• Politics

Fighting Climate Change and Environmental Justice Score Big Increases in Biden Budget Proposal

• ARPA-C
• Civilian Climate Corps
• clean air
• clean water
• climate change
• Environmental Justice
• government spending
• NOAA
• Office of Management and Budget

The Biden administration released its “skinny” post-election year budget plan for government spending next year and it included large increases for battling climate change and reversing environmental injustice, particularly as compared to the Trump administration’s drastic proposed cuts in these areas. 

Why This Matters: These are big increases over the Trump administration’s proposals — for NOAA it would mean 50% more.  But Congress never enacted those truly skinny budgets — they actually modestly increased or held most environmental spending steady.

• Sustainability

Biden Pledges $20 Billion to Dismantle Highways, Racial Justice Activists Cautiously Celebrate

• Environmental Justice
• highway
• pollution
• racism
• segregation

President Biden’s new infrastructure plan contains something surprising — funding for “construction” projects to remove highways. Why?  Because for decades, Black communities in cities across the U.S. have been cut off and/or divided by highways and major roads that were built without regard to their impact on those neighborhoods. 

Why This Matters: Highways built in the 50s and 60s often came at the expense of communities of color. Their impact enforced segregation, disrupt thriving communities, and distanced Black people from city resources and job opportunities.

• Energy

Trump Administration Restart of Huge St. Croix Oil Refinery Raises EJ Concerns

• air pollution
• Environmental Justice
• oil and gas
• oil refinery
• oil spill
• pollution

The idyllic island of St. Croix, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, is a Caribbean paradise — and also the site of one of America’s largest oil refineries. The Limetree Bay oil refinery caused one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history and violated the Clean Air Act, and until early this year had been idled since 2012. 

Why this Matters: The refinery provides jobs on the island that had been hurt by two hurricanes in 2017.  But it also raises numerous troubling issues, not the least of which is that the majority of people living near the refinery are Black and nearly a third identify as Hispanic or Latino, and many are poor.

• Ocean

Democrats Introduce Environmental Justice Legislation with Advocate Support

• Congress
• Demcorats
• Environmental Justice

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer Congressional Democrats are making environmental justice a focus of their climate agenda., Recently, t two new bills were introduced that seek to lower utility bills and decrease the disproportionate burden of pollution experienced by communities of color. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who is reintroducing the Environmental Justice for All Act which […]

• People

Women Fighting For Communities of Color: Heather McTeer Toney

• civil rights
• climate justice
• Environmental Justice

Heather McTeer Toney is an American lawyer, politician, and environmental activist and served as the first African-American and female mayor of Greenville, MS. In 2014, Toney was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Regional Administrator for the EPA’s Southeast Region. And since then she’s continued her work, first leading the Moms Clean Air […]

• People

Interview of the Week: Rt Hon. David Lammy

• climate justice
• COP26
• Environmental Justice
• parliament
• UK
• United Kingdom

This past week, Our Daily Planet got a chance to sit down with the Right Honorable David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, as well as the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor in Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet. We were inspired to talk to David after a recent TED Talk he […]