 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner. I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Glad that you are joining us this afternoon for a briefing that is entitled, Environmental Justice in the Clean Power Plan. Well, as we all know, a lot has happened since this briefing was originally scheduled and the notice was first sent out. And that there have been a variety of actions that have taken place, namely with a stay that was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court with regard to the Clean Power Plan. However, what is also very interesting is that a lot of states, and I should say that states across the country are all deciding different things, different reactions that they have to this action. This temporary stay by the Supreme Court. So we have a variety of states that are moving ahead with their planning to look at ways in which to reduce greenhouse emissions in their state. There are other states that are still contemplating in terms of how they want to proceed, what makes the most sense for them. There are some states that have decided to stop action that they had underway in terms of their different planning processes. But already there had been considerable planning efforts done across this country with regard to the rule that had been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency last fall in terms of the final rule. And in many cases there had been various advisory committees that had been set up. There had been extensive comment sessions that had transpired and a variety of outreach meetings that had been held and in some cases scheduled and of course we're now seeing, as I said, a variety of actions being taken by different states. So the one thing that I would say is we felt that it was important to go ahead and hold this briefing regardless because there are a lot of things that are happening across the country and with the number of states continuing to move forward. And because the whole area of the issues that we really wanted to explore today in terms of looking at areas and questions with regard to environmental justice issues, that all of those issues, those impacts still remain regardless. And so this is an opportunity for us to learn more about all of these issues that come up under this rubric of environmental justice. We'll hear more about what's involved in that, what are the concerns, what are the impacts from our panel this afternoon. So I want to first turn to our kickoff speaker this afternoon who is Mustafa Ali and he is the Senior Advisor to the Administrator for Environmental Justice at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And he has been, he has had extensive experience over the course of the last 20 years in terms of being a national speaker, trainer, facilitator on social justice issues across the country. Looking at environmental justice, looking at sustainability issues, looking at issues around community revitalization and redevelopment. And during the course of this he's worked with more than 500 communities, so he brings a very important perspective that really has looked at issues very much at a local level and then in terms of how to, what does this mean in terms of thinking about policy and education at national levels as well. So he is, he had been involved in the formation of the Office of Environmental Justice at EPA and has been active in these issues as I said for more than 20 years. It's my pleasure to welcome Mustafa. Okay. I always need a little direction. How's everybody doing? Oh, I'm back on Capitol Hill, I could tell. Thank you all for inviting me. Thanks everybody for taking out some time today to actually think critically. I know many of the faces in the room, so I know a number of you have thought critically about the impacts that happen to environmental justice communities. It's going to be tough for me to stand still. I was born into a family of Baptist and Pentecostal ministers, so being able to not move around is a challenge. But it's really important that we begin to think about and not only begin to think about but also then to build the right types of partnerships to address the impacts that are happening inside of communities with environmental justice concerns. As Carol had shared with you, I started working on these issues when I was a student and over the years I've had the opportunity to travel around the country and spend significant amounts of time inside of communities. And that's something that sometimes doesn't happen enough with great thinkers that happen to be inside of the Beltway if you will. But not having that opportunity I think sometimes means that there is policy that's developed that has gaps in it if you will. So I think that it's extremely important that the voice of communities is always honored and a central part. And I also share the amount of time that I've been working on these issues so that you also have a perspective on why I think that the Clean Power Plan is so important to low income communities and communities of color. Because in my estimation and this is just my estimation that this is one of the first times that I've seen a reflection of those folks' concerns, their expertise, and their expectations reflected in the Clean Power Plan. Now with that being said, I don't know anybody in the room who could ever say that there's ever been a perfect piece of legislation or a perfect rule. But I think that when you can make sure that there's real true engagement that happens in a process that it moves us in the right direction. Now just in case there's anybody who doesn't understand the basics of the Clean Power Plan and why it's so important for us to address carbon and the impacts. Especially the public health impacts that it has in the lives of all Americans, but especially in the lives of communities of color and low income communities. We know that there are elevated asthma levels that are impacting communities of color. As we look at African American communities and Latino communities, we know that we have those elevated levels that happen. And for some times, for some folks, they might make the assumption, well that's not that important until you're faced with the situation of having a child who has to be taken to the emergency room time and time again. And the impacts that that has on your family. That's one of the reasons why the Clean Power Plan is so important. And us addressing the impacts that are happening inside of our low income communities and communities of color. All the other types of pulmonary illnesses that are also associated with air pollution is another reason. Being able to not have to take time off from work to be able to deal with a sick child or an elderly parent is another reason why it's so important. So many of you who are in the room know that by 2030 there will be a 32% reduction in the carbon pollution that's out there. But the real aspect of it is, you know, the impacts that are happening in people's lives, everyday folks, as I often say, is one of the things that's so important. But not only as we begin to look at the reductions that need to happen inside of our communities, but also focusing on the opportunities and benefits also as we start to focus on EE and RE. So renewable energy and energy efficiencies and how we can help these communities to be in a better position by utilizing those. And the states, I should say also that everyone knows that there's currently a stay that's going on. So there's no enforcement or implementation that is currently going on as the courts work through this process. But there are voluntary opportunities for those states who are interested in continuing to engage with the agency. Those opportunities still exist. And again, let me highlight for you in a voluntary capacity that that still exists. And it's so important because as Carol shared earlier, there are a number of states who are thinking very critically on these issues and are moving forward in a very proactive way to address and to really, you know, get ahead of the curve, if you will. And many of the reasons are just because they know it's the right thing to do. They're taking a look at the communities that represent their states and they're saying, you know, it's time for us to make the investments that are necessary to have people be in a much better place. Now, one of the other reasons that I say that the Clean Power Plan begins to reflect, you know, some of the expectations and hopes of communities is because of the extensive engagement that happened. And this engagement happened in a number of ways. One, many of you probably already know that there were, I think, close to four million comments that came in around the rule. But besides that, and I'll let some of the other speakers go into greater detail about this, there were a number of engagement opportunities that actually existed and continue to exist in this sense of trainings that were put in place. There were a number of environmental justice organizations, communities, and other stakeholders who said we need to help our folks have a better understanding of what the Clean Power Plan is, what are the opportunities that exist in this space, and how we can get better engaged in the process. And this was also done with other types of stakeholders as well, but this was a great example of allowing communities to play a significant role in not only commenting, but also in playing a role in the design of the trainings that happened and where they happened as well, along with a number of webinars that happened as well. So those were great opportunities to make sure that the voice of community was well represented in this process. Now, that didn't come easily. I like to have real talk when I'm sharing with folks, and a lot of that came from a lot of people pushing really hard to make sure that these things were in place. But it's a great reflection of how environmental justice can play a role in strengthening a process and making a better product be developed. So those are, you know, a couple of the areas that I think are extremely important. But again, taking it back to the main focus of what environmental justice is about. So one of the things I hope folks will take away from our discussion today, if you've studied environmental justice and you understand the principles of environmental justice, one of the things you'll always hear also is that communities speak for themselves, and they have had a strong voice in the Clean Power Plan. And I know as we move forward with the state implementation plans that they will continue to play a strong role there and to push to make sure that we have the strongest process possible to protect our low income communities and communities of color. So with that being said, I'm going to stop for a moment because I want to make sure we have time for a lot of questions. Okay, great. Thanks very much, Mustafa. And I must also say that I was struck by a meeting that I was at about a week ago that involved the directors of state energy officials. Also, it was involving public utility commissioners and it was involving state air regulators. And during the course of the workshop, the head of the state air regulatory agency said, what do we have to lose by still continuing to move forward in terms of this whole process around the Clean Power Plan? And what was so interesting was that in terms of this gathering then of these folks from energy, from air agencies, from public utility commissions, this was one of the first times that they had all come together to really talk to each other, to really share with each other, to do mutual planning, really learning from each other. And there was this sense that there had already been so much gained through that whole action of that kind of collaborative work that actually this was a very, very good thing. And it had spawned all sorts of discussions which were going to lead to much greater collaboration and positive action in those states regardless of what happened in terms of the court action. Which I think is a very, very important thing that there be much more that happens with regard to discussions and learning and sharing with each other because who knows what can evolve then with regard to solutions. So to hear a little bit more about that, we're going to turn to our second speaker who is Mark McGianna, who is the president and CEO of Green Latinos, a national coalition of Latino environmental natural resources and conservation leaders. He is also the founder and principal of the Hispanic strategy group consulting firm, and he also was the very first Latino to serve as a senior staff member at both the White House as well as in congressional leadership. He has done work in terms of federal agencies and also working with local governments. So he brings a wealth of experience looking at all levels and so I am very pleased to welcome Mark. Thank you Carol and thank you EESI for putting on this important panel. I also want to thank my fellow panelists, Mustafa and Vernice. They have spent their careers looking after working on protecting environmental justice communities and I admire their dedication. Like Carol said, my name is Mark McGianna. I am the president of Green Latinos. We are a national coalition of Latino environmental and conservation advocates. Interestingly enough, I do not consider myself to be an environmental justice leader. I feel like I've been in this arena, the federal arena, my whole career. And I feel like true environmental justice leaders have been, for a minute, their career on the ground. Fighting for the rights, defending the communities that are being hit hard by the needs of the communities. As far as being poisoned by toxins, by dirty air, by dirty water. All of which has been preventable, but of which we need people like we have around here today. I have had the privilege of working with and I do work with many Latino environmental justice leaders on the ground. Like Kim Wasserman in Chicago, Elizabeth Yampierre in New York, Robert Garcia and Angelo Logan out in Los Angeles, Juan Pada and Brian Pada out in Texas, many others who every day see what's happening in their communities. How their communities are being taken advantage of. How children are getting sick. How families are desperate for solutions to this environmental justice disease. I'm going to focus on why our communities need environmental justice protections in the Clean Power Plan and overall. In August of last year, the president was giving his Clean Power Plan announcement speech when he suddenly broke out and went off script, which always makes the staff afraid. He said, I was reminded about landing in Los Angeles to attend a college as a freshman as an 18 year old. I wanted to take a run and after about five minutes suddenly I had this weird feeling. I couldn't breathe. And the reason was back in 1979 Los Angeles was so full of smog that there were days when people who were involved just couldn't go outside and they were fairly frequent. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 70s and the 80s and I remember earthquakes and hurricanes and mudslides. I remember wildfires. I remember so many natural disasters that plagued California. For me as a child, the worst natural disaster or unnatural disaster we experienced were the days when the air quality index warning said unhealthy and our parents wouldn't let us go outside and play. Now to be a child and to be told you can't go out and play, many, many days during the year, that's environmental injustice in those communities. Now the days we would be able to go out and play, my friends would have to bring their asthma inhalers and keep them around their necks or in their pockets just in case they urgently need to take a puff, which they did every day. I was not, I fortunately did not have asthma, but I remember coming home on those days, lying on my bed gasping for air, sometimes having to vomit for relief. And this for us as a child, it just became the new normal, this dirty air. It was how things were. Little over three years ago, my first child was born and we went to visit my mother, her grandmother. And she was in the hospital and my grandmother, my mother held her and sang to her and blessed her and said she'd always be there for her. And within that month, my mom passed away from leukemia, a leukemia most closely associated with industrial pollutants. And so now I have my mother with me as I worry about my child. I worry about the air she breathes, the water she drinks. In DC, like many people, we live in up-and-coming or transitional neighborhoods and we know that we have had or have as bestos in our ducks and lead in our pipes. And we do what we can to adapt. All of us, we buy air purifiers, we buy water purifiers, the best in the market. We buy organic foods, organic formula, organic baby foods. You know what organic food used to be called? It used to be called food. We are forcing ourselves into a market due to the pollution of our energy sources. I get angry when I think I have to fear for the upcoming viral plagues, for the upcoming dirty air, dirty water that my child and her generation has to face every day that will complicate her lives, that will destroy many lives, that are destroying many lives around the world. And we do all these things and it becomes our new normal. I've been disturbed by the concept of adaptation. How we as humans must adapt to the current form of energy. How we must do all the things. How an energy doesn't have to adapt to humans. How could we think that we could adopt a form of energy that kills us and that kills our planet? For this generation, and the generation that came behind me, it's unbelievable that we did that. Well, we've been conditioned to think that we have no choice. We've been conditioned to think that this is our only way of getting energy and because it's cheap and because it creates great jobs, that this is what we have to deal with. And you just have to pay the extra price for what you have to pay for, asthma inhalers. The need for environmental leaders and environmental justice protections has never been greater. We see just in the last month the cases of the lead in the water in Flint, Michigan, that is extremely high profile case. And in our community, the Latino community, we had issues where we weren't given water because of immigration status, where you had to have an ID to get water. Where our community wasn't told that there was lead in the water because of language, because the ads or the warnings weren't posted in Spanish. And although we may be 10%, that still is 5,000 families. These injustices and one in LA that's just starting to get attention after 35 years, the Exide Battery Recycling Plant that was poisoning with lead in the air, in the soil, in the water for 35 years and for 20 years they knew about this. And all they were doing was giving them fines of $3,000, $4,000, $7,000. Finally, 35 years later after deaths, families being ruined, neighborhoods in East Los Angeles being taken apart. They finally closed down the plant and finally this week, the governor created a plan to clean up the neighborhood. These are injustices are not out of the ordinary. These just happen to reach the news. These are happening every day and that's why we need environmental justice protections in the clean power plant. For our community, it's an injustice why half Latinos live in counties that are most air pollution, that have the largest air pollution and most frequent violated ozone pollution. It's an injustice that 40% of Latinos would live within 30 miles of a coal fire power plant. That Latino farm workers and outdoor laborers have to work in extreme heat conditions with no breaks for shade, not enough water breaks where they often die from heat exhaustion and heat stroke. It's injustice that 10% of Latino children have respiratory illnesses and that over 2 million Latinos have asthma and it's definitely a severe injustice for the family of children who are 6 Latino children who are 60% more likely to be rushed to the hospital for asthma and 40% more likely to die from asthma. I know that the president had his own child who has asthma in mind when he was making the announcement on the clean power plant. Now what can we do? There's a lot that we can do. The Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change filled with many of the leaders that I mentioned has written a seminal guidance that walks us through the planning process for implementing the rule, performing environmental justice analyses, incorporating meaningful engagement in the community and vulnerable communities and equitable distribution of the burdens and the benefits of this plan. I've included a link to the report in my Twitter account, which is at Green Latino. So please go to it there. It'll give you a better picture of what you can do. But in summary, Robert Garcia of The City Project recently summarized the state, the process in five quick steps, several of which we can participate in. One, states need to describe what they plan to do. They need to consider the benefits and burdens for all communities. They need to consider the alternatives. They need to include people of color and low-income people in the decision-making process. And they need to implement a plan to distribute benefits and burdens equitably and avoid discrimination. So despite the temporary delay due to the Supreme Court's stay, this is our issue and the time is now for working on it. This is our generation's opportunity to fight for the next generation and be honored and remembered for it. In closing, the president, as he was closing his Clean Power Plan announcement, said, if you care about low-income minority communities, start protecting the air they breathe and stop trying to rob them of their health care. I was in the back of the room feeling the goosebumps run up my spine. And that line received the loudest and longest applause of the night. And I knew that this generation could be the generation that either is known for destroying the planet or could be the generation that's known for saving the planet. I hope he chose the latter. Thank you. Thank you very, very much, Mark. We're now going to turn to Bernice Miller-Travis. She is a senior associate at Skiyo Solutions, where she has worked for many years in her career on environmental restoration and the inclusion of low-income people of color in Indigenous communities in environmental decision-making at all levels, whether it's the federal, state, local, tribal levels. I think one of the things that is so important is as she has worked, whether it is with environmental NGOs, the Ford Foundation, working on different task forces as a co-founder of We Act for Environmental Justice that she has been really focused in terms of bringing people together, looking for solutions that can work for all. Bernice. Thank you, Carol. Good afternoon all. Thank you, my previous panelists, for setting me up and taking off the table. Several things that I no longer need to talk about. Thank you all for being here. Obviously, this is a really important topic for all of us. And now, with the Supreme Court stay on the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, many people look at that as a very significant, obviously, step, maybe even a stall that might impede the Clean Power Plan from being implemented. The constituency that I'm a part of, the Environmental Justice constituency, looks at it as an opportunity to do more work, to educate more people, and particularly to see constituencies at the community level and their state agencies and state actors work closer together to develop these state implementation plans that are going to be the heart and soul of the implementation of the Clean Power Plan. So we have more time to do the work that was going to be compressed. Now we have more time to do that. So I want to start with one overarching principle that I think it's really important for folks to understand, which is that by and large, the Environmental Justice constituency are structurally opposed to pollution credit and trading schemes. And so I think that needs to be said right off the top. And yes, the Clean Power Plan, the core of how it would be implemented is an air pollution credit trading program. So from day one, there's a real strong structural opposition to the architecture around which EPA is trying to reduce pollution from power plants, particularly carbon dioxide pollution. Of course we agree in principle that this is a critically important issue. You heard Mark mention it, you heard Mustafa mention the public health consequences. So I'll tell you a little story. I am originally from New York from Congressman Charles Rangel's district. Well, when I was born, it was Congressman Adam Clayton Powell's district. And it became Congressman Rangel's district when I was 10 years old. Last Thursday, I celebrated my 57th birthday. So you do the math. He's been our Congressman for a really long time and has come to really work closely with us in West Harlem Environmental Action about what are the priority environmental issues. But it took a long time for many members of Congress, whether they be members of the Hispanic Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus. No matter where they sit on a political divide, it took almost every member of Congress a long time to understand the particular vulnerability of communities of color and poor communities and tribal communities to environmental assaults across a range of impacts. And I would tell you that in New York, we had a really hard time getting both our local government, especially our state environmental agency and our federal actors to understand the particular vulnerability of our community in West Harlem. To make a very long story short, we were fighting the siting of a facility built to help clean up the Hudson River, the North River Sewage Treatment Plant, which was designed to treat 180 million raw gallons of wastewater and sewage a day. Obviously to keep that wastewater and that raw sewage from going into the Hudson River and helping the City of New York to be compliant with the Clean Water Act. But somehow along the way and the design of the facility, they forgot to install any air pollution control devices or odor control devices. Imagine if you can what it's like to live across the street from a building that is holding and treating 180 million gallons of raw sewage on a daily basis with no odor control devices. Imagine if you can. It completely changed our way of life, our existence, our ability to enjoy our property. We couldn't go out on our terraces. We couldn't open our windows. We couldn't turn on the air conditioning in New York in the summer. Equally as humid and hot and unpleasant as the District of Columbia, I promise you, in the summertime. It really changed fundamentally the quality of our lives. And so we began to reach out to various partners to do some research and we partnered with Harlem Hospital, the local municipal hospital that served our community, and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, my alma mater. And we asked them to help us really get to the bottom of what the potential air pollution impacts were on our community from this facility. They were about to do, Harlem Hospital was about to do a 325,000 household asthma survey to see what the prevalence and presence of asthma was. And we asked them to include the western part of the community in their survey because that's where all the polluting facilities were. It turns out once they collected the data, analyzed the data and what they reported and we continue to work on today, we had the highest rate of premature death from asthma to any community in the United States and indeed any community in the western hemisphere. Now, what you know about the western hemisphere is that Mexico City is in the western hemisphere and it has really, really, really bad air quality. But not quite as bad as our community in New York City. So when we say that the Clean Power Plan really needs to focus its benefits on those who have borne the greatest harm, we are very, very serious about that. And that is why there is still a critique from the Environmental Justice constituency of the Clean Power Plan. We agree that it goes a mighty long way towards reducing carbon emissions from power plants. But there are other emissions, co-pollutants, other pollutants that power plants emit in addition to carbon that are also triggering and causing severe health crises in communities that live near power plants, severe health crises. Our community is not the only community in the United States that has exorbitant levels of premature death from asthma and other respiratory disease. Premature death, right? Children dying before their time. Teenagers, middle-aged folks, seniors, and those with compromised immune systems and pre-existing respiratory problems, it's a death sentence to live in communities that are near power plants. And so the reason that folks are opposed to a trading scheme is because a trading scheme allows a polluter or allows the operator of a facility to get airshed-wide benefits, right? So you don't have to target the reductions to a particular facility. You have to get reductions at a gross level across the facilities that you own and operate. Those facilities could be in upstate New York where there is less population, more forests, more rural, more farmland. But where the targets are, where they should be, is in New York City and other densely populated parts of New York State. That's true across the country. And so the scheme that EPA has put in place, folks have a real problem with that model trading rule, which gives away virtually all the value in this market-based scheme for free. And why is that? So if you're going to have a market-based scheme, at least you can make sure that there is a monetization of that market-based scheme. So California has an air pollution credit trading system. And through a long and arduous battle, communities, state agencies, the state of California have come to agreement that they need to monetize benefits within that trading scheme. Today, the legislature in California passed something called SB 535. Thank you, Mustafa. And that guarantees that in that trading system that a certain portion of those dollars will be targeted to the communities that have borne the greatest impact from air pollution. And that that money will go directly, a certain portion of that money, I believe is 10 percent, of all of those dollars raised in that trading scheme would be targeted to emissions reductions and other public health benefits in the communities where the air pollution levels are the greatest, from power plants and from other ambient sources. So if you're going to have a trading scheme, at least make sure that the folks who are in the scheme are putting some skin in the game. And again, we recognize the benefits of what EPA is trying to do, and we wholeheartedly support the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to, for once and for all, get a handle on carbon emissions, particularly from power plants, and begin to reduce them. But if you're not targeting those reductions to the places where the levels are the highest, the public health impacts are the greatest, the level of premature death and mortality and disease from air pollution and toxic exposure is the greatest, then you may have had a sort of national impact, but you haven't had a targeted impact where the problem is the greatest. And so that's one of our main critiques of the Clean Power Plan. There's still time to work on improving it, and many of us are. I'm going to share with you now some recommendations. I am the co-author of a report commissioned by the Town Creek Foundation, which is the largest environmental grantmaker in the state of Maryland and in the Chesapeake Bay Region. And they asked us, our firm, SCEO Solutions, to do a review of the Maryland Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act and how you could target the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act in Maryland to really drive benefits to the most vulnerable, the lowest income, and diverse communities in our state, which presently are not benefiting from a lot of the clean energy programs that are happening in Maryland and that are rolling out. Why is it important to talk about that in the context of the Clean Power Plan? Because the Maryland Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act is going to be the vehicle through which Maryland implements the Clean Power Plan. So this is our vehicle that our legislature passed in 2009. It has a commission that was established by the legislature to implement the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, and so this paper and this report was really for that commission to really look more broadly at what it is they're trying to do, to look more broadly at getting the benefits from the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act to many more people. And I'm just going to read you some of our analysis. So substantial social inequities exist and will persist in Maryland without action. Maryland ranks first in the nation in vacant home rates with the highest rates in Baltimore City, the Eastern Shore, and Western Maryland. High vacancy rates proliferate in low income neighborhoods and create challenges with crime, access to amenities, pest health, and high energy burdens. Further, people of color in low income households are more likely to rent and often do not have access to the same resources clean energy or otherwise as homeowners. This is particularly relevant to the implementation of the CEIP, the Clean Energy Incentive Programs. If you do not own your home or if you do not live in a circumstance where you control energy purchase, the implementation of clean energy benefits, then you will not benefit from the CEIP plan. So that's another structural problem with the Clean Power Plan. People of color in low income communities in Maryland are more likely to live in neighborhoods exposed to toxic chemicals and experience more deaths from asthma as well as higher rates of cancer from exposure to toxic air pollution. Additionally, they are less likely to have the resources needed to visit a doctor. So communities that are predominantly home to people of color or low income households appear to be disproportionately low. And this is investments from existing clean energy programs in Maryland that already, so there's one program that allows utility bill assistance in Maryland. There are 362,000 people in the state of Maryland right now that meet the criteria to be able to access that program. Currently enrolled are 3,600 people. At this rate of enrollment, it'll be 100 years before all the people who are eligible in 2016 are enrolled into the program. Structural barriers to people being able to benefit. People of color in Maryland are less likely to have the technical skills to meet future workforce needs and technology and clean energy development. Current unemployment rates are 38% higher for people of color than whites. However, people of color with a bachelor's or higher's degree earn wages on par with whites. So we're looking at the potential to create 650,000 jobs in Maryland from the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, from the retooling of workers from extractive industries into green industries, the training of those employees, workforce development, the manufacture of clean energy programs and systems and tools and parts all spread across our economy in Maryland, 600 or more thousand jobs, of which less than one third right now would go to the most vulnerable populations, including workers who are coming out of extractive industries hoping to get into clean energy industries. Social inequities leave communities vulnerable to climate change impacts and the policies used to address climate change. Carol, how am I doing on time? You're okay. Okay, five minutes. Okay, good. Social inequities reduce the capacity of vulnerable communities to prepare for and respond to climate change and take advantage of the substantial benefits provided from emissions reduction strategies. Low-income households, people of color and medically sensitive populations are particularly vulnerable. Climate change is such as severe weather and extreme heat can place vulnerable communities in harm's way, causing people to mold and toxic chemicals from flooding, exacerbating asthma due to higher ground level ozone levels and leaving few safe havens during blackouts and severe storms. Without focus resources to reduce existing and future vulnerabilities, social equity gaps may escalate. Neighborhoods may deteriorate and increased government resources may be necessary to help those in need. So proactive climate and energy equity policies can build up communities, improve future changes and bolster local and regional economies. But that only happens if you address those vulnerabilities up front as you're doing the analysis. Mark mentioned the need for an environmental justice analysis at the state level as they begin to develop their state implementation plans to look at who's vulnerable. Where are those vulnerable populations? Where do they exist? What is the state of their infrastructure? What is the state of their ability to be able to leave from harm's way? So if you think about it, if you just think back to what you all remember from the impact of Hurricane Katrina. And you know that some people were left behind and some people were able to leave out of harm's way. That is true in virtually every community in the United States. It's not just Louisiana and it's not just New Orleans. We saw it in big, bold relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but it's true almost everywhere in our country. That some people who have the financial resources will be able to get to higher ground, will be able to leave ahead of the storms when they see them coming, will be able to go to safer places. Some people cannot. Some people just have to do this really weird thing that they do in Louisiana called shelter in place. So you know if a power plant blows up in Louisiana, the first policy of the state is not to get people out of harm's way but to tell them to go in their homes, close the doors, close the shutters and have them close the windows and shelter in place. Does that sound really reasonable to you? Does that sound well thought out? Well that's what the policy is right now for a lot of communities that are facing devastating impacts from climate change and rising sea level. They don't have the resources to get to other places and they also have a transportation infrastructure that doesn't serve them. Did you know that Baltimore City, which is a mere 65 miles from here, that 65% of people in color in Baltimore City do not have access to cars and do not own cars? And many of those communities are also not served by public transportation. And be very clear that as storm surge comes up the Chesapeake Bay, the Inner Harbor, the downtown of Baltimore and all those communities in West and East Baltimore that abut them will be on the front lines of vulnerability. If you don't have a car and you don't have access to good public transportation, that doesn't operate in a storm, as we saw just three weeks ago when our metro system shut down because of the storms, because of the blizzard, you are stuck. And being stuck could cost you your life and that of your family and all the property and everything that you own. So when we talk about social inequities, everyone is not equally burdened by the problem and everyone doesn't have the same access to those things that could get you out of harm's way. Just a few more other things in terms of what's happening in Maryland. Current policies to support electric vehicles and solar power leave few options for low income communities to take advantage of these clean energy programs given the high upfront cost. One of the other issues is that if you have, we have a fairly good program to allow households to begin to put solar on their homes. But if you don't own that, if you don't own your home, you cannot access those systems. And what we found, a particular analysis that was done of Baltimore City, what we found in Baltimore is that many low income households or low income multi-unit apartment buildings also have severe and several violations in terms of housing code. And so there's no incentive for the person who owns that house to bring the state in to do an analysis of how it could access clean energy benefits because first they have to clean up and take care of the backlog of housing code violations. And so instead of putting yourself into that system, folks just opt out. And that means people who live in multi-unit low income apartment dwellings will not be able to benefit. That's true across the state of Maryland. Rural communities, urban communities, it's true. Energy efficiency or renewable energy assistance in grant programs provide few options for renters or low income households and older buildings without ensuring their buildings are up to coded and good enough condition to allow for these upgrades. So that's another issue, right? If your home is really substandard, are you really going to invest in the capital improvement to put solar on that house? Probably not. There's a lot of people who fall into these categories that I've just talked about. So if we want to see the benefits of clean energy happen, we're going to have to address some fundamental issues of inequity. A comprehensive set of policies is needed to address climate and energy inequities at the same time. So the Clean Power Plan does a really good job of looking at the big picture. But where Mustafa has mentioned, where they were pressed consistently from constituencies was that there wasn't enough of an analysis of the impact on vulnerable populations within the plan. And so EPA went back to the board several times to retool the Clean Power Plan. And I have to give the agency significant props, as the young people say, or as they used to say. They did a really good job of listening. A really good job of listening. So the Clean Power Plan, while it's not perfect, it has been changed significantly because of the back and forth and exchange of ideas between EPA and environmental justice constituencies in particular. We need to develop a climate and energy equity framework and planning process. So we can't just leave it up to the states to figure their way out of this. If the states were on their game, a lot of the environmental justice issues and inequities that we see now wouldn't be happening. If the state agencies were really aggressively identifying where are these vulnerable populations, what are the things that we need to do to make sure that they're getting equal benefits of protection under the law. And without dwelling on it too much, we can see that the state of Michigan has a long way to go. It is not just Flint, Michigan that is in crisis from an environmental standpoint. There are 13 other cities in Michigan that have higher lead levels in their drinking water than does Flint. Flint is all... Michigan is also the home of 12 Title VI complaints under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nine of which were filed against the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, two of the biggest Title VI complaints filed over the last 25 years emanate from Flint, Michigan. Genesee power and select steel. Michigan is in crisis going back 25 years in terms of addressing the environmental consequences that vulnerable populations and communities of color have been absorbing. Michigan does not stand alone. So I don't want to single Michigan out. It is happening across the country. And if the state environmental agencies are the main implementers of the Clean Power Plan and they're not able to address these vulnerabilities that are presenting themselves every day, every day in every state in our nation, then it doesn't leave folks with a lot of faith that the state agencies in their implementation of the Clean Power Plan are now going to be able to see these vulnerable populations that they have for so long ignored and not addressed. So we have a problem but it's not an insurmountable problem. It's a problem that can be addressed much like the way EPA improved the Clean Power Plan. Conversation and dialogue has to happen at the local level between state environmental agencies and environmental justice communities across the board. As they're developing these plans, they need to think about vulnerability. They need to have an environmental justice analysis. They need to look at the vulnerability index of populations across their states as we are recommending that we do in Maryland. You need to know who at base level is already in trouble and whose troubles will increase greatly as climate change and its impacts become more intense and more regular. And that's information that can be gathered up easily. It's not as difficult to find these populations as some would suggest like my state of Maryland. EPA has recently released a tool, a screening tool called EJScreen. If you want to begin to look at where the vulnerable populations are, you don't have to create a new model. You don't have to invest thousands of dollars or millions in research and development. You don't have to conglomerate a lot of data. We have spent a lot of time on it. All you have to do is put in data, addresses, zip codes, census tracks into EJScreen and you will pull up multiple geographic information systems maps with multiple levels of information about every community in the United States. So a lot of states say it's going to cost a lot of money to do this environmental justice analysis and this vulnerability analysis. Actually, not so much. But you have to have the political will to want to sit down and resolve these problems with these constituencies who for too long have been the most vulnerable populations to pollution exposure, particularly ambient air pollution exposure. And the reason that this is really important is where I started at telling you and sharing you about my own experience in New York over 30 years ago. It's not just that the air smells bad or that there's bad opacity. It's not just that you can't see for miles and miles. It's that those little fine particles of pollution are lodging inside people's lungs and wreaking havoc. It's causing heart disease, it's causing hypertension, it's causing cancer, it's causing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and it's causing premature death. So that's why the Clean Power Plan is so important to begin with. Because it begins to allow us to give us the tools to take off the table one area of public health assault that most Americans have been experiencing across their lives. But some Americans have been experiencing at a very intense level for a very long time. And they're paying with their lives, they're paying with their longevity, they're paying with their productivity. So that's why the Clean Power Plan is so important to begin with. We're doing our part in Maryland to improve the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act so that when we get the okay and we do believe that we are going to get the okay to go ahead and implement the Clean Power Plan, that we're not leaving anybody behind, that we're spreading the impact of this very important piece of public policy across the board. But that we're especially targeting the most vulnerable populations in the Clean Power Plan. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Bernice. And one question, can you tell people how to access this report that you did? Yes, you can contact myself or my colleague Dr. Marcus Griswold. Let's see, Marcus's email address is mgriswold with an O g-r-i-s-w-o-l-d at s-k-o s-k-e-o com and my email address is v as in Victor Miller hyphen Travis at s-k-o dot com and hold on a second, I'll give you the exact title of the report. And we'll include that information on our website. And it's planning for climate and energy equity in Maryland is the title of the report. Okay, great. Thanks, Bernice. And Bernice raised an EPA tool that had been developed called the Environmental Justice Screen and I wanted to ask Mustafa to talk about that just briefly. Sure. Sure. Yeah, so as Bernice said, it's a geographical information systems tool. You can get it by Googling EJScreen or going to epa.gov and then looking for EJScreen. So what it does is it gives you a snapshot of communities and as Bernice said you can place in there information. You can put in an exact address. It'll pull up demographic information and also a number of environmental indicators as well. So you'll be able to and there's some water information also, but it's more heavily loaded with air information than water information. But it's a great tool. It's fairly easy to use. We also have a number of tutorials and we've worked with a number of folks around the country to learn about the information of that. So there it is. Great. Thanks. And we hope to hold a separate briefing within the next few weeks that provides kind of a hands-on demonstration of this tool so that people can see exactly what kind of information is available and how to use that. So we're working with Mustafa's Office to get that scheduled. Okay, let's open it up for me. And I think we have, do we have a microphone going around? Okay, great. So does anyone have any questions or comments for our panel? Okay, up here. Hi, this can be a question for really any of you. A couple weeks ago I was at a briefing about Flint, Michigan, and one of the big concerns they had in terms of what led up to the crisis in that community and many communities is the thing that Bernice brought up was that the chemicals weren't flowing through the pipes because nobody was living in those houses and the chemicals that barred the lead from getting into the water were getting broken down and that's what kind of led to the widespread lead levels in the water and I was wondering if that was any part of any plans that were being held because I know that was one of their big kind of concerns that led up to the crisis. So I don't know if that was something that anybody was looking at. Can you say that again because I want to make sure I heard you correctly. So when I was at a briefing about Flint, Michigan, they brought up the huge population decrease and the high rates of vacancies that Bernice brought up that were happening in Maryland and around many cities with communities of low income and communities of color that these pipes that were being used to go into these houses now are vacant. The chemicals that flow through it to bar the lead from getting the water from those old pipes they because the water wasn't flowing to keep it going through the system because of these vacancies that's when the chemicals broke down and that's when the lead started getting into the system as well. So I don't know if that was the concern in terms of the high vacancies in these communities or not. I just wanted to inquire. I know that there had been issues with regard to the corrosiveness caused by the change in water supply in switching which was most of what I had understood so this raises another you know, complication because but so I'm not sure about that connection in terms of there is a really high vacancy rate in Flint and in fact you know it's interesting the one voice that I have heard for at least 15 years talking about this problem of the vacancy of property in Genesee County Flint is was the former Genesee County Executive now Congressman Dan Kildee and Dan is really an expert on this issue and it's been interesting to me that we haven't seen Dan in this space as much because Dan has spent so much time working on this issue Congressman Kildee he was my friend now Dan now he's Congressman Kildee still your friend he's still my friend he helped to create this organization called the National Vacant Properties Campaign to really look at this issue of the cascading impacts of the spread of vacant property in a community right but my understanding of what went on in Flint that's sort of a delivery issue once you get to the households but my understanding is that a fundamental part of the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act were not being implemented by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality which is that when you switch a source water for drinking water you have to use that source water regularly right and there's Fecal Chloroform you're monitoring for you're monitoring for the contaminants that are causing the spread of Legionnaires disease so I think there's 65 cases right now of Legionnaires disease in Flint also 18 deaths from Legionnaires disease so it's not just the lead poisoning it's other contaminants in the water but my understanding is that the chemicals that are to be introduced into the system were not introduced into the system to keep the pipes from corroding and that's a sort of a bigger issue than the vacancy issue the vacancy issue is a separate standalone crisis unto itself there's a great article in Huffington Post today about sort of the history of the economic decline of Flint and other Midwestern Rust Belt cities you know what is sort of the level right so the water quality issue is on top of a really long term downturn in the economic viability of those places and trying to say which then drove them into bankruptcy which then brought in the emergency managers so the issues are related but I understand the issues a little differently in terms of how the lead actually got into the water and into the pipes bringing the water from you know from the tunnels back to people's households thank you did you want to add anything Mark or okay great okay other questions okay we'll go here first and then back here a comment and a question I was listening to Mark's story and I thought the story and very much true for my community in fact that's what we're going through now I represent a predominantly African-American community that's a five minute drive from here and we're being hard hit by environmental justice issues and our residents are already starting to die from the particular matter and the chemicals that we're exposed to every single day and I'm here primarily to learn more about how I can get help from my community because the environmental justice are slowly killing us off and PEPCO is going to build a huge substation right beside us and it'll be the largest substation in Washington D.C. and this is happening now and I've been months and months trying to bring a voice to a community and our concerns are being swept under the rug for development and the chemicals that we're exposed to are in some cases 200 times the EPA limits so I'm here to get some guidance because I don't know what else to do to save the children because we're slowly becoming ill and people are listening but they're not helping us. Let me speak to that so one we can talk after this and I'll see what I can do but for the other folks who are in the room and Bernice talked about this a little bit environmental justice is not just an environmental protection agency issue or mandate there are also 17 other federal agencies who have a responsibility because of Executive Order 12898 that President Clinton signed and each of them actually put out an annual accomplishment report on the areas that they're focusing on so we should also talk about how the interagency working group on environmental justice also can play a role and also share some of those resources and technical assistance that exists also so let's talk a little bit about that and then I'd also be curious who you've engaged with with the Region 3 which if you're in DC the folks out of Philadelphia you actually fall with them so I'd be interested in here whom you've talked to and what has gone on in that space so we can talk yep you got to do what you're doing you got to go places and bring attention to it one place one space that brings a lot of attention very quickly to your issues would be social media using Twitter, Facebook many of these different social media to bring attention by attaching the handle of your council member by attaching the handle of someone from the Washington Post by attaching the handle of of power officials to be able to say in a picture always helps this is what's happening this is what it looks like and nothing's being done and then put their name that can bring a response and then you start to develop more and more knowledge and develop some supporters and you start to gather more attention on the issue but like I mentioned earlier these is happening all over in many of our communities that are transitional communities that are but we need some of the attention that other communities are getting so keep bringing the light on it I would recommend that you reach out to Professor Sikobi Wilson at the University of Maryland and we'll give you his email address when we break Sikobi has been coalescing a coalition called the DMV EJ Coalition of folks who are working on environmental justice issues and in communities but in government in academia nonprofits across the board just trying to bring the conversation together in one central place for folks in the district in Maryland and in northern Virginia so I think that's one place that you could get a lot of assistance and I just want to lift up a really great example of something that she talked about so in Brandywine Maryland which happens to be the town that Mustafa lives in small power plants to operate in that town so part of Brandywine is incorporated and part of it is unincorporated the unincorporated part of Brandywine seems to have every adverse environmental facility that you can imagine is already operating in Brandywine and so while we're having a national conversation around clean energy and clean power and less dependence on fossil fuels and extractive industries there still is the proliferation and construction of dirty old power plants they may have better technology and they may not be burning as much coal but they are still emitting emissions and new facilities are going into communities that already have several other operating facilities and already poor air quality and poor public health status and so it's important to understand that there's a bigger picture to look at and if we're trying to get to a point of clean energy we have to figure out where energy from other sources and make those sources available and not keep undermining the same populations in the same communities with the same bad energy actors and that's what's happening in her community that we all thought when they decommissioned the PEPCO power plant that that was just going to be a great thing for the district but particularly for your community and now they're coming right back on the heels of the decommissioning of that plant with a new power plant also all over the country so watch this space the clean power plant is not the total answer and there's other facilities and other energy producing facilities that still put out a lot of pollution that are going into a lot of these neighborhoods even as we sit here and talk about the implementation of the clean power plant okay great and I would also say it's probably also very important to engage people at some of the local schools of public health like Bloomberg at Hopkins and Baltimore as well as for example the GW School of Public Health as well in the back right here thank you all for the incredible remarks I'm excited about the clean energy incentive program but also frustrated by the paradox that it seems to raise that some of you have already hinted at that a lot of these energy efficiency and renewable energy projects are the least accessible to communities and people who need the most so I just wanted to see if you all had some insight as to the role that community solar might play or that energy efficiency rebates could be utilized to bring these projects to where they're needed most I mean I can talk a little bit about it I mean you know the rebates community solar all those are very important tools and mechanisms but even when those are put in place we have to make sure that the voice of community and those who are living in these communities in these situations have an opportunity to play a role in the development and as Bernice said also the benefits that come from that I want to expand it a little bit also because a lot of folks are focused on CEIP and it is important in this process and hopefully a number of states will utilize it and implement it but there are also a number of other resources that are out there that also play a role in this mix so the Department of Treasury has a number of programs also around RE and EE HUD does as well so does the Department of Labor around some of the worker training programs that can exist in this space EPA and a number of others so one of the things that I try and make sure is that folks have an understanding of the mix of opportunities that are out there and hoping that states and community organizations, environmental justice organizations and others will actually continue to have the conversations that are necessary to make sure that these EE programs and RE programs are actually going to have a stronger benefit for the folks who need it the most so I share all that to say that I think they are well-meaning and can create some real benefit for communities but only if they are a part of the process, a stronger part of the process and for some folks that's a difficult conversation you know folks are well-meaning and they want to help but sometimes they don't want to give up what I call a power sharing type of a situation where you've got to make sure that the voice of communities is playing a stronger role in that process so I hope that helps a little bit Bernice or others may have something else to add and I too am enthusiastic about the potential for ZEIP but I see so many roadblocks currently being placed on solar in states that are desert states or sunshine states like Nevada or Florida where utilities and other powerful interests have been able to impose net metering issues that are not beneficial to solar even if you do have a house even if you do own your rooftop or able to implement solar that it doesn't they're making it so it doesn't pay off so these battles are not going to live and die based on ZEIP they're going to live and die based on the underlying issues that we have of campaign finance reform power in our states I just find it ridiculous that you take a state like Nevada and the desert or like Florida and the sunshine state and you inhibit the ability for people to utilize a cost beneficial way solar and so the fights are that's one of them but they're bigger more basic fights also so I'm going to tick off a number of recommendations that are included in the report that I mentioned about specifically this issue so providing increased access to energy efficiency and renewable energy benefits we need to integrate and align federal and regional carbon reduction programs with state programs to address environmental justice through the regi initiative the regional greenhouse gas initiative so the states in the northeast states and the mid-atlantic states that are part of the regional greenhouse gas initiative we all are moving in different directions we have different policy incentives we have different objectives and our state implementation plans need to align where we're trying to go as a region and where we're trying to go as states and that's going to require some real cooperation but of course regi already does that for the states that are part of it enforce building codes and assess barriers to energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy systems building performance standards and related codes that can be true for any state every state has building codes support programs to assess and improve housing stock quality to improve access to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and that could include the reclamation of vacant buildings to make them energy efficiency and of course available for folks who need housing promoting support initiatives to give low and moderate income households in Maryland we have a program through Civic Works and the fuel fund of Maryland that helps that to happen target investments to help finance low and moderate income access to renewable energy such as those identified by the Maryland Clean Energy Center's Green Bank so we had a study done in Maryland about where those incentives are and now we need to really focus on them and implement them eliminate policies that prevent empower funds from supporting fuel switching so in power is the program I was talking about where there are 360,000 people eligible for energy credits and for reduction in their bills in Maryland now but only 3,600 people are enrolled and that also doesn't really speak to the fuel switching issue and so really focus on where you have policy instruments but they can be made more accessible and really address this issue net metering, the aggregation of net metering and community choice aggregation that's a really important tool that really needs to be expanded promote policies to address split incentives between landlords and tenants and improve housing stock quality for residents in low income households and promote assessment and improve conditions of demand reduction initiatives so there's a lot of things that we can do just in the state of Maryland to really help EPA get to where it's trying to get with the reduction of carbon emissions those there are probably lots of tools in lots of states and we need to really focus on what exists already how to make those tools available to more people particularly more vulnerable and low income populations because what we don't want to see is the benefits of clean energy having an income strata right that the folks who who have the nice houses who have access to these resources get them get the you know the tax benefits incentives but the folks at the lower end of the income scale are not eligible or cannot get into those systems and so then you create you know clean energy segregation and we certainly don't want to see that right we want to see the benefits broadly based and broadly delivered could I just add one thing to so as it relates to environmental justice and we'll just use solar as an example if you look South Carolina just I think within the last week and Vernice correct me if I'm wrong signed a solar bill and that work actually came out of a project and leadership from the environmental justice organization called Regenesis Inc and by a state representative who comes from that community who used to be executive director there who's now a state representative in South Carolina so that just shows that how when environmental justice organizations and others have the ability to be able to work with and share with others that we can start to move forward in a very proactive way that makes real change on the ground for community so that's just one example of some of the change that is happening in this space and how communities and community voices are playing a role in that process great thank you Mustafa we have time for a couple okay the two last questions right up here and first just wait for the microphone okay up here hi I just have a quick question for Vernice I didn't quite understand how you were saying California addressed some of the cap and trade I mean some of the environmental justice considerations you mentioned with the cap and trade program and I wanted to make sure I was clear on that because it sounded interesting yes so first to be totally fair and honest first the EJ constituency sued the state of California to prevent them from putting forward the SB535 from implementing it which is equivalent to the Maryland Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act because of their fundamental opposition to the trading scheme that it wouldn't necessarily target the reductions to the communities that had the highest levels of emissions and they worked through that there was litigation I shouldn't say they threatened to sue them they actually did sue them and it went on for a really long time as they tried to figure this out and how they settled the litigation was to really figure out that they really want to go forward with this trading scheme the state of California thinks it's the best way to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions but they want to target benefits to vulnerable populations where the emissions are the greatest and so they've set aside or they've identified that 10% of all the funds that are raised in that market will go to programs into those vulnerable communities to reduce the level of carbon emissions in those communities so they're making sure they're targeting at least 10% now you can invest more than 10% but they at a minimum they want 10% of the dollars raised in that pollution credit trading market back into the most vulnerable populations this is the only place in the country where that kind of system has been structured and so even when you disagree with folks fundamentally at a policy level you can still figure out a way to meet needs while implementing policy but you have to want to do it and you have to recognize that there are really vulnerable populations out here who are not in the conversation but who are bearing most of the burden and the burden that they're bearing I hate to keep harping on this and I'm sure you all are tired of hearing me but I've gone to more funerals more funerals than I can shake a stick at of people who should still be here in my own community in New York much less the folks whose funerals I've gone to around the country aside from environmental exposure young people people in their 50's people in their 40's who are not here anymore people always say that we're so passionate you're so emotional about this stuff why don't you calm down it's kind of hard because then I have to go to her community and look at their faces and say that this is where we're going with this federal policy but it may not benefit you so much because you have so many times and have any integrity about the work that you do but also have any any true telling that you share with folks public policy should be a debate around policy you know not that I hate EPA but that this is what I think is the strengths and the weaknesses of what it is that EPA is trying to do and when people have a policy debate usually you can come to some consensus about a resolution of okay maybe not here anymore but in some parts of the country you can come to resolution about those public policy disagreements and that's what's happening in South Carolina so what's happening in California it's happening in a lot of places that's what the regional greenhouse gas initiative is about we were light years ahead of the EPA and trying to figure out regionally how we reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the northeastern mid-atlantic regions because we realize it's killing our people there's a productivity issue here and we pay a cost and so how do you monetize that cost in public health benefits does that answer your question? great okay and there was one last question back here hello thank you again for your comments and I was wondering when we were talking about different groups that are all working with stakeholder engagement there's initiative through NRDC and a few other partners called energy efficiency for all and I wondered if you all could speak to whether you think EJ advocates have a voice in that plan and whether that's a good space for us to work on improving the cleaning power plan while it's on hold at the moment you probably all should speak to that so who wants to start go ahead go ahead Mark please I do think that there is space for the EJ leaders people who represent vulnerable populations people who live in vulnerable communities to have access to the decision makers and the groups of people that are going to be making these decisions on the clean power plan state implementation plans the issues we're going to have how do people find out about what's happening how do people get in the door how do we make sure that these are meaningful that they're not just one way lectures that these are meaningful dialogues that they're being heard and addressed and that the issues that are being that are concerned of each individual community are taken seriously and not just not just listened to and passed over as far as the specific NRDC energy efficient for all program I'm not as familiar with that but I'd love to hear more about what they're doing and maybe I can give you some advice about how to incorporate your work in with other groups that NRDC has significant access issues so I would say if you're working with NRDC you're going to know when and where these meetings are held and you're going to be encouraged to attend and you'll probably have some high profile people with you and so I would use that but I do think that these that when they hold these meetings and hopefully they'll be doing it despite the stay because it's needed and it should be being done anyways that you and others in the community will be there so I've been to one meeting of the coalition and that's because I was asked by Khalil Shahid who works at NRDC and I'm trying to get the other colleagues name from NRDC so I used to from 1993 to 1999 I was the director of environmental justice at NRDC and it was my job to integrate environmental justice perspectives into all of the policy work that we were doing I would just tell you that some of our programs were and really advanced a lot of cutting edge work, some of our programs NRDC's programs were very resistant to integrating the perspectives of these diverse constituencies into our work. One of the most resistant was the energy program at NRDC so I understand that a lot of progress has been made but in that room the day that I was there to help people think more broadly about the clean energy incentive program and how you could really get the benefits more broad based I think there were three people of color in the room I'm always in rooms like that, I'm an environmentalist I've been an environmentalist for 30 years but you know really we have a really diverse population we have diverse people who think about these issues and care about these issues and the day when it's just a bunch of well-meaning wife folks in a room talking about whatever the policy is we are so far past that and in order to get the kind of broad based public support for the policy changes that we are recommending we need everybody in the room and we need a really diverse conversation we also need people working at the grassroots level with their states to say that we really need these clean energy incentive programs to come about at the state level and the way that you do that is you get the population really energized and you can't do that if you only have you know the same group of people who talk to each other all the time having a conversation so I know Khalil and other colleagues at NRDC are working really hard to make this a more diverse conversation but we're not there yet just you know for your own edification there are usually two environmental policy conversations that are happening on any given set of issues there's the environmental justice conversation and then there's the green group conversation and the challenge is that those conversations don't often intersect and so we wind up being in conflict more than we wind up being in concert and you know just from a time management standpoint I for one am tired of hopping back and forth between these conversations I just want us all in one room no matter your political persuasion to try and figure out how we're going forward as a country this is a crisis for us and we really need to step up every brain, every community every constituency needs to be at the table that's sort of you know my approach to it and it's really a time management issue you know there's but so many hours in a day let's all get in the same room well it's also about finding then solutions that actually do work across the board Mustafa well I mean I think Mark and Bernice you know that they answered the question there are some folks who are now beginning to work more in collaboration there's still work to do I'll just leave a final word at least for myself and when we you know environmental justice speaks to who we are as a country you know it's really that simple do we value low-income communities do we value communities of color tribal communities and tribal communities and I think if the answer is yes then it gives us a pathway forward to how we strengthen and make our country stronger so I think that there's a lot of work to do but I think that when we finally get focused or even more focused that we can make some significant change and we can make our country be in a much better police great thank you thank you all so much we hope to be able to continue helping this necessary dialogue move forward and obviously it's a critical conversation as you've heard from all of our speakers to be had nationally but also at the state and local level in terms of really finding solutions that really can work as we try to meet these goals and now is a good time to take advantage of the time that in terms of communities really engaging in planning process learning more about the issues what the facts are on the ground and finding ways forward so at EESI are also hoping to have a couple more briefings in addition to the one on the EJ screen we are also hoping to within the next month to showcase some good examples of affordable really high performance high energy efficiency housing and that therefore also both is not only affordable but also will help reduce emissions how that can be done in terms of both residential housing what that can also mean in terms of thinking about public buildings that often time are also places of shelter of refuge and so I want to thank you all for coming and I want to say thank you to this terrific panel we look forward to continue to work with all of you thanks for coming really appreciate it