Interior Now Has a Bold EJ Mandate

摘要

Ten days after she was confirmed by the Senate, Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous person to lead the Department of the Interior, wasted no time in convening the Public Forum on the Federal Oil and Gas Program on March 25. The new secretary opened the event with an environmental justice perspective, focusing on "the communities who live with legacies of pollution" and "future generations."Environmental justice is a human rights demand to live, work, play, learn, and pray in a healthy and safe environment. It is a movement led by Black, Indigenous, Latino/Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities, who are disproportionately harmed by pollution and more vulnerable to the climate crisis. The placement of oil and gas industries, along with their derivative plastics and pesticides manufacturing enterprises, in communities of color drives environmental racism with dire consequences for residents.Case in point: over one million Black people live within a half mile of at least one oil or gas facility and in areas where pollution from facilities exceeds EPA's cancer risk guidelines. This impact, along with other racially disproportionate pollution burdens not only in the United States but around the world, have metastasized into the climate crisis - which affects communities of color and poor neighborhoods more than others.