 Hello and good afternoon. Welcome to our bonus briefing about integrating equity into emergency management. This briefing is the final installment of our series living with climate change. I'm Dan Berset, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute was founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress to provide science based information about environmental energy and climate change topics to policymakers. More recently, we have also developed a program that provides technical assistance to rural utilities interested in on bill financing programs to help make energy efficiency, beneficial electrification and renewable energy more accessible and affordable for their customers. ESI provides informative, objective, nonpartisan coverage of climate change topics in briefings, written materials, and on social media. All of our educational resources, including briefing recordings, fact sheets, issue briefs, articles, newsletters and podcasts are always available for free online at www.esi.org. If you'd like to make sure you always receive our latest and greatest educational resources, take a moment to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. We set out back in April to learn about how climate change impacts are affecting our lives. We started with the polar vortex and then continued to sea level rise, wildfires and extreme heat. A recurring theme, really an unfortunate truth, emerged during these briefings. When disaster strikes, underserved communities are often hit first, hardest, and for the longest time. This has implications for how we prepare for and respond to these disasters and bring to bear federal, state and local emergency management resources. It is critical to ensure that equity is incorporated into all aspects of emergency management in order to help communities become more resilient and better able to live with climate change, and this will be the topic of our briefing today. Just on Tuesday, we held a bonus session to wrap up our companion briefing series scaling up innovation to drive down emissions with a look at clean energy innovation and the critical role of labs, incubators, accelerators and fellowships. In addition, we also organized briefings about green hydrogen, direct air capture, building out electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and offshore wind energy. To review presentation materials and summary notes for both briefing series, including the bonus installments, visit us online at www.esa.org. We have reserved a good portion of the briefing today for discussion and questions, and we will do our best to incorporate questions from our audience. If you have a question you'd like to ask our panelists, you have two options to send it to us. First, you can send us an email and the email address to use is AskASK at ESI.org, or even better, follow us on Twitter at ESI online and send it to us by responding to the live tweeting thread. And as always, if you miss any of this or want to watch it again and revisit what our panelists have to say, you can visit us online at www.esa.org for our archived webcasts. The first panelist today is Chauncia Willis. Chauncia is the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion and Emergency Management. She leads the effort to integrate equity into all facets of disaster policy programs and practice with the goal of increasing cultural competence and mitigating the harmful impacts of bias on underserved groups. Chauncia also served as the emergency manager in Tampa for over 14 years, where she developed successful programs benefiting marginalized populations, and she's the author of Stretching, the Race Towards Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in America, which was published in December 2020. Chauncia, it's great to see you. Welcome to our briefing today. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, and hello everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, again, Chauncia Willis, Chief Executive Officer for the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion and Emergency Management. And so really quickly, I want to set the stage. America has a history that has to be accounted for. It's impacting every aspect of our society, and specifically in times of disaster. We are seeing the unfortunate impact of structural racism. We're seeing the unfortunate impact of poverty bias. And we are seeing the unfortunate impacts when we do not prioritize equity. So as we said, CEO, and that's a great picture. Thank you, Dan. I like that one. It's making me look a little thinner. Next slide. Let's talk about the organization. So our organization is a global nonprofit, and really we were created to facilitate change. If you will, we were created to interrupt the systems of inequity. Our mission is to support the development and implementation of innovation, innovative community based programs that focus on mitigation and adaptation projects that will enhance resilience specifically for diverse vulnerable underserved communities, those who have been disenfranchised. And our vision is to enhance global resilience. This organization was created out of need. There is a need to increase diversity amongst emergency management officials and decision makers. There is a need to prioritize equity to prioritize inclusion. This hasn't been done before. And I'm pleased to see that the general mission of idea has been well accepted. And we'll talk about it a little bit later, but we've been able to really create change in places that it's most needed. Next slide. So what have we done our community impacted initiatives so far and I will tell you we're a young organization. We really got started and into the groove of things. Two years ago in 2020. As Dan mentioned, I've been in emergency management about 22 years. But this organization has only been in existence for a few years. But in that time we've done multiple congressional testimonies we have another one coming up here on Tuesday. In one year alone, a keynote presentation so that tells you about the desire for people to learn more about how they can enact and get more involved in mitigating disaster bias and poverty bias. We've even contributed to different legislative acts that we believe will save lives and diminish hopefully over time, the disproportionate impact of disaster on our most vulnerable and historically marginalized communities. We do a lot of training and a lot of our training for different organizations, it starts with the history of emergency management, but it also talks about the history of bias and multiple disasters. For example, in 1927 during the Mississippi floods. Many people don't realize that a significant portion of African American males were forced to lay down and serve as sandbags. Now if you can imagine having to lay down and give your life to prevent a town from from flooding. I mean, that is the kind of bias that has existed in our history of this country. We think about the great Okeechobee floods where African American migrant farmers were killed because they weren't given the notice or warning that a flood was that a storm was coming. We think about California the internment of our Japanese citizens. We think about the, the things that motivated that dealing with earthquakes and disasters are preceding these huge atrocities. We have to acknowledge that and so a lot of our services are training our programs are intended to really highlight the history and what needs to happen as far as a vision and future focus. One of our star programs is our equity response teams, which is how we had the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of to sharel who you will hear from shortly. Our response teams actually have done great work all over the country and we're going to talk about that so next slide. Community perspectives why do we have so many problematic inequities in emergency management. And quite honestly, the reason is because the systems that exist within the United States are built on inequities. And so our policies, our plans, our practices are built from those inequitable systems, and those systems are harmful. And so when we are implementing plans and doing the things that we've always done, we're actually causing further harm. So emergency management is leaders, its leadership is over 75% led by white males. As we talk about Louisiana here shortly, we will find that out of all of the local emergency managers, there is not one person that is a person of color that leads a local emergency management jurisdiction agency for Louisiana, not one parish. So there is. So from that, you can see how this exclusionary practices are created, how there's not a desire to share information on how to receive funding for communities that are very diverse and that are not well connected to those leaders. But within these communities, there's a desire for understanding this, the grant writing process, how do we become more sustainable within our community, how do we survive understanding that we need funding that we need someone to really take the time to train and to develop plans with us and to include us in the process. And so that's what our organization does. We step into that gap, and we take our team of emergency managers of grant writers of mitigation experts, and we find ways to fill that gap for these underserved communities and we invite everyone to participate with us in doing so because it is much needed. Here I have actually a picture from Monday, where one of our teams went out to Greenwood, Mississippi, and that may sound familiar because that's where Emmett Till was murdered. And we led a training exercise for that community. And these are the sorts of things that we do to involve the community but more importantly provide them with hands on preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery assistance for the community. And as you see here starting with the executive leadership for that community, it's government. And, you know, as you know, just to reiterate, a lot of the problems that we see in communities such as this one are based on inequitable policies like redlining in many communities, we will see where one side of the community is has is captured within an opportunity zone, which provides economic investment, and then we'll see where the other part of the community that is more diverse, and has more less, has more poverty that community ironically is not included as an opportunity zone. So it's a clear racial divide. And so we work with all types of communities, any community that has been historically marginalized. And so we are creating change and interrupting the cycle by really interjecting as much as possible the desire for equity at all levels and the desire to see equitable outcomes. Next slide. So these are the equity response teams that we talked about and there you will see us actually meeting with some of the groups in Louisiana. And we send out certified emergency managers, they deploy after a disaster, whether it's a tornado flood hurricane, whatever it is. We look for different ways to do disaster management, we don't follow the same system that's always been used, which is to go to the locations that, you know, for all intents and purposes are already wealthy. And they have insurance, they have everything they need, and they really don't need a lot from the government. You have other communities that are ignored for long periods of time. The people are suffering. They're out in the heat with no roof. And, you know, in some cases I spoke to some communities where they don't have sewage they have no running water, no, no toilets, no, no access to food. And they call 911 and 911, you know, they don't come. And so whether it's a trailer park or whether it's a community on the bayou, when you are from a community that is lower income, you are de-prioritized. And so their recovery is oftentimes extended because of that discrimination and bias. And that discrimination and bias after disaster has generational impacts. So it's not talked about. And so we want to make sure that we're talking about it. And we believe that by focusing funding on local community-based organizations, we can ensure that equity is prioritized because those organizations are working in the communities every day. We need to stop giving money, the federal dollars, to states who then give that money to local emergency managers who may, you know, really exclude diverse communities because they just don't identify with them. They don't see the connection with them. And so they don't include them in mitigation planning, which would bring in funding for projects. They don't even include them in training. So their families and their businesses and as individuals, so they're prepared, they exclude them because they don't look like them. So we have to be real, this is sometimes a difficult conversation, but you know, I'm absolutely open to any questions about this or any comments and, you know, any opportunities to connect resources, we're open to that as well. Next slide. So our organization, as we said, we do a lot of training workshops, not only on the history of bias and disaster, but also on cultural competency and trauma-informed community engagement with diverse communities. We develop a lot of plans and guidebooks and our focus is on the communities and giving each of these communities that we're working with a voice, a way to participate in this, really, the desire to survive and thrive. A way to find a voice and to be included in planning policy and really to have a seat at the table. And as we all know, advocacy is a privilege and everyone does not have that privilege. And so our goal is to really make sure that everyone is included and does not experience the negative outcomes of bias and disaster. So with that, I'll turn it back to you, Dan. Thank you. Thank you, Chaunceyia, for that fantastic presentation. Chauncey had lots of great information on those slides. If you'd like to revisit those slides, you can do that by visiting us online at www.esa.org, all the presentation materials as well as an archived webcast. So if you'd like to hear Chaunceyia give her presentation as well as look at her slides, that would be the place to do that as well. Our second panelist is up next. Chief Chirelle Parfait-Dardar is the traditional tribal chief of the Grand Caillou-Doulac Band of Biloxi-Chitamacha Choctaw, an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, an independent artist, and a small business owner. Chief Chirelle is one of the founding members of the First Peoples Conservation Council of Louisiana and is currently seated as their secretary. She's also one of the advisors to Louisiana HB660 Act 102, establishing the Native American Commission in the Louisiana Governor's Office of Indian Affairs, and she was elected the first Native American chairwoman of that commission. She's an active advocate for coastal restoration and preservation, development and utilization of alternative energy sources, community resilience, education and human rights. Chief Chirelle, welcome to the briefing today. I'm really looking forward to your presentation. Thank you so much. I'm really glad to be with all of you here today. Thank you for having me. So, as I was introduced, I'm Chief Chirelle, and we can just get right into it. Next slide please. As you can see from the picture, that's our homeland or what's left of it, and that's due to many years of extractive practices for oil and gas exploration. You know, we are currently working on projects to try to restore the lands and preserve the lands that we have left through partnerships with other nonprofits and academia. One of the projects we're currently trying to pursue is canal backfilling. You know, of course, that's been in the works now for several years and would actually provide healing to the lands. But as usual, as indigenous peoples and tribal peoples, we face a lot of barriers, even trying to implement the different projects that we need to implement to be able to improve our well-being and preserve our communities. Next slide please. So, the needs and solutions. First, just see the improved process for state and federal recognition. Of course, state and federal government, and particularly with tribes, requires that you have recognition. And some states do not even have a process to recognize their state tribes. And the federal process is very burdensome and very costly. My tribe, along with other coastal tribes have been in that process for over 26 years. There are seven mandatory criteria that need to be met. And while we were going through that process over those 26 years, the criteria was revised twice. So there really needs to be improvements to that. We understand, you know, that having that federal government to tribal government relationship requires a process. However, the process needs to be more streamlined and also needs to be more in alignment with the rights to self-determination. And, you know, one of the things that we found that was really burdensome with that is that not only were we required to provide evidence supporting, you know, our genealogy and tracing us all the way back to our historical tribes, which we've done over the years, but they also want all of that evidence now prepared into what they call a concise written narrative. Which, you know, for folks that are not familiar with doing that type of work, trying to find someone who can actually do that for you, it can take a lot of time and can be quite costly. So a lot of tribes are actually prevented from even going through the process because they lack the resources and the funding. The next thing that we have a lot of difficulty with is understanding that tribes are also United States citizens, right? And that has been one of my biggest arguments when having to speak to officials is that we pay taxes at the end of the day, you know. And one of the problems with that is that we're paying into these systems, okay, but we're not getting those dollars coming back and being invested into the communities and things that are needed like infrastructure and education. And especially in disaster response and recovery, you know, resiliency and adaptation projects. You know, basically, it comes down to government accountability, whereas local state and federal government needs to understand that despite tribal status, which is something that is inherent to us, we're inherently sovereign, right? But they are still responsible to us as U.S. citizens. You know, so imposing these barriers on us and saying, oh, well, you're not federal, right? You don't have federal acknowledgement, so we cannot communicate with your community. We cannot give you access to the resources that your community needs is absolutely ridiculous because, like I said, at the end of the day, we are tax paying citizens. And we contribute into these systems that are supposed to be providing these services to the community, regardless of our identity as indigenous and tribal peoples. We definitely need stronger focus on communities. For example, my tribe in particular for our community for Hurricane Ida assisted 56 families with being able to return to their homes with repairs and rebuilding. And that was completely with the help of nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations and academia. As a matter of fact, we had to work with a local university to have some law students come in while we were set up in a damaged communal space, you know, handing out resources to get these students to come in and fill out FEMA applications to explain the appeals process, fill out appeals letters, because we literally had no representation down in these Bayou communities. You know, and the closest location was at least 45 minutes away for some, and that proved to be very challenging when we did not have electricity or in some cases running water, basic necessities. And we definitely didn't have access to phone service or internet, which was one of the things that they were relying on to receive applications. You know, and the applications can be very complicated if you don't have anyone there that understands them that can break it down because we also have language barriers. And we have many people that are still struggling with illiteracy because they were not allowed to have a full education. You know, we need improved access and awareness for mitigation preparedness and recovering funding opportunities. And a lot of times information is simply not shared with the communities that need it most, you know, so we as communities are struggling to figure out where those resources are, so that we can try to access them, and then start these communities to be able to recover. And that has just proved to be increasingly challenging over the years. And that's highly concerning considering the forecast in increased storms and the severity of storms in relation to climate change. We need improved funding flow. Direct community partners are nonprofit versus federal to state to local. Many of our communities are involved in mitigation efforts and resiliency and adaptation projects and have been from many, many generations. Our people, you know, at being indigenous people we utilize traditional ecological knowledge. This is not a new concept. However, it has not really been utilized before, because our local and state and federal governments have been relying on their own systems and not really including the voices of the community, which is, you know, the people that have been there for many, many generations and might know a thing or two about their environment. You know, we have been looking at ways to securely rebuild to be able to withstand the changing environment. And we need investment opportunities for those things. We also need to be seated at the table with decision makers because unfortunately for our communities, we have been cut out of those decision making processes and that has actually proven to be very detrimental. So, all of these things really need to start happening. Communities need to be fully included in all decision making processes. And, you know, we just quite frankly need to be seen as United States citizens despite the fact that we are indigenous and we are tribal peoples that is our identity. That is our history that is not something that we can change nor would we want to that is a blessing to us. And we have tried to utilize that in every way possible to share information with other communities that will be facing the same challenges as we have them. You know, so it's past time that we stop being cut out of those processes and actually be included in them. As a matter of fact, one of the previous slides actually showed my home from Hurricane Ida. And there we are. You know, it was crucial that we stayed in the community with myself being a leader, I needed to be where my people could find me. And we built what we could out of the rebel that was left of our home. We would have a place to stay while we did the work that needed to be done. And we were not the only one. So what you're seeing here is an example of what happened throughout the coastal community that were hit directly by Ida. However, we are still struggling to recover from that storm as many coastal communities of color often find themselves in. And if things do not change, that is going to get far worse. You know, so it's absolutely crucial that we begin to consider all voices because it is through our diversity that we are going to be able to come up with solutions to these extremely diverse challenges that we are facing. We cannot do it alone. We are responsible to and for each other. And it is for a past time that we have grasped that understanding and begin to utilize the tools that we all have to address these challenges. And, you know, we're really thankful for our new found partnership with Ida. We have started seeing some changes. You know, thanks to our partnerships and collaborations and we hope to be able to continue to see changes as we move forward because they're extremely needed. Thank you. Thank you Chief Cheryl for that very moving presentation. I really appreciate your willingness to share your experience with our audience today that thank you very much. Chantia, you've turned your video back on. You've also now see on the screen my colleague Anna McGinn. Anna will be leading us through our discussion today. And so if you have questions for Chantia or Chief Cheryl, you can send us an email ask at esi.org that's ASK at esi.org and follow us on Twitter at ESI online. Anna is our policy manager here at ESI and a major major part of our successful briefing series living with climate change and scaling up innovation to drive down emissions. So it's only suitable for her to lead us in the discussion. So Anna, I'll turn it over to you. Great. Thanks so much Dan and thank you so much for two really powerful and important presentations looking forward to our conversation over the next 30 minutes or so. I want to build off of kind of how your presentation concluded Chief Cheryl. I'm wondering if you all could share a little bit more about the story from when you started working together in the aftermath of Ida to kind of where you are today. In the work with IDM and with your community and kind of what have been you you mentioned some of the successes and steps forward what have been some of those from your from each of your perspectives. And how are you looking to kind of continue to build on that going forward. Maybe we can start with you Chief Cheryl and then we'll go to Tonsia. Thank you so much, Anna. For example, we are no stranger to storms here, right. That is our environment we have lived with hurricanes for since our people have been here many, many, many generations ago. And but with climate change, you know those things have been increasing, and they are forecasted to continue to increase not only in frequency but severity. What we have found over the years is that we are having less and less access to the necessary resources for our community to be able to recover. And in many instances, the reasoning behind that is because we are not federally acknowledged, right. However, that should not bore the community from having access to resources that we contribute to. And as I've said before, we have not been included in a lot of the decisions that have been made for our community. And it's actually proven to be quite detrimental. You know, so immediately following Hurricane Ida, the community was absolutely devastated. We were having so much difficulty just reaching out to local officials to try to explain to them look, you know, we don't have any electricity. There are spots in the community that are without without running water, you have people sleeping in vehicles, you know, babies, elders, people without homes, you know, and that proved to be extremely challenging. Just trying to be able to communicate the needs of the community to local officials, so much so that one of our tribal people that was residing outside of the state had to send a reminder to the state about our state recognition and explaining to them, look, we need communication to be able to access resources, you know, for this community. We began to receive communication, but it was nowhere near where it needed to be. And currently we are still delayed in those processes. And, like I've said, we've had to work with academia with nonprofit and faith based organizations and IDM came in immediately and aftermath. You know, to see what they could do in listening directly to the community itself, based on what those community needs were, and really offered to assist us with closing a lot of those gaps, and trying to create those relationships that we should have had. Right. But again, those processes are so very challenging and it changes from department to department from agency to agency. And we have not even had the time to be able to educate ourselves on those processes. You know, because we're already having to address so many other things that when IDM stepped in there like let us help you with that. Right. And they took it a step further than that. And, you know, they also offered to assist with training courses and materials that were directly based on the community's needs, rather than this catch all system that many agencies like to use and bring, you know, maybe into a centralized location that's up to an hour or so away. You know, that people have difficulty accessing IDM has said no we want to bring these trainings directly into the communities so that the community itself is aware of not only the programs that are available, but the funding opportunities that are available. You know, by the way, we can give you some tools that can help you build your community based on your community's needs. Right. And that that was something that was so needed, and is often very much overlooked. So we're very, very thankful for the relationships that we're beginning to build. And a lot of the education that's going to start coming directly into the community itself, because like I said, we have not been included in many, many things. And it's very visible. When you come down into our community, you will see things that we're lacking like basic needs, you know, we have bridges that need repair, we lack proper drainage. Okay, and these are all things that as taxpaying citizens, we should already have. But because of our identity, and us not being federally acknowledged, they feel that they can exclude us from those those things. And we're very, very thankful that we have had, you know, the opportunity to work with other groups that are like, they can't do that. Right. You know, we understand that maybe there's some processes there that require you to prove your federal to tribal government relationship, you know, in order to have control over those resources and those funds, but you cannot be fully excluded simply because of your identity and that's what's been happening. You know, and it's even deeper than that. Our own state recognition process is not fully functioning properly. And there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed there as well. We were in a Senate Judiciary be committee hearing back in May, where the committee that was making decisions on state recognition first of all was quite frankly not the right committee to be heard in to begin with because they have they did not deal with anything that was in relation to what we were seeking. And it turned absolutely horrible with the question that that was being posed to one of the tribal leaders that was seeking recognition, so much so that he was asked why he did not speak his native tongue. You know, so there's a lot of education that needs to happen on the part of agencies department and even elected officials, when it comes to dealing with communities of color and what rights we have and sharing those resources and even just respecting our rights to self determination and not creating further barriers because of it. Absolutely, I concur with everything that Chief Cheryl has has mentioned so passionately and honestly that's one of the reasons why you know when we deployed to Louisiana our team for Hurricane Ida, I believe it was divine. And I say so because I, once we heard the stories and we we met the, the community members and we got a chance to actually see the devastation of Chief Cheryl's home which she had just finished building. And we saw her sewing equipment where her business was now destroyed. And, you know, our questions to not only Chief Cheryl but you know many other communities was have you heard from your local leaders. And it was either yeah, yeah, you know they're here every day or no I keep calling and they won't answer. And I said, God, you know that's that's that's terrible. Because what it does is it limits you from receiving appropriate resources to recover quickly. So that means you're going to suffer even longer than everybody else. Your children and at the time Chief Cheryl had her children out there sitting on crates with no roof and the hot sun and if you've ever been to Louisiana to the bayou. And you know about heat and mosquitoes. And as you saw in the picture a refrigerator filled with rotting food. Now they're smelling this sitting there day by day waiting for somebody to help. And that's the thing that people don't seem to realize outside is that you know we're dealing with real people. They hurt like you hurt like I believe like you know we're people and to be treated as if you're not a priority or not important enough to get that assistance immediately. Or we'd rather follow the system we use which is to give them money to the state and we hope it'll trickle down to you. And if it doesn't well we tried we did our part, we did the most for the most and we got the most and you know the most doesn't look like you. You know we have to be honest about what's happening. This is not, you know, oversight. This is negligence in many cases and it's intentional. And honestly it's painful. So, you know, it's a challenge to get up every day, when you know that you are, you are being discriminated against and obviously as a black woman I know what that feels like. But it's a challenge to get up and do battle every day. So that's why we try to support as much as possible try to amass as many resources as possible we try to amplify the perspective as much as possible, not me telling your story, you tell your story. Share your perspective, and we will bring people to you to hear your perspective, so that they can use their authority to change those policies that are harming you. And so that's the, that's the whole reason that we were there. And that's why we continue to go to other places to make sure that we do the same thing. So I hope that answered your question Anna. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much. The next question I want to get at is curious in what ways you see emergency managers, community leaders thinking about pre disaster mitigation so building resilience and communities before disaster ever happens, versus what's been the focus for a long time, about during disaster response and post disaster recovery. And if you're seeing any shifts in thinking of those emergency matters and community leaders and if that shift provides any opportunity for integrating more equity into how maybe those pre disaster measures or actions are put in place chance and maybe we can start with you and then we can go to Chief Cheryl. Okay, so, you know, an emergency management. Most of the work is done at the about 80% should be done before disaster ever strikes. So pre disaster mitigation funding should be more equitable and focused on the outcome for the people. And preparedness planning exercises training needs to prioritize equity and focus on operationalizing equity. And I don't know that emergency managers on their own will do these do these things because for the most part FEMA and federal agency set policy. policies have become somewhat more focused on equity. Unfortunately, though, equity is not going to be an overnight occurrence. It takes time and it takes mindset change. You know if you've been accustomed to enforcing policies that are discriminatory and you don't see them as discriminatory you're not going to really go out of your way to change it very quickly. And so with climate change it's almost like a lion is chasing us the impacts of climate change are going to be monstrous. Those who are most vulnerable those who have been marginalized are going to suffer greatly. Those who are middle class right now will be pushed into poverty over the next 20 years. These things are going to happen. What we have to do is we need to look at policies to elevate the circumstance elevate the planning elevate the mitigation work for marginalized communities that are lower income that are already disadvantaged and excluded. We have to prioritize their needs now. Or it will be a massacre, and we can't have that. So we're going to do whatever we can and I hope that all of you will do whatever you can do to stop that use every skill set you have every connection you have and every access point that you have to create policy to protect rather than create and cost further harm. So that's my answer. Teacher L did you have anything you wanted to add on that one. While we have noticed some changes in the dialogue. Of course, in relation to the catastrophic damage of the disasters right it's it's it's fairly new language. It still does not fully incorporate the voice of the communities that have been in their respected areas for many, many generations. And quite often, and this is from an indigenous perspective and utilizing traditional ecological knowledge in resiliency and adaptation practices. A lot of those practices are still not accepted and are still not funded. Right so oftentimes, and we've been working on these types of projects for many, many years, you know, because we know where we live. We understand the challenges that are going to be facing us and have been facing us. However, anytime we've tried to address those challenges we usually find ourselves facing more barriers. And we find things are being done to us rather than for us are with us. And that needs to change. You know, because we have very intelligent people that live in our communities and traditional ecological knowledge is being proven as a very valid form of live science every single day and it actually works. So just as an example, in our area we are losing massive amounts of land. So what does that do, as the storms increase in severity and frequency, and we're losing land that means the communities on those front lines are going to be much more at risk of catastrophic damage. Right, so we have been working towards identifying. Okay, how do we need to be building. So we've started creating projects around those types of things temporary housing long term housing. You know, restoration and preservation of our lands, you know, with things like living shorelines and canal backfilling. You know, however, like I've said, even though we're coming up with those wonderful ideas that are actually proven to be successful. Sometimes we find ourselves facing barriers to implementing those projects, and there's a very serious lack of funds that are available to communities to be able to implement those types of projects. You know, to, to assist their communities and being resilient. Thank you the really helpful responses and I think we've had an audience question come in that might build right off of some of the comments you just made so I'm going to pass it over to Dan to cover that one next. Thanks. Yes, our audience is responding to your presentations today, and one person or audience just asked us a question about traditional ecological knowledge. And the question is, have you seen and she sure maybe we'll start with you. Have you seen the agencies we've been talking about sort of embracing traditional ecological knowledge more. Have they have you noticed that perhaps these agents are starting to recognize it or even go further and support and funding traditionally ecological knowledge and this person specifically asked about nature based practices and nature based solutions that might be deployed on the coast to help protect or make communities more resilient and against climate impacts. You're muted she sure sorry. Thank you. Unfortunately, that has not been the case here in Louisiana. You, you're starting to see that much more progressive states, right where they are actually accepting responsibility for the injustices that have been committed against their indigenous peoples and are recognizing that and and basically taking the steps to heal this and actually starting to invite their indigenous communities and tribal peoples to the table and they like hey we recognize that the, the knowledge that you've held for many generations has proven to be beneficial. One good example of that is the state of California. Right, they have done some really really good things in regards to working with their tribes and indigenous communities, and have really taken steps to incorporate that traditional knowledge along with the you know the Western science and try to find a way to bring those two together for the benefit of all. You know so it's it's like I said it's not a new concept. I feel that it is a growing concept but we are still nowhere where we need to be and each state is different on how they utilize those opportunities. John say if you have anything you would like to add, I'm very interested in your opinion as well. Um, well you know I would just say it's unfortunate, as Chief Cheryl mentioned that other states have not embraced the traditional knowledge and that's actually something that I can remember very clearly when I met Chief Cheryl was she spoke about resilience and I said has anyone spoken to you about you know how to live on the bayou and then this is going to occur and then that happens that she's like no. Why aren't we ever included in any of these mitigation meetings. We have the knowledge. And you said something else that was so powerful, you said our diversity provides solutions. So, if we all were to embrace that concept that diversity provides solutions to these major issues. Instead of saying, let's do it the way we've always done it. These are the people we hear from and follow, not these people. If we could break that cycle and elevate diversity and elevate other people's voices, we would find solutions to major issues. And I believe until we do so. We're all going to suffer. Another question came in that actually kind of builds on, I think maybe what you were just saying chancea. And the question is, what do you think the impact of the justice 40 initiative will be on emergency response. Do you have any thoughts about sort of what impact that initiative might have on how we, you know, help communities recover from natural disasters made worse by climate change. The impact is positive. I'm hoping that we are more inclusive. And the services that we select and also the service providers because I will tell you right now Mississippi and Louisiana having tremendous issues with outside providers, primarily white led organizations coming into diverse communities to provide services and they don't identify with the communities. So what happens is, you have a storm like Hurricane Katrina, where we know that 99% of the disaster contractors were white. Now that creates a lot of problems. And when we say why are some of these communities not recovered yet. Gosh, well because they those contractors benefited from other people's pain, and they left that community. There was no, there was no desire to hire more diversity from within that community to put those people back to work there was no requirement to hire diverse contractors. And here in the United States, you have tribal disaster contractors, you have, you have every, every ethnicity you could think of has a disaster management organization has the capability to provide response to diverse communities. And they are not selected. How can that be. Well, because the policies are set to to select contractors that are large companies. So they go in and they have huge contracts and they say well we just want, you know, one company that we have to work with and we hope that they will hire those other companies itself and guess what they don't. So I think justice 40 is a great concept. I would love to see it implemented properly. And I would love to see it have tremendous impact in and appreciate the diversity that could be created from it. So please feel free to weigh in and then I'll turn it back over to you. No, thank you and agreeing with Chansey look we're very hopeful right and I always say that the only thing we have is hope and humor. You know, and you have to know how to use both. But we are really hopeful, however the history has been that we have always been excluded from decision making. And as I've said before that has proven to be very detrimental. It doesn't take much all you got to do is come drive down here and you can see the difference. And there's this. There's this teaching, you know we have a teaching and everyone started freaking out you know because here we were this tribal group of people that don't have access to all these resources yet we were not discriminatory. We did not say oh because you're not a tribal person. We cannot assist you to get back into your home. No, but we were here to assist. You cannot heal half of a community. You cannot heal half of a nation. So unless these concepts and these ideas like justice 40 are fully inclusive and are accepting of all voices and actually identify with these communities. And at the individual level, it's not going to reach its full potential. You know, but I'm really hopeful that the idea behind diversity, equity and inclusion is really starting to catch hold. And maybe we can actually start seeing some good things happen from all of this. Thank you so much and somehow we already only have four minutes left in the hour I don't know how that happened but this will be our last question to pose to you both so we have a lot of federal agency staff and congressional staff joining us today which is really exciting. And so I want to give you all another opportunity to either share again or share another reform or opportunity you see that Congress or federal agencies could undertake that would have the most impact for your communities and the communities that you work with so John see why don't we start again with you and she sure will give you the last word. Awesome. Well thank you so much for having me and our organization the Institute. What I would say is what I would say is two things. Number one prioritize equity I know there's a lot of infrastructure funding that will be coming out and if there could be a requirement for equity and planning and an implementation of funding that would be ideal. We've all heard the stories where you know communities are have a street built right through them. No one took the time to integrate equity into infrastructure planning and therefore those communities suffered. And so right now I can think of one project in Mississippi that where they're planning to put in some flood mitigation work and it will require a small town, an African American community be flooded. So these are the, these are the problems that I think could arise from just giving out infrastructure funding without a requirement for equitable implementation. So I would say that would be the first thing the next thing I would say is is to make a requirement for all states to develop their disaster response plans with equity in mind, a requirement for that and acknowledgement of those historically marginalized communities. So with that I'll say thank you. Thanks. She sure over to you. And again thanks everyone this has been a really productive conversation. I guess I would leave with this, you know, inclusion is key. We need to see real equity all across the board. And the only way to really grasp that is to fully understand that each community is unique in its own way, even neighboring communities, we have several coastal tribes here that are neighboring communities. And even though we deal with a lot of the same things, a lot of the same challenges. Can be quite different. Right. And the community structure is also quite different in the manner that they address things. And it's going to take full inclusion of each community for us to be able to resolve these issues, and for us to actually see full equity, which is absolutely necessary if we're going to make it, especially with the climate crisis, you know, just exacerbating things pretty much on a daily basis now, which is highly concerning. Thank you. Thank you both so much for joining us today. It's been a really powerful conversation and I'm so glad that we've had so many people watching to hear from you and your perspectives and about your work so thanks so much and over to Dan to wrap us up. Thanks Anna, and apologies for looking to my left and trying to keep up all the questions coming in from our audience I'm sorry we didn't get to all of them, but I'm actually happy that a lot of the questions are asking about things we did cover so that our audience had their questions answered, even if they were somewhat inadvertently answered. I'm John Cia and Chief Sorrell thank you so much for two fantastic presentations today. If anyone would like to go back and revisit the slides or rewatch the webcast. You can do that by visiting us online at www.esi.org I will certainly be thinking about all of this stuff. Everything I learned all of your insights for a long, long time to come, about a month, maybe a month and a half ago, Anna and Savannah and I were talking. We should do these bonus briefings and between today and between Tuesday is briefing about innovation and accelerators and fellowships, just the perfect way to conclude these two really, really fantastic briefing series so thanks for helping us bring these messages to our audience. I'd also like to say thank you to Anna of course for leading a great discussion. I'd also like to thank Daniel Bryan, Omri, Emma Allison, Savannah and Molly for everything leading up to today takes a lot of work to pull these briefings off and we have a great team doing it for us. I'd also like to recognize the four really great summer interns Christina, Stephanie, Abbey and Nathan. Thank you so much for all of your hard work as well. This is a slide my colleague Daniel Bryan just put up. We have a link here is to a survey. We read every response of folks in our audience have two minutes or so to take it to take our survey we really appreciate it with very issues with the audio and issues with the live cast. We just know ideas for future briefings. Like I said we read every response we really appreciate it. This will be the last regular ESI briefing for a little while. Partially because August is a time where we regroup and work on other things, but also because on Monday, July 25. We will have the congressional will be hosting the 2022 congressional renewable energy and energy efficiency policy forum. You can find out more details www.esa.org you can also sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter climate change solutions and learn all about it. We have a tremendous lineup of speakers on panels that afternoon, including representatives from the office of energy efficiency renewable energy Department of Energy National hydropower Association, American public power association, American clean power association alliance to save energy my one of my alma mater's blue green alliance, North American insulation association business council for sustainable energy, the office of transportation air quality at EPA electric drive transportation association growth energy, American public transportation association, the Department of Defense National Association of Energy and energy companies, Idaho National lab and solar energy industries association. That's a lot of great organizations. You're wondering how on earth could you organize a clean energy policy forum. Well, you have to, you have to RSP to find out Monday, July 25 in the afternoon, just going to be an amazing set of programming. And we also have lots of really fantastic involvement from our honorary co chairs of the House and Senate, renewable energy and energy efficiency caucuses, Senators Crapo read representative kind represent Senator Van Hollen center college so you won't want to miss it. And we'll be back in September with a tremendous set of programming. I'm really excited about what we're going to be bringing to everyone after we get back from the Labor Day holiday. Until then, hope everyone has a great rest of your Thursday, and we will sign off here, and we'll see you next time, especially Monday, July 25, you're not going to want to miss the expo. Thanks so much.