 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the third part of our five installment workforce Wednesday briefing mini-series for the month of September. I'm Dan Berseth, the Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Today, our panel will discuss energy transitions in coal country. We've also already covered preparing high schoolers for green careers. And last week, a new spin on conservation course. Those of you who were with us last week, you might remember that one of our panelists, Chas Robles, Director of Conservation Legacy's Ancestral Lands Program, was hit with a power outage in the middle of his remarks. He has agreed to let us post a recording of his presentation on our briefing page, so be sure to check that out. His work in New Mexico is a great example of the latest, successful, and community-based evolution of a decades-old conservation core model. If you need to catch up or if you would like to learn more about the wide range of climate, clean energy, and environmental topics we cover, take a moment to visit us online at www.eesi.org. The best way to stay up-to-date on briefings is, of course, to sign up for our bi-weekly Climate Change Solutions newsletter. Again this week, we have an impressive four-person lineup, and we have a special guest. It is my privilege to introduce United States Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who is joining us today via video recording, and is prioritized finding a path toward a just transition to a decarbonized clean energy economy. Hello everyone. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you today, but I'm grateful for the chance to speak to you about this critical issue, even if it's from afar. As some of you may know, I am a member of the Democrat Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, where we're working to overcome a total rejection of climate science by Donald Trump and many members of his party. We believe we have to do this work, regardless of who is in the White House and who controls the Senate, because families, communities, and the planet cannot afford to wait. And key to addressing climate change is ensuring that every community feels whole as we transition to newer cleaner energy sources. I hear often from coal families, for instance, whose parents and grandparents powered our nation's rise, who worked in a hole in the ground to provide the energy that we needed, and who have seen over a dozen coal companies go bankrupt since 2017 alone. They often feel targeted by well-intentioned rhetoric aimed at addressing climate change, but they're struggling to see themselves in the future of some policymaker's vision. We simply cannot allow that to be the case. A truly just environmental policy provides equality for all and lives of communities in every corner, every mile of our country, including in coal country. That's why I am proud to be leading the Marshall Plan for Coal Country Act. This bill would enhance funding for research and investment in clean coal technology, like carbon capture sequestration, and it would reestablish tax credits aimed at spurring new energy development. But more than that, it would provide support for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and families in coal country to establish thriving local communities. My bill would help coal retirees safeguard their pensions when a mine closes down, and would guarantee health care for workers affected by that closure. It would incentivize home ownership in these communities, and it would provide government support in attracting new businesses into the community. That's why I think it is so important to introduce this Marshall Plan, and I know together we can make it happen. Thank you for letting me be here today, and it's such a pleasure and such an honor to be able to speak with you. Thank you. Great, thank you very, very much for joining us today, Senator Duckworth. Of course, we wish you could be with us in person as well, but on behalf of everyone at EESI and in our audience today, thank you for your leadership on the issues we are about to discuss. I'm very happy to let Senator Duckworth's introduction stand on its own. I'm not sure there's anything I can add to her words, but I do have a related update to announce, so I'll take a moment to do that. Just yesterday, we posted a bonus workforce briefing for next Friday, September 25th, titled, Achieving an Equitable Future, the National Economic Transition Platform for Coal Communities. We are partnering with the Just Transition Fund to continue to explore issues facing coal communities and the solutions that are making a positive difference against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving energy sector. This briefing will focus on the National Economic Transition Platform, the Just Transition Fund released over the summer. You can RSVB for this bonus briefing by visiting us online at www.esi.org. And watch your inboxes for email reminders and updates, including links to register for the next two regular installments of Workforce Wednesdays, growing green industry and innovation, mass timber, and low-carbon small business and post-COVID recovery. One last bit of logistics before we turn to our panel. After our final panelist, we will have time for questions from our online audience. If you have a question, please follow EESI on Twitter at EESI online and send in your questions that way. If you prefer, you can also send an email to EESI at EESI.org. And now on to our panelists. First, we will hear from Mark Haggerty, who has been with Headwaters Economics for the past 10 years, working to understand why some communities do better than others and to communicate key lessons and policy ideas to people working to make their own states, counties, and towns more livable and sustainable. Mark's expertise is in fiscal policy, rural economic development, and community planning. Mark has served on local planning boards, worked with county commissioners and state legislators across the West, and testified in Congress at the request of both Republicans and Democrats. Mark, welcome to our briefing today. I'll turn it over to you. I'm looking forward to your presentation. Thank you very much, Dan. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and again, sympathize with us not being able to be together, but we will make this work. I want to just note that we've worked together, myself and Kelly and Charlene and John, to coordinate our panel to try to tell a story. My job is to start with a little bit of background and context on the cold transition and what we really want Congress to understand, to know where to work and how to work, and the ways in which it might be useful for the federal government to engage. Kelly is really an expert on what states are doing and what's working in different places, and she will talk about that work, which is really important for Congress to understand as well. And then Charlene and John will tell their story in a particularly vulnerable community that's facing a transition away from cold. And so hopefully it flows, and we've done our job, and we can provide good information to you. So what I want to do is start with some background and get this up. It's really important to note right away that major cold development in the West in particular and in the United States and the electricity sector is relatively recent. This is Jimmy Carter in 1979 standing in front of a newly completed coal-fired power plant in Kentucky, promising that the United States would use its domestic, cheap, and reliable coal to meet the energy needs of a growing country and that we would mine a billion tons of coal within the decade. And we did that. It was a successful effort. And what's important to note about this is that the rise of coal was not accidental. It was very intentional, and it was the result of very direct national energy policy that was responding to the growing energy needs of a country, but also to the oil crisis and price shock and worries about scarcity of natural gas and the need for domestic energy. The national policy direction really provided the impetus behind some pretty significant regional coordination and planning to build the infrastructure, the coal-fired power plants, the transmission lines, and the mining capacity in the railroads to extract and exploit the resources that largely were located in rural places and deliver them to the growing urban markets, both on the West Coast and across the country. And so the Northwest hour study, which is a graphic here, and also the major build-up of coal infrastructure on the Colorado Plateau, including Navajo, are indications of the kind of coordination and investment and capacity that needed to be built to really facilitate major coal development to supply the energy needs of the country. And what we did, in fact, was pretty remarkable. In less than two decades, we were able to completely transition the electricity grid of the country to create the largest interconnected system in the world and to build the capacity to ship coal, to provide energy to almost all of the country. Coal from the Powder River Basin supplies about 40% of all of the coal nationwide, and it goes as far as Georgia. And so this major coal development in the West was actually a pretty remarkable achievement, and it was, it depended upon national policy direction and facilitated by these strong regional plants with a lot of resources behind them. It is indicative that we can do major coordinated planning, and so it's important to remember, as we're now approaching the end of life in coal, that we've done this before, that we have the capacity to do this, to basically create a major transition. It's also important to note that even this was a major transition and the rise of coal in the West was responsible for the loss of 100,000 coal mining jobs across Appalachia in the Midwest at the same time. And so that leads to the kind of third part of the context that's really important to understand is that the states really set the terms of how major coal development was going to happen in the West, particularly the National Governors Association, that coordinated to establish a social contract for how development would go, and really exemplified by Governor Art Link in North Dakota, who on the eve of kind of major coal development in his state said that we do not want to halt progress. We don't want to be selfish and say North Dakota will not share its energy resource. No, we simply want to ensure that the most efficient and environmentally sound method of utilizing our precious resources for the benefit of the broadest number of people possible. And when we are through with that and when the landscape is quiet again, let those who follow and repopulate the land be able to say our grandparents did their job well, and only if we can say that will we be worthy of the rich heritage of our land and resources. And so the Western states worked together to impose high severance taxes. They established permanent funds to ensure a legacy from coal development. They implemented strong bonding and reclamation requirements. And there was a really important role for labor in securing high wages and benefits from this work. And it lifted a lot of workers into the middle class during this period. I like Hart Link's quote because it actually is important for a number of reasons. It's not anti coal. It's also not pro coal. It's about geography. It's about the relationship between the remote peripheral resource regions and the growing urban centers. And it's about policy. It's about the choices that we make when we choose to develop our resources. And it's a useful framework for assessing where we are now. What do we have going into this next transition? So I want to just note three lessons and then describe some policy outcomes that might flow from that. The first one is that that social contract has been broken in a lot of meaningful ways. Starting in the early 1990s, the West was a leader in energy deregulation, which shifted the responsibility for planning and regulating the energy transition from states to private actors and had some pretty meaningful consequences. So for example, the Cold Strip Power Plant in Eastern Montana has four generating units. It was built by the Montana Power Company, a state regulated utility. When energy deregulation happened in Montana, that asset was sold and is now owned by seven different owners. And the policy environment around transition is completely fragmented. And so the community has very little standing or really understanding of where to engage and how to meaningfully engage to benefit those workers in the community during the transition. But we've had a retreat from the kind of policy and regulatory consensus that built coal in the 70s. We've also had a pretty major structural change in the way the economy works and returns wealth to skill. So for example, we've seen a big divergence between metropolitan economies and rural economies and things like your access to markets, the relative education level of your workforce and amenities that can attract talent and investment have really concentrated growth in major urban areas. And so we looked at all of the coal fired power plants in the West that were closing and characterized them by the type of community. And you can see each of these bars on the left is in the kind of bluish color is an isolated county. And on the right side in the darker gray is a metropolitan county and then those rural counties that are connected to metros in the middle. And you can see across the board average earnings per job are lower and isolated places. Average income volatility is higher in isolated places. And so where the transition is happening is really important. And so for example, this is the EDA Denver region, all of the counties in the 10 state region. 50% of all new jobs that have been created since 2007 have been located in just two metropolitan areas. And 46% of all the rural areas have lost more jobs than they have added. So we're seeing this big divergence. So the geography of the energy transition matters a lot. And then finally, we've had a taxable. So one of the big challenges for these communities is that the revenue from coal, both from federal revenue sharing from royalties, from severance and property taxes at the local level can really distort the local economy. Communities can provide high quality services with that revenue without having to tax their own local citizens. They can become very dependent on it. And then we had a strong tax revolt across the West, which imposed severe limitations on the autonomy of local governments to manage volatile revenue and to raise taxes as some of that coal revenue goes away. So we've ossified this dependence. And communities can find themselves in the position where economic development and diversification doesn't actually solve the fiscal crisis from the decline of coal. So the picture on the right is the revenue committee, joint revenue committee in Wyoming hearing a report from from Remi, which is an economic modeling group that any job created in the economy outside of the oil and gas or coal sector actually results in a budget gap. So economic growth and diversification will actually deepen the fiscal crisis in Wyoming because of that dependence on fossil fuel revenue. And it plays out at the local level as well. So we did some work in collaboration with the Just Transition Fund, looking at the relative dependence of county governments on revenue from coal. And in Bighorn County, Montana, which is the home of the Crow Reservation you're going to hear from from Charlene and John later, the county government itself is the most dependent county on revenue from coal in the West, including Texas. And that does not include revenue that goes to the tribal government. We believe the tribal government is even more dependent than the county. And so the risks associated with the transition are pretty severe. And so there's a couple of high level policy lessons that I want to just highlight before we move on. There's an immediate need for national policy direction and assessment of risks and opportunities. And that's similar to what the National Economic Transition Platform is recommending as well as some other legislation out of Congress. We also think that there's a necessity to create a new federal corporation that can finance with predictable and lasting revenue of the needs of transition. And so one way to do that is to take what now is an annual revenue distribution from royalties from coal and other fossil fuels and instead invested in a permanent fund. That permanent fund becomes the dedicated financing source by which we can do direct assistance to states and local governments to help them with their transition priorities. And finally, there's a need to address equity outcomes and forward-looking planning at the local level so that the priorities are locally identified, but they are supported with capacity and funding from the federal and state level down. And a lot of that local equity work really needs to happen in some building blocks. First, there's a need to just provide some basic infrastructure and services that have been under-invested in over the last couple of decades, particularly in these remote communities. There's a need to develop a workforce to actually build and maintain, sustain those services and infrastructure over time. And only after you've done those two things is there an opportunity to really think about diversifying and training the workforce to identify new opportunities and really capture local competitive advantages. And so those building blocks are a really important part of this kind of national assessment funded by a new arrangement, fiscal arrangement between federal resources and local governments and then prioritizing those local plans and needs. So I will end there and I will look forward to my colleagues' presentations and questions at the end. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. That was a great presentation. Very interesting. We are going to move to our second panelist, Kelly Romer. She is a PhD student of geography in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University. Her research investigates community resilience and planning dynamics and rural communities as it relates to coal communities. So Kelly, welcome. Thank you for taking time away from your studies and your research to join us today. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Wonderful. Thanks for having me. I'll just share my screen really quick. All right. Can you guys see that? Yes. Perfect. Well, good morning and good afternoon to those on the East Coast. Thank you for the introduction and thank you to Amber and Daniel and the rest of the team for the invitation to speak today at today's workforce briefing on the energy transition in coal country. I'm excited for the opportunity to share some recent research, looking at how our existing policy landscape adequately addresses the needs of transitioning coal communities in the West. Let's see. I am a PhD student studying rural community development and resource geography in Dr. Jolie Haggerty's Resources and Communities Research Group. Our work focuses on the intersection of natural resource development and rural community resilience. I'm primarily interested in how these remote isolated communities can respond to change and shock. By conducting community-based research that informs practice and policy development, our work aims to fulfill MSU's land grant mission. I'm hoping to build on Mark's context and about the history of the West regional approach to coal development as well as the implications of the changing economy and the implications for different economic geographies. They'll only be a little bit of overlap, I promise, and I will focus on three points. First, I'm going to share a little bit more about the factors shaping the local planning response to closure in these remote isolated coal communities. Then, because federal and state policy shape the direction and pace of these transitions and have long-term implications for resilience in these communities, I'll share how U.S. energy policy and state transition policy are influencing what options are available to these coal communities as they navigate the social and economic impacts of this energy transition. Finally, I'll end with some findings from interviews with policy experts and economic development practitioners, examining how the existing transition assistance is aligned or not with the needs of the rural communities that they serve. Mark touched on this, but these coal plant and mine closures will have acute impacts on these remote isolated communities. Compared to the metropolitan or their connected counterparts, they are significantly more vulnerable to this loss. There is a need to plan for the loss of employment and tax revenue, as well as the academic base activity, and a need to ensure that there's adequate decommissioning and environmental remediation. Mark also touched on the complex ownership regime, so transitioning coal communities confront a complex ownership regime that challenges their ability to plan for transition. Mark noted also the coal strip generation station, where the four units are owned by six individual entities, and just to elaborate that these owners span across three states, are governed by different regulatory processes and portfolio standards. These standards influence how each owner will decide to act about the end of life processes of these plants. And so for communities, this adds an extra layer of uncertainty about closure dates, and also negotiating timelines and securing transition funds places incredible demands on local capacity and resources that could be used for other comprehensive planning activities. So despite this great need to plan, existing transition planning at the local level is limited. The strength of strategies employed is dependent on the resources and capacity that already exist in each community. And it's important to note that the strong economic and cultural ties to the coal industry can influence and limit the types of strategies that communities engage in. The less remote isolated communities will need assistance that provides support in mitigating the economic and fiscal impacts that Mark outlined, as well as support in negotiating these closure dates and securing transition funds. They will also need early and long-term assistance for both community planning and assistance for dislocated workers. And so the question I asked is, how does existing federal energy and the state policy address these needs? Beginning with federal energy policy, Mark outlined some early energy policy that coordinated the development of coal resources in the West. And from just looking at how energy policy has been made over the last 30 years, from 1975 to 2005, U.S. energy policy was generally legislated in these large complex bills occurring every five to 10 years that were often driven by a global energy or a financial crisis. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is our most recent comprehensive general legislation. However, in the last 10 years, the process of making energy policy has become increasingly politicized, marked with an uptick in executive actions and executive orders. The absence of coordinated policy that facilitates the energy transition has important implications for these frontline communities. The unstable and rapidly changing policy sends conflicting messages and exacerbates uncertainty about the transition. It also puts all of the responsibility of planning or deciding to plan on communities who, as one economic development practitioner put it, are hesitant to plan at all for fear of, quote, turning their back on a powerful industry that has supported them for so long, end quote. Without a comprehensive national policy framework addressing the implications of the coal transition, several Western states have enacted their own legislation to address the impacts of the decline of the coal industry. A review of legislation in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Washington, and Wyoming illustrates a range of strategies and support for transition. While no two states are the same, there are two distinct and diverging types of approaches. One policy approach identified by the states in green attempts to accelerate the energy transition away from coal-based electricity and seeks to clarify the pace of transition, often by setting closure dates or incentives to expedite coal plant retirements. The other policy approach in the states in yellow works to slow the energy system transition by bolstering the coal industry, perhaps providing loans to coal plants and postpone plant retirement as long as possible. For communities negotiating this transition landscape, this, your state approach has important implications for what you're experiencing at the local level. First, the policies that are accelerating the pace of transition provide two important things, certainty and a timeline that can inform local strategies. For example, an expert familiar with the negotiations of the 2011 Washington coal transition bill emphasized the importance of the extended timeline for preparing workforce and labor impacts, for preparing for workforce and labor impacts. According to the interview, an earlier version of the bill setting the closure date at 2015 was opposed by labor stakeholders, and more support was garnered by the 2020 and 2025 closure dates that provided, quote, more time to plan and think about the redirection of their workforce, end quote. These longer timelines allow communities to engage thoughtfully in strategic approaches that will address the differentiated impacts of labor changes. Second, despite state efforts to postpone coal decline as long as possible, as seen in the recent policies in Montana and Wyoming, communities are more exposed to unexpected closures and layoffs. Without access to a planned approach, mitigating the impacts of revenue loss, unemployment loss, local municipalities are driving towards a fiscal crisis. Finally, there are a set of transition assistance programs that have emerged in 2015 during the Obama administration. They have shifted from the power program to assistance in the coal communities, and generally these programs target resources to bolster the EVAs, existing economic development programs through grant funding and technical assistance. Also, some funding goes through the Department of Labor's Worker Dislocation programs. Importantly, to qualify for these funds, you need to demonstrate economic distress due to changes in the coal industry. So through interviews with experts in economic development practitioners, there are some clear gaps between these programs and the needs of rural coal reliant communities. First, several experts and practitioners identify a central challenge to supporting community transitions is the lack of obvious development options able to replace the coal-based tax revenue, economic-based activity, and employment. An economic development practitioner who works for a regional development district describes how this reality affects community stakeholders' willingness to discuss even the topic of transition. They would sit in a room and start talking about transitioning economies, but there's not a direct replacement for that. I think that the backfill revenue support to communities is a piece that we have not figured out well on any level. If we could figure that out, communities would be much more willing to transition. The absence of these structures to address revenue loss was a concern mentioned by nearly every one I interviewed. In addition, interviewees express fear of the loss of the services and institutions that may come with the closure of a coal mine or plant. Previous studies examining economic transitions and resource to planet places emphasize the importance of economic diversification in planning before the decline occurs. In addition to proactive planning, transition strategies need to mitigate the immediate impacts and provide long-term support. Interviews demonstrate that the timelines of federal transition assistance are incongruent with the needs of the impacted communities. Federal and state resources for communities are often not available until formal announcements of closure or demonstrated layoffs. Instead, these resources operate as emergency assistance and practitioners are concerned that by the time communities are able to access these resources it may be too late. Economic and community practitioners also emphasize that projects linked to long-term solutions will take time and it's important to understand that, quote, you're not going to come in with a three-year grant and save the community, end quote. As many of these grants operate on short-term funding cycles, practitioners are asking for support that can be linked to long-term economic development goals. ATEX policy experts are also calling for larger investments and greater external support for impacted communities and workers than existing programs like the ACC provide. One expert with the National Public Policy firm says that federal intervention is key and that impacted communities and regions may be long-term reinvestment, quote, orders of magnitude higher than existing grants or loans, end quote. So findings from this policy analysis and an understanding of the needs of these transitioning rural communities highlight several opportunities to improve policy to address the cold transition. At the federal level, we need comprehensive legislation that coordinates the energy transition. By establishing clear emissions targets, we can know closure timelines and strategies to assess and address the inequities in our current energy system. In coordination with new energy policy, transition assistance programs need to be significantly expanded in terms of scope and scale. This could be done by establishing an independent entity that ensures the coordination and funding in the areas of job losses, critical location infrastructure, and equitable access to economic opportunities. Policy experts are also calling for long-term predictable funding for assistance programs and significant reinvestment in our most vulnerable impacted communities, workers, and regions. Finally, more flexibility is needed in how grant programs can be assessed to better meet the needs of vulnerable workers and communities. Thank you so much for listening. I'm excited for the discussion that will follow. This work has been supported by National Science Foundation and USDA. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kelly. Thanks for your presentation. That was really interesting. It's a great place to leave that portion of the conversation because now we're going to hear from two panelists. I'm going to introduce them at the same time because their presentation is going to be made together. We're really excited about that. The first of the two is Charlene Yarlott Johnson. She is a member of the Absolutka Tribe and the founder and executive director for Plenty Doors Community Development Corporation. She has lived on or near the Crow reservation for most of her life. She obtained her bachelor's degree at Montana State University in Bozeman and a master's in public health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prior to Plenty Doors CDC, Charlene worked with the Indian Health Service for almost 25 years as a public health nutritionist and as an administrator. Her interest in starting a nonprofit organization focused on community economic development started while working with the Indian Health Service. Her work with Plenty Doors CDC has opened her eyes to the tremendous need on the reservation. And her co-presenter is John Doyle. John is an Absolutka elder. He has a strong ongoing interest in community and safe water for the homeland. He is a founding board member of Plenty Doors CDC and has led the work to improve water systems on the Crow reservation. His life work, knowledge and wisdom has guided the direction for Plenty Doors CDC as well as other organizations. Charlene, John, welcome to the briefing today. Look forward to your presentation. Thank you so much. So I'm just going to take a little bit of time to share my screen. And so we're just going to present this way rather than with this full screen. It just is easier for us to anticipate what's going to, what's coming up. All right. So just so you know. All right. Well, let's go ahead and get started. And so the Crow reservation is located in southeastern Montana and it is home to the Absolutka Nation. The Crow Nation has over 14,000 members with approximately 7,000 that live on the reservation. The Crow tribe has been dependent on coal for 45 years. And according to Mark Haggerty, Big Horn County, where the majority of the reservation lies was considered the most coal impacted county in the western part of the United States. At the peak of the coal economy, up to 75% of the revenue that funds the Crow tribal government was from coal. And so when the demand for coal declined because of other cheaper sources like natural gas, that forced the tribe to lay off a thousand, over a thousand of its 1,300 employees. And so these aren't individuals who actually work in the coal mine. These are individuals whose jobs were funded by the coal revenue. John, did you have? I think I would add to that comment is that because the mines couldn't employ a thousand individuals, those coal dollars were channeled through the tribe, through a court action in order for us to collect those dollars, the tax dollars from the mine. And what the map is currently showing on the screen is our original homeland. The dark line is where our people were in about 1780 until the first pandemic of smallpox reduced our numbers greatly. And the green line is where we were at during the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty days. And then you can see the sessions of land that have came after that. And the big mines that we're talking about were within our territory. And so all of that revenue that's been generated at the state and federal government and the county government has enjoyed has came from our Crow homeland. And yet here we are in one of the worst poverty conditions that you could possibly imagine. Okay. Let me tell you about Plenty Doors. So Plenty Doors Community Development Corporation was established in May of 2018. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. And the intent of Plenty Doors is to create thriving communities through a diverse economy and building individual and community capacity. So when we started Plenty Doors worked on assisting entrepreneurs to start businesses. We provided education and resources to community members to build up their capacity. We hosted two economic forums. And that's when we first met Mark and Kelly. They assisted us with that. Where we identified priority, prioritize our economic, anyway, prioritize where we wanted to focus. And we found that workforce development was the foundation for all of that. We identified tourism, agriculture, businesses, and also renewable energy. We have partnered with Little Bacorn College, the local tribal college, the Abzaliga Nation Housing Authority, and the Department of Labor and Industry. And so we were very busy working on that. And then COVID hit. And so when COVID hit, we had to shift our focus. And so remember, as I think was Kelly who said, the capacity of our community. So we jumped right in and we changed our focus to helping with the local response. So we, Plenty Doors currently serves on the Incident Command Team and we represent other nonprofits on this team. We started a local network of nonprofits to ensure that we're responding in an effective way. Because there were already two food pantries that are located on or near the reservation, we primarily focused on providing cleaning supplies and PPE. But we also identified gaps where we could help, like we purchased shelf-stable food. We purchased water when we didn't have water in Crow Agency or in Viola. And that's an ongoing problem that John can probably talk about, that we'll talk about later. We also provided fuel for the food pantries and hunters so that hunters could buy gas when they went hunting. We also set up an account at the local butcher so hunters could come back, bring their game, and they could be processed and the meat could be donated. We became a clearinghouse for purchased and donated PPE, dog food and diapers. We continued to provide the cleaning supplies. We provide them to families, to other nonprofits, to communities. And we also provide them to the tribal ICP. Another thing that we did because of COVID is that we also contributed to phase two of the Viola lift station repair. So the Viola lift station was not working. So we had raw sewage that was pouring out into a ditch. And this had been happening for a couple years. And because of COVID, the importance of that was elevated. And so that we were able to have partners, we were one of four entities that contributed money for the temporary repair of that lift station. And so they're still planning on the permanent repair. We also participated in the newly formed water sanitation and hygiene task force. And this was formed in response to COVID. There are groups of people in our community who've researched this information, who've indicated that this is an ongoing problem. But because of COVID, it's again elevated. And so many households are living with failing wastewater systems and contaminated wells. So we have a task force. Again, it takes many of us. So we have a task force of the Environmental Health Steering Committee, the Tribal Health, the Crow Water Resource Department, the Absalaga Water and Wastewater Authority, Absalaga Nation Housing Authority, the Little Bighorn College, the Indian Health Service, and plenty of doors. So we have a combination of federal and local organizations working on that. So our goal is to address immediate water and wastewater issues for rural homes and communities and to create a trained workforce and system that can be sustained and ensure safe water for all of our households and communities. Currently, Plenty of Doors is also working on working with the network of organizations where we're focused on creating food sovereignty and improving the capacity of our local food pantries to store and to distribute food. And so that's kind of been one of the efforts that we've been working on. We're also working on trying to obtain relief funding for local businesses. So that's kind of how Plenty of Doors started and we've kind of had to shift. And it's kind of gone back to where we're working. We're also working on becoming a CDFI, a Community Development Financial Institution. And we also, one of our strategic goals is to create a venue or a building, a multi-use building that would house and incubate businesses. And we're looking at a grocery store. And one thing that I failed to mention earlier is that not only did we lose a thousand jobs in the community, where we have 7,000 people in our reservation, but we also had one of our two only grocery stores on the reservation burned down. And so we lost another 18 jobs. So not only jobs lost, but food access lost too. So anyway, so that's kind of, that's Plenty of Doors. So John. Our economic based assets, we've been selling our assets. That's how the tribal government has functioned. We did and do receive tax revenue from the coal mine, but only from the coal mine after a court case that decided that we were able to do that. But for the most part, the tribe survived by selling land and selling our leasing land and selling land. And that process has continued. And each one of those sessions of land shows that progression. And where we're at now is a small red map that shows our current location. We have no, like Charlene said, we only have one grocery store. That's not in our largest town. Our largest town is Courage and see where I'm at right now. We have to either travel to Lodgegrass, which is a smaller grocery store, but it does have grocery stores. And the rest is travel from here to harden our buildings are shared in in Wyoming. And so at the time of isolation and pandemic worries, we were not isolated because in order for us to buy groceries or whatever the need was, we travel for that. And so our population was always out in the box. We have a population that is there's there might be two or three families per home. And so them daily trips for groceries are it's daily. You know, if you have 15 to 20 people living in the home, which we do have, then you can see how stressed we become in that environment that we're in. And if there are jobs, if you're not working at the mine, there's probably, I think there's about 80 jobs there right now. And I heard they were going to have an additional layoff. I don't know when that's going to happen, but that's coming. So Billings is our job market. And so that's a daily trip for those that do work. They're 60 miles one way. And so we have no economy to speak of really, there's a egg economy that really is you know, geared toward livestock. There is wheat and there is sugar beets to a certain amount, but basically livestock cows are the main economy here. And leasing of that land for that livestock or production of a is the other part of it. But for the bigger population, there is no alternatives. There's no jobs. And there's no place to get them. And if you don't have transportation, and I've been there too, because I didn't have mine, my pickup was broke down. You're here. And you don't go for groceries anywhere. You just stay here and do with what you've done. And so, I mean, I could go on and on about that stuff, but to keep it short, I'll switch it over to you, Shirley. Okay. All right. So the issue with our communities, as John said, is our failing infrastructure or that he alluded to. So we have multiple families that are living in single homes. And that we have homes that are not meant to house that many people. And they're in disrepair. We're experiencing a phenomenon that we as Crow people have never experienced before. We used to pride ourselves that people always had a place to go, because of their extended families. But now we actually have homeless people who are walking around Crow agency. That's our capital. There are a few jobs available, very few businesses that provide the services that are needed. And then the co reservation lax locally run a community based businesses and the economic infrastructure to support them. So John kind of mentioned COVID. And so, Bacorn County and the Crow Nation are currently experiencing more positive COVID cases, and more deaths per capita than any other county in Montana. We're actually are in early August, our rates exceeded that per capita per 100,000. Our rates actually exceeded that of Navajo. And so just to give you an idea, Bacorn County population makes up 1.3% of the state's population, but we make up about 15% of the deaths from COVID. So it's huge. It's had a huge impact. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a failing infrastructure. We have too many people in one home, all of the above. So anyway, it's one of the things that we have on here is investing in people through education as one way that we can help ourselves. So we are going to mention that again, one of the things that has is that happens is that our colleges are not funded at the same level as other colleges and universities. So here is our, what Crow Agency looks like. So John can talk about this a little bit. He, we have a couple on the left is not only a picture of Crow Agency, but the large building on the lower right side was a carpet factory at one time in the 60s in the early 70s. And that was an effort that tried made to try to bring economic development into our community. And so what you see in the immediate foreground is that large grassy area there with trees. That was the old wastewater lagoon. And that wastewater lagoon was failing because it was built 50 years ago or more. And it was built for a different size community. And as it failed, that wastewater was flowing into the little bighorn river in large volumes. And then on the right side is the wastewater lagoon as it was replaced and rebuilt. But what the reason we're showing that photograph is that new lagoon came about because we had a functioning government. There was a functioning government that was able to address needs in our community, failing infrastructure. So on the left was what we replaced. And this is what we have on the right now. And as part of that, bighorn county, when it was receiving its royalties, did pay and give to the tribe $100,000 to help in the construction of that. That lagoon is a $5 million facility. And it took at least a dozen different funding agencies to put together the funding package. But what it showed for us is that we were able to function and operate as a government as long as we had the revenue coming in. And when it didn't come in, then the stuff that Charlene's talking about in Viola and all of our rural residents, and we have 850 homes that are dependent on either septic systems or wells. And 40% of those that we're finding have contamination issues, cross contamination from staling septic systems and wells that are drilled much too shallow. And so that's just kind of a little glimpse of it. We also partnered with bighorn county and shared the cost of solid waste. And when the tribe won this court case, one of the first things that the tribe did was cost share solid waste for the county. And so the majority of those canister sites were within the reservation boundaries. There were a couple outside, but we did cost share that it was nearly a $700,000 budget to do that, to do all that hauling and bring it to a central location. Now that the funding is no longer available in there, the county because the tribe was not contributing the county cut the garbage service off. And each of our communities now have massive amounts of solid waste piling and burning daily almost. And so that housing that you're seeing in there sometimes has a blanket of waste garbage smoke going over that community, that part of town. And so at any point in town with the wind shifting, the air is intolerable, so the forest fire smokes are one thing, but we also add to that burning smell of garbage. So that's kind of a little glimpse of our infrastructure failing. There's much more, of course. And when I say community, we're speaking about our current reservation. It's probably 100 miles wide and 80 miles deep. And so prior, which is 75 miles east of it, or west of us, that's our community too. So we don't leave any of the communities out. We don't say that Crow agency is a central focus in the effort. It's all of the communities. Absolutely. This slide is just to kind of show you what we did with COVID. We actually, at the beginning, were making masks. The college partnered with us and their staff made made masks. And then we have an individual here who was making hand sanitizer because that was when we had the shortage. But we delivered cleaning supplies and other supplies to every single community, every single district. We also, this is where we're, when Crow agency actually did not have water, we provided water to the community. And so anyway, that's just some pictures there. You know, the other thing that I just wanted to note also is that you know, some of the grants that are out there to assist with our coal impacted communities, the power grant Kelly had mentioned, the need to extend the scope and the flexibility of that. So that grant was available to the state of Montana. And it does help coal miners and coal plant workers. But you know, we had 1000 employees that were impacted by the decline in coal were actually not coal miners. They were actually tribal workers. So there was no way that we could provide assistance for them. So what do we have as assets? We have the little bighorn college. It's our tribal college. They offer 11 two year associate degree programs and they have eight one year certificate programs. They've graduated since the beginning, since it's been established. They've graduated over 1000 students and they the CDL program, which is the only trades program that they have, it's graduated almost 40 students. This is a little bighorn college. It's for the students here at LBHC, but it's also for the community. It's used by the community members for reading materials, but also computer access for those that don't have computers. But also a part of this building, which makes it one of our more valuable buildings is our tribal archives is in there and our history is in there. And for our young people in a changing time, that resource is so valuable to us and to our to our current generation. But for generations ahead, we can see the need to grow the archives more. So as I mentioned before, our workforce training program at the college is currently consists of the CDL. And with the work that we've done with plenty doors, we've brought key partners together and we've identified areas that we need to work on to build the capacity of our community and our individuals. And so again, there's a housing issue. There's water issues. And so the college has been wonderful. They've partnered with the housing authority. We've kind of been in there wherever we can help. But to create programs like plumbing for electrical for carpentry for HVAC. And so they're at the very beginning stages of that. And so they're partnering with MSU Northern with the Department of Labor and Industry, just to create those apprenticeship programs. And we have a partner with the Department of Labor and Industry, and they're looking out ways that we can do the apprenticeship with the housing authority. And if we can provide some leeway to help us be successful. So anyway, that's something that we're also working on. Was there anything else you wanted to add to that, John? No. No, okay. All right. So lastly is what needs to happen. The one thing that we really want to advocate is that for us to help ourselves, you need to allow us to help us invest in our future. So education systems like tribal colleges. And as I mentioned earlier, that equity in resources would be very, very helpful. Currently, tribal colleges receive just a fraction of what universities and other colleges receive. And so colleges create community jobs, and that allows our Absalaga people to invest in that education. It's important that we have sustainable revenue for our tribal colleges, and also to recognize that the role of nonprofits is important in identifying solutions and lightning the load, so to speak. And so that's something when we, when COVID hit, we had all those nonprofits come together. And so they provided the food relief, or we provided the cleaning supplies. And we actually assisted the tribe a lot and filled in a lot of gaps when they weren't able to. And so it's important that there's other entities within the community that can strengthen that community and to make those investments in those organizations as important. John, did you have anything else to add to that? No, I think that sums it up pretty good, though. Okay. And with that, that concludes our presentation. If you have any questions at all, again, thank you for the opportunity for us to talk on behalf of our community. Thank you. Thank you, Charlene. And thank you, Johns, for joining us today to tell the story of your community and help us understand a little bit about what life is like out there. And you mentioned that there was wildfire smoke. I can only imagine what it must be like out there. I know here in D.C., we have a little bit of the hate. So I'm really sorry that you're also having to go through that as well, along with everyone who might be watching this on the West Coast who's even closer to the fires. We're definitely thinking about everybody out there. So once again, thank you. We do have time for questions. And this is the point where I remind people that if you have questions, you can follow us on Twitter at ESI online. You can also send us an email ESI at ESI.org. And even though I forgot to remind people of that, we've actually been getting questions in. So thank you for that. This is also the time when I get to introduce my colleague, Amber Todorov. She is going to kick off our Q&A session. So, Amber, I'll turn it over to you and look forward to the discussion. Thanks very much, Dan. And thank you to our amazing speakers. I learned so much and I'm just so grateful that this work is being done. So first question, what do you want people to know about cold communities that they wouldn't know otherwise or comments, conceptions that you would want to correct? Okay, go ahead, Mark. One of the things that I've learned in working with these communities is there's a perception that rural communities that are specialized on a single industry are somehow ideologically positioned or they are backwards looking and that is not the case. There are really important barriers to understand that these communities face and they have a set of choices that are delivered to them that kind of the incentives and the options that they face are pretty limited. And actually by giving them more opportunity and giving them more tools to work with, there's incredible opportunity out there in a lot of these places. I know I've been out to Bacorn County and Charlene and John do it some justice, but they've got two national parks. They've got a National Wildlife Refuge. If anyone's ever been to the Bacorn battlefield, it is one of the most incredible interpretive sites that I've ever been to. It's got the Bacorn River, which is a premier trout fishing river for folks like me that are into that. And they're close to buildings. There are significant opportunities and if we can find a way to overcome some of the revenue dependence and structural barriers that are there, there's great opportunity out there. So I would say don't think of these communities for joy or anything. Get to know the people and really help them thrive. I would add to that that we've not been just sitting idly waiting for something to happen. The tribe has looked toward developing alternative energy, wind, and water. We do have a big major dam that has potential for the tribe to develop hydropower. But one of our problems, and it's the big problem that I think most tribes across the West face, and that is power transmission lines. You can produce all that power that you want, but if you can't get it to the market, then that does very little to try to, you can't even afford to build it, I guess. Thanks for that. And this next question is, I guess, targeted towards more, Charlene and John. But you guys talked a lot about this college. How is the college currently being funded, especially in terms of federal funding? Good question. So I believe that they receive the same type of funding that the universities do. They also receive funding in the form of grants and also, of course, tuition, Pell Grant. But again, their reimbursement rate for, I can't remember what it's called, something per student. It is quite a bit less than that for colleges, for other universities. Hopefully that answers that question. John, did you have anything to add to that? They do get funding from the BIA too, but that's based on eligible students. And so when the student population is down, then that revenue for the college is down also. Thanks, Charlene and John for that. I'm going to ask a question from our audience. And, Mark, you're specifically mentioned, Charlene, you are too in the question, but that doesn't mean it's limited to you. So I hope everyone will have something to say, speak up if you have something to say as what I'm trying to say. It says, Mark mentioned that to get equity outcomes and forward-looking planning at the local level, first we need investments in infrastructure and services. Are the efforts and programs that Charlene talked about related to wastewater and water infrastructure, workforce development and maintenance, the kinds of programs that are the first steps? And the second part of the question is, what are the infrastructure elements and services that ought to be addressed first to help communities like the ones you've talked about today? So maybe Mark will start with you and then Charlene, maybe we'll go to you and then I'm very eager to hear what John and Kelly have to say as well. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that is consistent across a lot of rural places and I think is very acute in Bighorn County and on the Crow Reservation is that there's been a kind of systemic under investment in just basic services, right? In infrastructure, there's crumbling infrastructure out there. And the inability of a lot of rural places to just deliver basic services is not only an equity and human issue that needs to be addressed, but it is a major barrier to any further workforce development and economic opportunity. And so it's not rocket science, you're talking about clean water, sewer systems, waste management, roads, just pretty basic local government stuff. Charlene, from your perspective, what are the types of infrastructure investments that you would prioritize in communities like the ones we've talked about today? Well, I would say the same thing, water and wastewater. I'm learning so much while I'm doing this work. So we've had an opportunity to work with an epidemiologist who's worked in third world countries and we are fortunate that he's come to work with the Crow Tribe with the COVID outbreak and he has indicated that this is, our conditions here are similar to those in other countries that he's worked in and it's the most basic need in order to address health and the water and the wastewater is just the most basic need. If we could do that, and again I'm looking at it from a health standpoint and so if we can improve the health of our community and that's the first thing and he said having safe water can extend our lives by 10 years. And so if you know the statistics, Native Americans life expectancy is about 20 years less than that of the average American. So if we could just do that and John knows way more about the water situations in each of the communities, so Croatiancy, the fact that we haven't had water, that we have sewage that's coming out at the corner of the college and then or even water leaking out of the tank up on the top of the hill and we have people who have don't don't have water. We have the town of Viola with the sewage coming out and then they have no water, they had to dig a new well and then there's issues with prior as well. John did you have anything to add to that? There's a lot to add to that but you know one of the things that we we found when we were we were looking for the funding for the town of Crow, a big portion of the wastewater has been done in the drinking water service lines but as we were looking for funding we found that some of the federal funding agencies were reluctant to help fund like the wastewater lagoon because we had mentioned that we anticipated tying into the system a little big horn battlefield and a future rest stop which would be economic development but it's also paid for the operation of the the infrastructure and that was not something that they wanted to include into that funding package. We had to remove that language out of there but really that was our thinking is that not only are we addressing our current needs but it's trying to address that economic issue that we knew was coming. You know we know that this was coming down the road for a long time and how do you get ready for that? What's your priority like you said for us it was water and wastewater and when we talk about water and wastewater it's not only in our towns like you said there's eight hundred and fifty homes in the rural areas that are in need real real bad need so I think another important thing another important thing for federal staff to understand and I know Charlene mentioned this the tribal government has a special relationship with the federal government right they're actually an autonomous nation but there are many many entities working together at the tribal local and state level and this is true across these communities there's nonprofit partners the tribal college is a really important entity that has a lot of capacity to to work with federal agencies and so we need the coordination and the flexibility that Kelly really highlighted but we also need to to be able to recognize where the entities are that have the capacity and the standing and communities to actually do the work and that requires a whole different level of commitment and assessment and coordination at the federal level that we just don't have right now. One thing I'd like to add with the federal level and I would say more for a programmatic level is to look at whether programs are truly helping the people that they're meant to help and and we found we've come across we've we've tried to find solutions for our households and so I think it's really important that as we try to improve whether it's homes or building wells or whatever that we take a look at the processes and the requirements are they helpful or are they not and we found that in many times they're not so. Kelly I'm very happy to give you the last word I you are welcome to weigh in on infrastructure investments you're welcome to weigh in following up on what Charlene just discussed policy gaps it's a little bit of a free-for-all for you so I'll invite you to to help us wrap up today. Well thank you so much well two things really come to mind just speaking from the the the literature about community resilience what makes communities able to respond to shock or or change is to be able to rely on those institutions that hold the community together and that is really grounded in you know having a healthy infrastructure and services that increase the quality of life for everyone and so that is important to make sure everyone gets to like a level where you can lean on those when you need them to be able to respond to shock or change when that happens and then secondly just in terms of one thing that I found in my in my interviews is the thinness of federal federal resources themselves just in in terms of human capacity for economic development specialists who are responsible for carrying out these programs they in the west are spread pretty thin with one specialist covering the state of Montana and Wyoming and one in Utah and Colorado and so these these folks are trying their best to carry out these programs but they have a lot to do and a huge geography to cover and so thinking about ways to increase capacity at all levels to support coordination of these programs seems like a high priority so thank you great thanks um that's uh a great point to make and um I think it also um sort of puts an added emphasis on the reason why briefings like this are so important to get these kinds of um perspectives to a policy making audience people who may not have the opportunity especially these days to travel out west to meet with people if there's a one bummer about having to do these briefings online it's not being able to meet you in person um it would be a lot more fun if you were here with us in Washington and we had a chance to get to know each other a little bit but this was an excellent panel Mark Kelly Charlene and John thank you um very very much for joining us today and helping our audience understand um what your communities are facing and um also what they're doing um in response it was uh really informative I learned a lot um and um it means a lot to us to have for you to take time out of your busy days and join us so thank you very much um we're going to go ahead and wrap it there um uh we will post there it is right there there's a link there to a survey if you have a few moments um I hope you'll take an opportunity to help us by filling out that survey um we pay very close attention to the feedback we received and we try to always do better um whether it's in terms of the topics that we cover um or um you know the kinds of other materials that we might be willing to or we might be able to provide and speaking of materials the materials that we use today um will be available online um there's the link to this briefing's web page and just as a reminder if you missed last week so the weeks before our workforce Wednesday briefings everything is available online including written summaries so if you just need to go back and find something you don't necessarily have to watch the whole briefing although we'd like you to um we do also post written summaries and a reminder next Friday um I hope you will sign up for our bonus briefing presented in partnership with the Just Transition Fund this briefing is titled Achieving an Equitable Future the National Economic Transition Platform for Coal Communities that special session is next Friday September 25th and once again visit us online www.esi.org to learn more and to register next Wednesday we will be back for regularly scheduled workforce Wednesdays uh growing green industry and innovation mass timber and following the last one of the series will be low carbon small business and post COVID recovery we'll go ahead and end it there thanks very much to team ESI especially Amber the policy team Omri and Dano uh and our interns who are helping us with questions and note-taking and uh helping us uh behind the scenes keeping keeping everything running on time so uh once again Mark Kelly Charlene and John thank you so much for joining us today uh we wish you the best and hope everyone has a great west rest of your Wednesday afternoon thank you so much thank you Dan