President Biden’s Justice For All with Justice40
Co-authored by: Gabriela Carson, Nina Jacobs, Kendall Chappel, Lizzy McNevin, Savannah Brito, Yin Liu, and Hannah Leland, January 20th 2022
We offer research and suggestions on how the Biden administration can use the Justice40 Initiative to support low-income, minority and frontline communities affected by climate change.
In the first month of his presidency, Joe Biden signaled his commitment to combating the climate crisis by signing two executive orders on the issue. The topic of environmental justice, defined by the EPA as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies,” was a notable feature in a statement from the White House. One executive order set forth the Justice40 Initiative that acknowledges the need to invest in low-income, minority, and frontline communities. It requires that 40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant federal investments be delivered to such communities. In this article, we offer our research and suggestions on how these key sectors in the U.S can apply that 40 percent of funding to the communities most affected by climate change.
Energy, housing and transportation are three of the most critical sectors with significant environmental justice issues, thus representing the biggest areas of opportunity.
Improvement and investment in each of these sectors will not only improve the health outcomes and well-being of residents in the communities where they’ve caused harm, but will also provide a boon of job opportunities to their many ready, willing and able adults.
There are several local examples of effective changes that were created for the community, by the community. There will be nothing more important in the distribution of Justice40 funds than active and meaningful community participation.
What Action Was Taken
Issued on January 27th, 2021, the Executive Order created a White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council and a White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) tasked with prioritizing environmental justice and ensuring a whole-of-government approach to address current and historical environmental injustices. It gave three core members of the Biden administration 120 days to formulate practical ways in which the Justice40 funds will be applied. These decisions largely rested in the hands of Cecilia Martinez (former Senior Director for Environmental Justice at the White House’s Council for Environmental Quality), Gina McCarthy (White House National Climate Adviser), and Shalanda D. Young (acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget). On July 20th, these administrators issued suggestions via the Interim Implementation Guidance, building off of WHEJAC’s previous recommendations. This document looks across all sectors, including energy, transportation, and affordable and sustainable housing for investment allocation.
Energy: Efficiency and Clean, Renewable Generation
The energy burden, or share of household income spent on energy, on low-income families is three times greater than high-income families, and it is still increasing. It is more difficult for these communities to make even small moves toward greater energy efficiency. For example, energy-efficient light bulbs cost up to twice as much in low-income areas than in wealthier ones. As a result of a long history of housing discrimination, many minority neighborhoods are made up of older buildings that lack energy-efficient improvements (e.g. adequate insulation, leakage reduction, updated heating and cooling systems.) In some regions, there is a demonstrated focus on increasing energy efficiency in middle-and high-income areas at the expense of low-income areas. While energy efficiency can reduce costs for minority-owned businesses, it is difficult to secure it without enough capital. Black-and-brown-owned businesses have been the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it more difficult to invest in financially beneficial and efficient energy. The Interim Implementation Guidance memo lists energy burden reduction as another potential benefit of covered programs.
Affordable, clean energy from renewable sources is a solution that allows energy bills to be lowered while reducing the effects of pollution and climate change. Renewable energy can be a cost-effective and healthy solution for many; the price of clean energy has decreased significantly in recent years to be similar to or cheaper than fossil fuels. Yet, many lower-income individuals are still forced to spend a high percentage of their paychecks on utility bills, limiting their ability to attend to other necessities. Justice40 investments that prioritize the transition into energy efficiency and clean energy development will make these groups less vulnerable to both the financial and health consequences of fossil fuels. For instance, the majority of the blackouts during the deadly 2021 Texas snowstorm — which disproportionately endangered and displaced marginalized communities — were caused by fossil fuels. By improving energy efficiency and placing less stress on electrical grids, Texas could avoid a similar disaster in the future.
Energy efficiency, weatherization, and clean energy measures can also create jobs for local residents. There is a significant disparity in terms of representations of minority demographics in the clean energy field and related jobs. For instance, only 10% of jobs in these sectors are made up of Black workers. Utility lobbying has also spent hundreds of millions to hinder the success of improving energy efficiency, thus impacting job availability in the energy sector. Despite these efforts, clean energy industries already employ hundreds of thousands of Americans — in fact, two of the three top job growth areas pre-COVID were in clean energy. These jobs have the benefit of being local, as they cannot be exported elsewhere, and tend to pay more than other jobs.
Still, the clean energy industry must acknowledge and address land use issues, such as the destruction of habitats. Moreover, if the siting of renewable energy industries are affecting marginalized communities, funds will need to be allocated, perhaps from the Justice40 Initiative, to ensure that residents’ needs are met and supported.
On March 17th, 2021, Dan Byers (VP of Policy for the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute) published a statement on the Chamber’s website about Executive Order 14008, the directive that established the Justice40 initiative. The post focuses on the development of nationally determined contributions for emissions reduction while failing to acknowledge any of the environmental justice components of the executive order, including Justice40. Instead, Byers argues for emissions reduction strategies that “appropriately account for U.S. economic interests.”
Housing: Affordable and Sustainable
The federal government has put forth programs that champion affordable, healthy, and sustainable options for all Americans, including Housing and Urban Development’s Sustainable Housing Initiative and the EPA’s Smart Growth and Affordable Housing guide. Unfortunately, these leave much to be desired. Justice40 will find many opportunities in this sector to disperse funds since, in addition to the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries, sustainably-focused home construction and retrofitting will be critical to a net-zero carbon emission future supporting marginalized communities.
New, affordable developments need to be built near public transits, which improves accessibility and limits the necessity of transportation costs, while simultaneously reducing vehicle pollution. Pollution is a serious, systemic, and well-documented issue in minority and low-income communities (seriously, check out this meta-data analysis spanning two decades worth of research). According to an analysis of air pollution concentration in 1981 and 2016 at the community level,
“The most polluted areas in 1981 remain the most polluted areas today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 remain the least polluted areas today. Communities that were disadvantaged in 1981 remain exposed to higher levels of pollution today. If anything, relative disparities have worsened for poorer and Hispanic communities.”
Further, racist mortgage practices throughout most of the twentieth century have led to significantly less green space in BIPOC neighborhoods. All of this definitively contributes to poor health outcomes and should certainly be addressed by the Justice40 Initiative. The Interim Implementation Guidance memo does identify greenspace restoration as a potential qualifying benefit, particularly as a means to mitigate the urban heat island effect and its adverse consequences.
In addition to location, sustainable energy-efficient retrofits and technology measures make housing more affordable by offering lower electricity and heating costs, which can also reduce the negative physical and mental health impacts associated with a lack of electricity and heat. In the case of public or other government-mandated affordable housing, there are appropriate incentives to ensure access is granted. To address the issue of building owners passing on retrofitting or modernization costs to low-income or frontline residents, there are cues the federal government can take from cities and states to ensure that doesn’t happen. In New York City, the landmark Climate Mobilization Act (CMA) mandated buildings reduce their carbon footprint, but originally excluded low-income housing. Local environmental justice groups worked with the legislature to first pass a law protecting tenants from this circumstance and then amend the CMA to include those residents.
These communities have been ready to take back their power and health for a long time, and the Biden administration is poised to give them the funding they need to accomplish their goals. Biden’s core team should look to the residents of Little Earth, Minnesota who have developed a plan to convert a polluting and partially abandoned industrial property into a healthy and clean organic urban farm, local business hub, and location for affordable housing. It is critical that any application of Justice40 funding be decided by the communities it aims to support.
Public Transportation: Providing Greater Access for All
The environmental justice movement seeks to protect all people from environmental degradation and toxins as well as provide equal access to environmental benefits across demographic groups. Public transportation is a key area of improvement to address environmental injustice. Making transit equitable means listening to all riders in all communities. In the United States, race has always been a part of the public transit system. This is clear to see among urban residents:
Lack of public transportation results in racial health disparities and economic disinvestment in the surrounding area. The health of people in minority neighborhoods are impacted by a lack of transportation infrastructure, particularly when affordable housing is located on the fringes of a city. In these cases, subways may not service those areas, buses may be unreliable, and both are vulnerable to strikes or service suspensions.
As a result, some people may find themselves without a way home after an emergency trip to the hospital or miss a doctor’s appointment simply because they don’t have a way to get there. For example, researchers have found that almost one-third of respondents reported that it was “hard” or “very hard” to find transportation to their health care providers — a problem that can mean more than a few missed checkups. It also means that low-income and communities of color benefit less from transportation system improvements to existing systems and locations and, as a result of inequitable planning, have less access to certain destinations and amenities. For those who are disabled, riding the bus or the subway can be a difficult undertaking; thus, accessibility is critical to progress.
Thoughtful improvements to public transportation include more equity for BIPOC, disabled, and low-income people. They help increase active transportation, enhance safety, improve air quality and boost connectivity. Using roadside barriers, vegetation or bottleneck removal can reduce the impacts of pollution on communities located near high-volume roads. The Biden Administration should look to the plans and successes of those dealing first-hand with equitable public transportation — not make their own. May we recommend these campaigns in New York, or New Orleans, or Chicago?
Investing in public transit will not only address and improve the issues outlined above, but it will also help these groups have a reliable form of transportation to and from their workplaces. This will expand their employment options, as they will be able to reach farther locations. Employment opportunities in public transit provide good wages, better benefits, and greater job security. Public transit employment can provide greater economic security for minority workers for several reasons. For instance, public sector hiring is more accountable to citizen influence than private-sector hiring, providing stronger checks on employment discrimination. Public sector jobs are more likely to provide a defined benefit pension, which guarantees lifetime benefits upon retirement.
Final Takeaways
Justice40 is a necessary and long-overdue commitment to disadvantaged communities and a positive step towards ensuring environmental justice.
This research demonstrates that small steps towards clean and efficient energy can help reduce utility bills in marginalized communities, reduce energy poverty and improve financial independence. On December 6th, 2021, the Bezos Earth Fund announced a donation of hundreds of millions of dollars to the environmental justice cause, with $130 million specifically allocated to “advance the Justice40 initiative in the US.” This donation will hopefully be a driving force for increased private investments in environmental justice and Justice40, and should serve as an example for powerful, private business figures, such as those who make up the Chamber’s membership.
However, this effort has not been an opportunity afforded to all equally. Many low-income, minority, and frontline communities are made up of older homes and buildings which lack energy-efficient utilities, and have been forced to deal with rising energy costs and unequal opportunities in the housing and public transit sectors. Ultimately, Justice40 is an opportunity to reduce these various inequities while incorporating community participation into the decision-making process.