 Good morning and welcome to the House of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Committee. This morning we are going to be taking up. I think it's the right building title that you have here. It says 148. I think it's the right number but the title may not be right so I'm not going to read it. And we are I just want to remind our witnesses I want to thank you for being here with us this morning and then say that we, this is intended to be an introduction. It's intended to be an introduction of this topic to our committee which means we're not going to have a ton of time and you one of you will be taking further testimony in the future. There are seven people on the list here and although I think I will ask the agency how many of you are attending to present to okay. One, two, three, four of you. Sorry, can't go. So six people on the list divided by an hour. Just please keep that in mind when you are sharing your testimony with us. So with that, thank you for being here and we will start with Bindu Panakar, the assistant professor of gunned Institute for the environment. Welcome, Ms. Panakar. Good morning everyone. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really pleased to be talking to this panel or to testify in support of the environmental justice bill as 148 introduced by Senator Keisha Ram Hinstale. My name is Bindu Panakar. I'm an assistant professor at the Rubinstein School of the environment and natural resources. I'm also a fellow at the gunned Institute of the environment and also a member of the rejoice and renews BIPOC Council. We live in trouble times, and each day we get reminders that lack of lack of equity costs lie lives. Be the death of George Floyd, the poor communities overlooked for decades impacted more heavily in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina or Maria, or the innocent civilians in Ukraine or Afghanistan. We have to be inclusive in thinking, especially within policymaking of those ignored and left behind who have been marginalized for decades, if not centuries. Today, so even if I am a South Asian immigrant myself, today I'm here to speak about my EJ work as a scholar. EJ in the state is important to define because Vermont is unlike other states. It is one of the most homogeneous states in the country, it has relatively fewer environmental burdens, compared to other states. But still, my research shows that people in the state do not experience the environment the same way. I started my work by doing spatial analysis work. And we looked at the intersection of those with fewer privileges, including BIPOC people, those living in poverty, mobile home residents, people who have limited English proficiency those who are renters in the state and so on and how they experience environmental and health risks in the state. Together we drew upon about 28 different variables to create a spatial tool called the Vermont Health Disparities Index. Each tract in Vermont was given a score based on these 28 variables. That is how we have identified those most at risk to environmental and health disparities in the state based on these 28 indicators. It is clear from this study that black, indigenous and people of color in the state, especially more exposed to historic environmental risks than the rest in the state. This association was not seen among the poor in the state, interestingly. In particular, the tracts with BIPOC and people with limited English proficiency were significantly more at risk from historic environmental risk, historic sites of pollution, heat vulnerability, and air pollution than the rest of the population. So, interesting set of results from just doing the spatial analysis. We followed the spatial analysis by conducting a statewide survey work. This actually brought to bear the limitations within doing spatial analysis or doing one approach alone. It does not really capture well the population risks and their needs. The survey work actually showed that both BIPOC people and those living under poverty in the state had less access to environmental benefits. The spatial revealed much more historical burden and momental risks to BIPOC population, but here the survey work actually showed less access to benefits and momental benefits among both especially low income population and the BIPOC group. The BIPOC people were twice as likely to report exposure to mold, lack of access to public transportation, not to own a vehicle, have trouble paying for food, not to have a primary care doctor report immune disorders, and three times more likely to rely heavily on public transportation, have trouble paying for electricity, go hungry in a month, and report higher rates of Lyme disease compared to the white population. These were also seen among, you know, the income poor communities. So these are examples of widespread disparities across wide ranging essential services. This is not a luxury we are talking about but simple basic human needs that should be everyone's human right. So while Vermont is taking also bold moves to address climate change by breaking our addiction to fossil fuels, it also needs to happen in a way that supports those communities most vulnerable to climate change. Communities with low socioeconomic status of Vermonters of colors and those living in more rural areas all face burdens of fossil fuel infrastructure and quite unique ways without affordable clean alternatives. Investment in public or electric transportation infrastructure in areas lacking such investment, you know, a clean energy transition is quite a bit hard. Our study published lately in energy policy found that climate initiatives are not often benefiting communities of color communities of color where seven times less likely to have rooftop solar than white respondents. So to have justice, it becomes imperative first to identify injustices that exist in order to then address underlying causes of them. This process of inquiry conducting say spatial analysis in this case or community engaged research, both quantitative and qualitative should be part of any State Department to help explain the root causes of inequities, oppressions and power structures that create vulnerabilities and risks to particular communities. Environmental justice underscores an unequal prep present that certain communities are bearing the brunt of environmental degradation, while also being denied the fruit of solutions or actions. We know that environmental injustice have been built on centuries of unequal social relations through processes of colonization industrialization and capitalism. EJ communities have been trapped into systemic inequities that subject them to higher historic environmental risks lower environmental burdens and premature death deaths. These social and civil rights inequities and the environmental and health crisis we face in the world are totally connected. The environmental and health crisis we face in our nation and the world today cannot be addressed without addressing injustices. Our economic future and environmental future are in extricably linked. While it is easy to reduce environmental justice to questions about particular facts or even distributional justice considerations or norms of economy and instrumental policy means we should not forget that justice is inherently about social values and the social ordering that structure hierarchies. In our in-depth interviews people identified EJ as an intersection of political power, poverty and pollution that it is about components of power and powerlessness that EJ is always already at the crossroads rather than fix a meaning in time and space. The process and politics of meaning making is what makes EJ continually relevant. Hence top down orderings are not likely to be sufficient in addressing inequities. Instead community engagement and organizing has to be incorporated to make meaningful impact. Participation is a key political capability necessary to ensure true democracy. So recognizing the way people function, acknowledging and incorporating the diverse ways of functioning, knowing and practices are also key elements of justice. So we have a unique opportunity here to elevate environmental justice. Environmental protection is not just about protecting wilderness and keeping it beautiful for Vermonters. It is about making our urban and suburban neighborhoods safe, clean places to live, work and raise a family for all. So our environmental solutions must be intersectional. We have to look to solutions that benefit local community, that increases the community capabilities, increases agency and cooperation on local decision making and galvanizes these societies to be self-sufficient and sustainable. And environmental justice is also about yearning for a better future for all and creating a healing path forward for communities that have been left behind and left out. In short, in Vermont, social and environmental concerns are deeply entangled. Environmental and health disparities are prominent in BIPOC and low income population. Some of these disparities are historical and many are related to lack of access to environmental benefits. These inequities are preventable. The EJ definition proposed in the bill has been workshopped in multiple BIPOC communities word for word before including it in the bill, including it in the bill. We have a responsibility to also adopt more traditional ecological approaches within environmental decision making in collaboration with Indigenous communities with expertise. And targeted responses, policies and action are required to address these systemic inequities. Why we need to support state-based EJ policy as soon as possible, proper investments and community-centered programs are required to address these systemic inequities. One of the inequities why we have to commit to a targeted spending of at least 55% of environmental renewable energy and climate mitigation, transportation, climate resilience funds in designated environmental justice community. We will need community-centered grounds-up approach to build a just and sustainable Vermont. One should not be one of the last states to incorporate environmental justice within state policies. We need the state support and resources to carry out this transformative work forward of building back a just and sustainable Vermont. So, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak and thank you also Senator Rahm for introducing this bill again. So, thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Do members have questions? I'm not seeing any. Thank you again for joining us this morning, Ms. Panakar. And for being flexible. I know you had other commitments. So, very much appreciate that. Thanks much. Next up we have Elena Mahaly, Vice President at the Conservation Law Foundation. Welcome Ms. Mahaly. Thank you, Mahaly. Thank you for the invitation to speak for the record. Elena Mahaly, Director of CLF Vermont. And Lizzie has given me screen sharing powers. So what I did is I put together a brief PowerPoint presentation just to walk the committee through this bill. I was present for all of the discussions on the Senate side and so have a lot of context, but we'll try and fly through just an overview today knowing that this is intended to be an introduction, not an in-depth policy discussion. Feel free to stop me if folks have questions or I'm happy to take them at the end. So, why is CLF here? I just did want to flag that we have been working on environmental justice issues throughout New England. Side by side with grassroots partners on everything from issues related to hazardous siting of facilities to the lead in drinking water issue to transportation justice and more. We were very proud to help Massachusetts pass their first environmental justice law last year. We are currently supporting the main governor's office to help them develop their environmental justice protections, and we're partnering with dozens of organizations and stakeholders here in Vermont to help represent their interests here in the State House for a strong environmental justice bill. Just to give the committee a sense of how many organizations I'm talking about, this is a list of over 30 organizations across the state that are supporting S148. I submitted for your review a sign on letter that was sent in on the Senate side to support S148. And as you can see, this is a wide coalition, a diverse coalition of not just environmental organizations but also social justice organizations. Also the Affordable Housing Coalition, the Association of Planning and Development Agencies, and more. So, a very, very well supported bill. The reason why it's critical for Vermont to act this year, as Dr. Panicar noted, there are increasing states across the country that are enacting environmental justice laws and we don't want to be behind the ball on this one. Already 17 states across the country have what are called environmental justice mapping tools that help state decision makers figure out where there are overburdened and underserved communities. Also, a lot of Vermont's agencies lack what are called community engagement plans. These plans serve as critical indicators of whether the state is actually in compliance with Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act. And so this bill gets at setting a date certain for when agencies have to have these community engagement plans. And finally Vermont's Climate Action Plan, which was just, you know, a long labor that was worked on over the past year calls for an environmental justice policy, which is also contained in this bill. So there are seven components listed here that are in the bill and I will just briefly walk through them one by one to give committee members a sense of what can what what S148 contains. The first section is the finding section. It is longer than maybe some bills you will have seen. But as Dr. Panicar noted, a lot of research has actually been done to detail the various disproportionate impacts of environmental burdens in the state of Vermont, as well as the inequitable distribution of environmental benefits. And these findings were actually worked on by the Vermont Law School's Environmental Justice Clinic and clinicians made sure that there are underlying citations and facts to support every single finding. So this this portion of the bill has been worked on for for several years actually. The definitions section also many of these definitions were workshopped through the rejoice collaborative or the course of last several years through stakeholder input to define these terms. The one term that is new when this bill was reintroduced this year is that the environmental justice population. It's critical that this term is defined in statute. It's really best practice across the country as as states are starting to enact environmental justice laws they are wanting to have a definition for this population, the focus population if you will have the benefits in the bill. And the reason why we chose the definition we did is because demographics actually are a very good predictor of which segments of the population are going to disproportionately be impacted by environmental burdens. We say that this is important, as opposed to having something like if you are living within half a mile of a hazardous waste facility, or some other hazard exposure because that puts the onus on the individuals to somehow prove that they are more burdened or at risk and given how predictive these demographic factors are for those folks who are living with more disproportionate burdens. The best practice that is to just use those demographic factors to define these this class of people that we are going to focus our energy on. So S 148 has a definition of environmental justice populations that is based on three demographic criteria, race, low income and limited English proficiency. Essentially what we did is we took statewide averages and we said, hey anywhere in the state where there's a concentration where it's above the state average. That's an area that's going to be highlighted if you will as an environmental justice population. We know this definition isn't going to be perfect. So in the bill, the agency of natural resources has the obligation to review the definition with consultation from the EJ advisory council, at least every five years. But to give you a rough sense of which parts of the population of Vermont highlight, if you will, as an environmental justice population. This is a spatial analysis map showing which census block groups highlight. And it's about 52% of Vermont's population. This is a map that's really just for demonstration purposes this is different than the environmental justice mapping tool that I'll talk about in a moment. So then you get to the environmental justice state policy which is really the meat of this bill. And it does four things. First, it sets a policy that no segment of the population of the state should because of its race, cultural or economic makeup, very disproportionate share of environmental burdens. So have more environmental harms or be denied an equitable share of environmental benefits like energy benefits that Dr. Panicart was talking about. It also ensures that there will be meaningful participation in decision making and this gets to the community engagement plans that I was talking about in terms of Title Six of the Civil Rights Act. It sets a date certain for all agencies to issue these. And then you get down to see here, which is that certain specified state agencies and departments and state bodies have to start considering cumulative environmental burdens, and assessing whether the decisions that they're making around environment, energy, climate, public health, they need to think about how that is having an impact on environmental justice populations. I want to point out here that these first two are really applying statewide, whereas C is applying to the little asterisks of this list of specific agencies and departments and bodies that on the Senate side when we were all talking about this these were the bodies that came out as those who are making the most frequent decisions in the state around environment, energy, climate, public health, infrastructure and funding. Lastly, the environmental justice state policy sets a targeted spending amount in environmental justice populations. Essentially, this is saying it's acknowledging that here in Vermont we have unfortunately an inequitable system of distributing environmental benefits or climate energy related benefits. So as as Dr. Panicar found in her research, you know low income or people of color are so much less likely to be enjoying the benefits of certain investments in renewable energy projects, for example. And this tracks a federal initiative called the Justice 40 Initiative, which is an initiative at the federal executive level to make sure that when the government is investing in climate and energy benefits that 40% of those investments go to disadvantaged communities. Here in Vermont, we've set the goal in this bill of 55% of the overall benefits, because thinking back to where we saw that map of the state and 52% of Vermont falls under the environmental justice population definition. That's where we landed on the 55% goal. So it's about thinking through where those benefits from energy and climate related investments really are flowing. And there's a very thoughtful, long runway for us to start working towards that goal that I included briefly the timeline here which was hammered out in coordination with the agency of natural resources. And it involves that that agency setting guidance to help agencies figure out how exactly they're going to be assessing where their spending is going. It establishes a timeline for those agencies to develop what are called baseline spending reports to analyze where their money has been flowing for the last three years to get a sense of our baseline. And then it sets a timeframe for them to start striving towards that goal of 55%. The next section is a rulemaking section where the agency of natural resources is adopting really one primary rule to define the term cumulative environmental burdens. And also help other agencies implement this requirement and help guide us for how we would be using the environmental justice mapping tool in those decisions. The bill also authorizes other agencies to adopt rules as needed to implement the policy. And key to the bill as well is that there's an environmental justice advisory council, which I'll get to, and there's language in the bill that ensures that that council has a role in reviewing these rules. Number five, the bill sets up two different councils. One is a council one is a committee. Essentially the way to look at this is that the EJ advisory council is mostly made up of community representatives. It's staffed and supported by a and R but it really has an advisory role. Whereas the interagency environmental justice committee is made above state government representatives, and it has a coordination role. So when, when agencies are required to adopt community engagement plans, for example, this committee will make sure that that's not every agency is just doing that in their own in echo chamber but that is coordinated that they're learning from their and that they're, they're able to take advantage of every agency working together towards that goal. Then there's the environmental justice mapping tool which is something that as I noted already. Many states have these as decision makers making tools that helps depict not only where there are, you know, the demographic information but also where they're overlying social and environmental and other health risks, layered on top so that we can get a sense of particularly overburdened and or underserved communities in Vermont. This is just an example of what that map looks like in the state of West Virginia. This map would be created and maintained by an hour. And lastly, there's a section for appropriations. And we think it's really important that in year one funding is appropriated to stand up to operationalize and to support the advisory council. And also in year one and R is really the only agency that has specific obligations so there should be appropriations to help support and our staff to do that early implementation of the role. In outward years, other agencies have obligations but in the inner first year, it's really about standing up the advisory council and supporting and ours it does early stage implementation. To conclude, there's widespread demonstrated support for the passage of S 148. I stand on the shoulders of many who have worked for years to get this bill, including Senator Ram Hinsdale, the members of rejoice and many others to the place that it is today. It is a strong bill but I want to emphasize that it is modest in terms of what environmental justice bills across the country are doing. And briefly, for example, in New Jersey, their environmental justice law, not only requires a cumulative environmental impact assessment for when a permit is being decided upon. But if it's found that there will be a cumulative environmental impact on an environmental justice population, they have to deny that permit Vermont doesn't go that far. In New Jersey, it puts the onus on the permit applicant to put together all of those environmental impact review assessments here in Vermont we're really setting up an initial framework, and just to give us that scaffolding to begin asking those questions and to be considering things like certain populations are getting disproportionately impacted but we have not gone as far as to actually control how that would impact a permit decision. So this is a critical first step for Vermont to take this year. It is modest, it is well supported, and I am happy to entertain any questions today or happy to come back to this committee in the future so thank you. Thank you Ms. Mahaly for your testimony. Do you members have questions? Representative McCullough. I do and recognizing we are on a tight rope here. Your answer could just be welcome back later. And that works. What about Act 250 as a, as a permitting agency. Is it possible for reviewing appropriate projects in the light of that of environmental justice? Was that discussed in the Senate? Has CLF considered pushing for that? And yes and yes and we'll talk about it later works if you like. So that's a great question representative. The Natural Resources Board is a listed body. When I had that slide up that had the asterisks with all of the listed entities that are subject to that cumulative environmental burden analysis, NRB is listed. And we will be required to do that kind of assessment and to meet the very goals of the environmental justice policy that are in this bill. That doesn't necessarily mean we gave discretion to agencies and bodies to change their rules and guidance policies as they see fit to implement this rule. This law isn't setting up a mandatory change to Act 250. That's up to the NRB's discretion for how they're going to actually implement the cumulative impact review. Thank you. I'll just to find that it could be up to the legislator, legislators to require that. But thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Thank you so much for your testimony. You're welcome. And with that, we have Senator Rom Hinsdale joining us, the lead sponsor of the bill. Welcome, Senator. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for the record. Senator Keshia Rom Hinsdale, Chittenden County lead sponsor of S 148. Always great to follow Elena because she can handle a lot of the technical elements of the bill. And of course, I believe that Senate Natural Resources made some clear improvements to the originally sponsored legislation of the National Conservation Law Foundation, Rejoice, V-PURG, VNRC 350.org. I mean, so many others. This has really been a clear grassroots effort with the support of a lot of environmental organizations who are recognizing more and more how to live into their commitment to environmental equity and justice. So just really grateful for everyone's leadership and that you're taking considerable time on this as the bill crosses over. I do have a presentation that I'd like to share more about the why and what does this look like around Vermont and I'm sorry. Elena's presentation. So I hope this isn't duplicative in too many ways, but this is something that has been really helpful in sharing around environmental organizations. I've really been taking this on the road and nod to Professor Bindu Panakar because, you know, some of this was developed in concert with Rejoice when I was actually employed to help lead that project through a high Meadows Fund grant. I just need to interrupt. You weren't here for the beginning, but we're a little time constrained. So we have another block of witnesses coming up after you and also are hoping to be done around 10. Great. Thanks. So there's more people between me and 10. Yeah, another 10 or 15 minute block needs to be kind of reserved. Yeah. Okay, so I'll try to do this in 10 minutes. Okay. First, what I need to do is present slideshow. Okay. Okay, so I will go quickly through some of this, which I think Elena touched on as well. Great. So what, you know, I hope she had mentioned is that we're now one of the last states that doesn't have an environmental justice policy on the boat. This has been in the making of time. Maine is on a parallel track where the last two states in New England not to have an environmental justice bill so you know all of New England I think will be speaking the same language soon if we pass this legislation. It sounds like you talked about substantive procedural and distributive justice, which all can make up a lot of public policy and meaningful participation in public policy, but much of this language was developed around what it looks like to have meaningful environmental justice policy on the books. These are just some of the things I think surprise people but hopefully help tell the story of why environmental justice is such an important policy to get as a framework and a lens in Vermont. And as you may know, around the turn of the millennia so around 1999 2000 or mobile home communities were some of the first to receive environmental justice grants from the EPA. And as you may know, during tropical storm Irene, though mobile home park residents made up 8% of the population they were 40% of who was affected by Irene so environmental justice has a lot to do with habitability, where folks live, whether or not they're vulnerable to flooding or heat, you know, but also how they experience recovery and how equitable resiliency and recovery is in the aftermath of a disaster. And as you also may know, you know migrant farm workers this has been another huge area of looking at what environmental injustice looks like from a, the lens of a workplace environment not just a geographic location, or a neighborhood that's blighted and being able to have access to a washing machine, you know every day to wash your work clothes and have a safe and clean and healthy place to do your work and to sleep, to be able to get out and experience resources in your own languages and access medical care, etc. And I've also seen this because this comes straight from rejoice and the work with with Professor Ponicar. But, you know, we, we know from traveling around in canvassing neighborhoods that by pocket individuals were seven times more likely to have gone without money and sometimes less likely to own a solar panel so I've talked a lot with renewable energy folks about that. And, you know, some of our land access and home ownership disparities are the worst, some of the worst in the country, 76% of Oh, I thought someone might be saying we've seen this before, but 76% of remonters of color identify as living in nature deprived areas. 72% of white remonters on homes compared to 24% of black for monitors and that shows up a lot in renewable energy and how our policies work around accessing benefits related to energy and just home improvement. But in Chittenden County, as well you see this stark disparity and it's just represented in a different way so that it's really clear 83% of black households. Rent in Chittenden County, as you may have heard recently of the thousands of homeowners in Burlington, 18 are black. So, you know, the disparity around who has access to land land stewardship and housing and housing that they control is really vast. So you heard about the bill. I won't go back into it. I think, you know, what I will add is that there is. There was a lot of work that came from frontline and grassroots communities, BIPOC affinity spaces, traveling to talk to most impacted individuals and compensate them for their time. So there's no pride of authorship, but there's pride of process and making sure that as changes are made, we have a system and a way to go back to those most impacted and make sure that those changes work to meet their needs as well on our things they can understand that's a really big part of meaningful public process and meaningful participation. You heard about the resources and governance I think what I would add that Elena may not have said is this tracks really well to start thinking about where benefits and investments should go with efforts underway in Washington. So there's an initiative called justice 40, when we look at infrastructure dollars and other investments and state government and local communities, where the what that the White House is leading that would start to look at ensuring 40% of the benefit of climate and energy and resources goes to historically disadvantaged communities so us being able to map this out and start to find pathways for distributing those resources. In that way is aligned with federal initiatives that are underway by you know that are supported and advanced by this White House as well. One example of the mapping tool on the left is Los Angeles but it's a lead paint use of the EJ screen tool which we have lead paint issues here in Vermont as well so just helping to show that illustrate that you can track you know where lead paint is is predominantly still in housing with where our renters where people of color, you know those kinds of ways of mapping. I just want to, you know, sort of end with a story I told in Senate natural resources because I think it's a really, it's a really nice story just to sort of illustrate the larger construct. This is Brie Newsome Bass Brie Newsome Bass is famous for taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina. And people thought yep, she just got fed up and climbed up there and brought that flag down. Well if you look really closely at this picture. She has really good climbing gear on she has really good she's a great helmet. You know this gear to scale a flagpole. A lot of you know black folks and black women particularly don't have great access to climbing gear and you know the the ability to access recreation and the outdoors. When she went to go get that flagpole, I mean go up that flagpole get that flag. She had worked with a group of white outdoor recreation folks white climbers for you know the better part of a month to learn how to scale a flagpole to have the right gear on and to bring that flag down and one of the people who taught her how to climb and scale that flagpole. A white gentleman stood at the bottom of the flagpole and spotted her to go up and when the police came. And they were going to taste the pole to get her down, maybe injure her or cause her serious harm. He just held on to the flagpole, so that if they taste the flagpole while she was at the top of it they would also be tasting him. And I just tell this story because we're not just talking about, you know, dollars and cents or a mapping tool. We're talking about a different way of thinking about how people of color have been able to interact with the environment and access to outdoor recreation. And you know how we work together to change our shared relationship with being in the outdoors and accessing things like climbing. So, you know, I just tell that story because this is a principle this is a lens. This is a framework to really think about who's been left behind efforts to be in outdoor spaces and to access the environment. And so, with that, I just want to thank you all for taking up the bill. I'm happy to answer any questions. All right, thank you for your testimony. Not seeing any questions I think we need to move on to our next and final witnesses. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right. I'd like to welcome the agency of natural resources. Deputy Secretary Maggie gender. This is my first time. Hi, I'm not going to take up too much time because you've heard a lot today and I was for the record my name is Maggie gender and I'm the deputy secretary for the agency of natural resources. I'd like to commit most of the time to commissioner walk to talk about what the agency's commitment is to the environmental protection agency around environmental justice. And I just would like to say happy to come in here and have further conversations with you as you dive into policy. I think just to begin with I, I am not going to go through the presentation I offer today, but it is, I did give it to Lizzie so it should be posted online. The reason why I put this together was the agency of natural resources works off of the EPA's definition of environmental justice. And there are some core components here you're going to hear a lot of definitions and a lot of phrases and so I really think that this work is complex, it takes time. And I really appreciate that this committee is willing to dive into it and talk about definitions. Anything that you might not understand and hoping that we can all bring in the right witnesses for you all to get a sense of what this bill does. What do the definitions mean and how does it apply to the work of state agencies doing better in this space. I just want to ask you actually you said, and our uses the EPA definition or you, what was the word that you used, I think that that might be something. So we follow the definition of the EPA for environmental justice and how it applies to our work at in natural resources and does follow me and use it. So the definition of environmental justice, according to the EPA is the fair treatment and meeting full involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income. With respect to the development implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies to ensure that each person enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental health hazards, equal access to environmental benefits and equal access to decision making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn and work. And so that that particular definition is important and Peter Commissioner walk can get into it in terms of our commitment to the EPA in terms of how we move this forward. And I just wanted to highlight another piece that are that is important to the conversation. There's often reference to title six, which title six is under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And that is a federal requirement for any state agency that touches federal funding has to comply with title six. And title six is requirement of recipients of federal funding to ensure that their programs do not discriminate on the basis of race color or national origin. And why title six, the Non Discrimination Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the non discrimination policies embedded in that federal requirement are very much a cornerstone of environmental justice work. And two pieces that are really important that have been talked about here today is the concept of limited English proficiency and providing language access to all Vermonters in terms of how they're able to engage with decision making. Decision making as a second really huge core component of environmental justice and that goes back to that intentional community engagement and making sure that not only do people have access, but you're being intentional and you're not rushing through the process of inviting Vermonters to the table to be able to participate and how policies are drafted how regulations serve Vermonters and the kinds of permitting that you might move forward with. Environmental justice is both reactive and proactive in regards, and I've, you've heard some of that today in terms of just institutional racism, etc. And again, I feel like you're going to hear a lot of terms of around environmental populations burdens benefits title six non discrimination so I'm rushing through this but completely happy to come back and have more conversations as you dive into this. So, I would like to. Before I turn over to Commissioner walk. There are two things that I just like to highlight one is 10 states around the country have passed environmental justice legislation, it looks a little different in every state, and a lot of states have chosen to address whether it be air quality, water quality, high hazard. Chemical sites, and it depends on if you're in a really urban area like New Jersey, or maybe a place that has more wildfires like Washington state and they're really concerned about air quality so they do have focus 3013 states in the country right now do have pending legislation for where states are considering what does the definitions look like and what kind of tools do you need in order to do better in environmental justice. And so, one of the commitments that we made with the EPA was to work towards a goal of putting an environmental justice policy in place for the agency. And so part of that is we needed to create phases in order to see success because it is an incredibly overwhelming body of work that can apply to everything you work on if you let it. And so we had to really focus on where did the agency of natural resources want to apply our environmental justice work in our regulatory practices and our permitting practices. So, so without further ado we have worked. We have worked with CLF in the first round of conversations in the Senate. I do believe there's still more work to be had on the legislation that will come before your committee, and we do appreciate these conversations because they're really really important but I would like to turn over to you to share what we've committed to the EPA over the next two to three years. Thank you. What could Commissioner walk. Thank you, Madam chair for the record Peter walk commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. This will be the first of many conversations I'm sure so I just want to talk a little bit about where we are as a state where we are as an organization and what we're trying to do over the next few years. We share the goals of the sponsor and of others involved in terms of better incorporating environmental justice into our decision making into the way we do our work and to ensure that for the tenants definition that are met, because we know that while Vermont may not seem like it has the same environmental issues as a place like New Jersey, but our own set of unique circumstances and we need to work to address across our communities in the same way. And I think there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of need that that means there's also a lot of work to do we in in our 2021 performance partnership agreement which is our by annual process with the EPA, where we sit down and we talk about, what are we, what are we as a state agreeing to do in the next two years to get to to accomplish, we, we recognized a shared priority and environmental justice. We have committed to by September of 2023 will operate on their federal fiscal year cycle there. We have agreed to adopt a draft environmental justice policy at the ANR we're going to do that at the agency level with draft procedural guidance for each of the departments. So we are looking at how to do better mapping and overall better and data analysis of communities impacted, and then really looking at then how do we do our, you know, better training for both our staff and for, for those we interact with to be able to better do this work. So one of the key features of our environment justice policies that you heard today is engaging communities. I know we probably all had many conversations about the challenging environmental decision making that we do as a state, and the fact that it's hard for us to engage in that in the way that we're planning, we're working through thinking about how do we engage all our modules in that conversation, particularly environmental justice communities who may have been left out of conversations for lots of reasons, whether it's going to be the time of day of public meetings, the access to childcare and other things that make it possible to show up for those days. We all, we all have heard these, these challenges, fast and want to address them. But we've learned through this process and it's been a growth process for us because we're essentially starting from, from, from square one is that we need to go slow to be able to do this well. We need to engage communities in a meaningful conversation in a way that we that doesn't align with sort of traditional policy development at the state level. And we, we could have several years ago written a written an environmental justice policy that we thought met the needs. But that's not the right approach we heard from rejoice and other partners that we needed to slow down and and ask communities what their perspective are how they need to be communicated with in order to, to hear and participate in here and be heard in those discussions So we have slowed that down and have a process underway now where we've engaged the center for all communities to, to do a pilot community engagement project to in order to understand how we can build that community engagement plan and how we can build better practices and toward the way in which we engage the public. So it's, it's a, it's a really interesting and meaningful process. I think the mapping piece that Dr panic are a fresh panic are talked about is really important. The tools that have traditionally existed at the federal level and in other places have really focused on on on urban areas where it's in some ways easier. And we talked about talked about census tracks. The difference between a census tract in Vermont and a census tract in another part of the country can be pretty large in terms of the size of that in the fidelity of the data so that we can make sure that we have as much information as possible and make better decisions. And so a mapping tool and understanding the data and what data is useful and where the, both the gaps in that data and the sort of the area where where it's coarser than we'd like it to be is really important, and we're really looking forward to getting into that work so we're going to this timeline gives you a sense of what we're going to let you read it at your leisure I'm happy to answer questions you have for but I just wanted to say this is, this is what I see is the baseline of action, setting s 148 aside for a moment this is what we are doing as an agency now, and what we're committed to doing. And so it, you know, s 148 builds in many ways from this work, and we can have discussions on what that looks like but it's, it's a challenging body of work, it's a different way of approaching topics that we have not historically done, and has created environmental injustices around the state and around our blow So, with that I'm happy to answer any questions I know we have limited time, but I just wanted to give you sort of a brief review of where we stand. Thank you I appreciate that overview is what you were looking for just to get our heads warmed up for the conversation. Do members have questions for either that be secretary or the commissioner representative color commissioner so you just mentioned the timeline I just went and picked it up. But quickly, Deputy Commissioner use the verb follows you, you follow that means you've been doing stuff. This timeline. This timeline starts in 22 what what happened in 21 2019, what have, what does follows mean and we may not have time to go into that now, but we will have a need to know. Follows follows to me as me and that's been the sort of guiding principle as we work to develop out a state specific program. We're going to. So that's, that's a sort of North star if you will towards being able to, to work through those challenges, and to build that work with we've not been settling sitting ideally by we've been engaging with partners in this space. Specifically on on ways to move the conversation forward and to understand and learn from Vermont community specifically so that it can inform this discussion so that we're not doing frankly what we've what we've done in the past that has been part of the challenge which is developing top down policy that we think needs people's needs, but may not actually so having those conversations and understanding what those needs are out there has been this room baseline framework work that we've been doing. And the North star com concept, but I, I'm just wondering if there are some concrete things you can consent to us. Yeah, absolutely. For example, like removal of lead paint and homes. That's an example of applying an environmental justice lens so we can provide you some concrete examples of the kind of work that we do and water hazardous materials that you should be applying always an environmental justice lens to when you're addressing the regulatory environment. Excellent, of course, let me retardation. Hold on. Thank you very much. Just we're about to take a break we don't actually, we can't have any more people right this second and we're wrapping up our first agenda sorry Charlie. One second. First time we've had a room capacity. Thank you for joining us this morning for the overview and I'm, yes, I'm sure we will see you again. If you look at the PowerPoint to there's a lot more information in there and I'm happy to go through it later. Thank you.