentoring opportunities and support to help, you know, the more grassroots folks get in on the system or even to determine whether or not you really wanna go after federal funds. Even, you know, there are other places to generate and to also access resources that may be a little more palatable than working with the federal government. So. Well, thank you. Carla and Colleen and Raya, happy to let you chime in as well. I'll let you indicate your interest in speaking by unmuting, right? You're unmuted. If that's a sign you'd like to comment, please go ahead and then we'll hear from Colleen and Carla. I couldn't co-sign with what Donnell said anymore. You know, this issue of, and I, you know, I consider myself as a, you know, as a lawyer and energy, you know, policy. As an expert to, you know, be, you know, that's what I did at New York for News is, you know, try and bring my expertise to that group. We do not have enough. We get calls every day from representatives, you know, what do you think about just yesterday? What do you think about this highway that they wanna put through New Rochelle? They say they're gonna lower emissions. Well, okay, let me pull out of my pocket. My, you know, emissions highway construction calculator and get back to, you know, really for years and years and years. Advocates have been asking, clamoring for this type of funding and this type of opportunity. That's my first off the top. I'll pass the mic. Hey, again, second, everything that has been said here before, but one thing that I would add to it is that this is not something that is just restricted to the nonprofits and the community-based organizations. Cities are also experiencing this. They don't have the capacity to respond, to know what's coming down the pike. I mean, there's an awful lot of information on material and a lot of times they don't have the technical assistance or technical capacity to submit a grant proposal or follow the dollars for a formula grant for the federal government to participate in these programs. And so you see, once the city doesn't get those dollars, then those dollars can't be pushed down into the community. So it's, and this isn't a problem that we just found out about, right? People have been talking about this issue for years, and I mean, this is the time for the administration to listen to those folks on the ground who are trying to get these dollars, listen to what they can actually respond to and incorporate that into the development of these new processes. I'll pass it off to Colleen. Yeah, I wanna underscore those points, Carla. Affluent municipalities are spending a lot of money on lobbyists because the bipartisan infrastructure a lot is incredibly complicated. And this will really just deepen the inequality because the less affluent communities and the community-based organizations just don't have the capacity to figure out how to go after the dollars in such a kind of complicated suite of opportunities. And so the federal government, if they want to really use J40 to reverse these types of historical inequities in investments that only deepen existing issues of systemic racism, economic inequality, et cetera, need to look externally at how to provide TA to those municipalities and CBOs in a way that really listens to the needs on the ground, as well as look at internally, how can the federal government change its systems, its funding processes to address these fundamental barriers? Well, thank you for that. Unfortunately, we are just about out of time. And that is a bummer because I feel like we could go on and on and explore all sorts of different topics. My goal today was to listen and learn and I think these four presentations did a great job educating me. I know if someone says to me now, what do you think of Justice 40? I'll have a much more informed answer than I would have 90 minutes ago. So thank you, Raya and Carla and Colleen and Donnell for your presentations today. They were excellent. If anyone in our online audience would like to go back and re-watch the webcast or view briefing materials or presentation materials or anything like that, you can do that certainly at www.esi.org. We also put together an environmental justice topic page talking about the history of the movement. It is also a place where we've collected and organized our various environmental justice related resources. So articles and briefings and podcasts. We cover the issue in all sorts of different ways. Briefings is just one of them. And so if you visit us online, I invite everybody to take some time and check out that topic page and I think it's something that you'll find useful. And I would like to also thank Representative McKeechin for joining us today with his introductory remarks and thanks to his staff for making that possible. As we wrap up, this is where I pivot into plugging EESI activities in addition to the environmental topic page and things. I mentioned that our next two briefing series or one of our next two briefing series Living with Climate Change will start next week. We will be looking at the polar vortex and in about that same time, on roughly an alternating schedule, we will start a second series scaling up innovation to drive down emissions, to explore emerging technologies and energy sources we need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first of those topics will be green hydrogen and no one will want to miss that. So visit us online and RSDP for our briefings. The best way to keep up with all of our resources is to subscribe to our biweekly newsletter of climate change solutions. One last time, thank you, Raya, Carla, Colleen and Donnell. Thank you, Representative McKeechin. Thank you also to all the great folks at EESI who make these briefings possible. Thanks to Dan O, Dan O'Brien, Omri, Emma, Allison, Anna and Savannah for all of their hard work and thanks to our really excellent spring interns Emily and Grace. Dan O, our colleague has just put a slide up with a link to a survey. I'm once again acknowledge that some of our folks in our audience had some audio issues but it's important for us to hear exactly sort of what you think of our work. Did you have any additional issues? Do you have ideas for future topics? Are there resources that are missing from our website that you would like to see? Information gaps that we might help fill. If you take two minutes and fill out the survey, we read every response and we really appreciate everyone taking time out of their day to help us improve our educational resources for policymakers. We will go ahead and wrap it up there. Thanks to everyone for joining us online and I wish everyone a happy rest of their Friday and a happy weekend and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody, thank you. Thank you.