Is a key to
helping protect Black communities from climate
change hiddenin the Inflation Reduction Act?
In what
is being hailed as a victory for the Biden
administration andDemocrats, the Inflation
Reduction Act has been framed as a “game
changer” for a
country grappling with the impact of
climate change andenvironmental
devastation and addressing the urgency to
rein in greenhouse gases. The new law -
which provides $370 billion ininvestments
to fight climate change and is projected
to lower carbon dioxide emissions by 40
percent over the next decade - contains
aprovision that will assist the
Environmental Protection Agency in its
fight for environmental justice.
This new
law, which amends the Clean Air Act,
defines carbon dioxide - thegas that heats
the atmosphere and causes climate change
when we burn fossil fuels – as an “air
pollutant.” The
New York Times reported
that the wording in this legislation is
key because itempowers the EPA to regulate
greenhouse
gases and
promote renewable energy such as solar and
wind power. Until now,the Clean Air Act
did not specifically authorize the EPA to
regulate carbon dioxide, but generally
covered pollutants that “endangerhuman
health.” And legal experts believe this
turn of events will discourage future
lawsuits challenging the EPA’sauthority.
The IRA
comes on the heels of the recent Supreme
Court ruling in West
Virginia
v. EPA, raising
questions as to whether the legislation
remedies or evenoverturns the court
decision.
In a
6-3 vote -
reflecting a conservative
majority placed
on the court through funding from fossil
fuel
industry donors - the
justices ruled that the Clean Air Act does
not allow the EPA toregulate greenhouse
gas emissions from power plants or force
these plants to use cleaner
energy
sources. These
gases cause the climate change we are all
experiencing now, assome parts of the
country suffer floods and others
experience heatwaves, droughts, wildfires
and the drying
up
of ancient rivers and lakes that
have contained secrets for decades and
even eons.
Environmental
activists
and advocates have
slammed the high court’s decision for
failing to protectdisadvantaged and
marginalized communities- particularly
putting poor communities and Black, brown
and Indigenous people in harm’sway - and
jeopardizing the health of these
populations. Finding themselves on the frontlines of the
climate crisis, Black people, other people
of color andlow-income communities face
the most environmental devastation from
climate change and live in neighborhoods
where polluting power plantsare built.
While the
West Virginia case was
a setback for the
EPA’s authority, it did not eliminate the
agency’sauthority to regulate greenhouse
pollutants. However, it sets what
Earthjustice, an environmental justice
nonprofit, calls a “troublingprecedent.”
The Supreme Court invoked a rarely used
legal doctrine called the “major
questions
doctrine,” which
claims the court, not federal agencies,
should interpret lawsCongress passes of
“vast economic or political significance.”
This conservative legal concept requires
Congress to speak
clearly and in plain
language when
authorizing an agency to take sweeping
actions. Anotherconservative legal
concept, the nondelegation
doctrine, claims
Congress cannot delegate its powers to
outside entities suchas private
organizations and agencies, and cannot
allow agencies to shape regulations.
According
to Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, the fossil
fuel
industry’s legal
organizations and think tanks hatch these
theories, which haveno constitutional
foundation and serve as “factories where
doctrines are crafted, reverse-engineered
from the results the bigdonors want.” Fossil
fuel-producing
states are
using these doctrines to challenge
environmental regulations,just as tobacco
companies blocked the Clinton
administration from regulating cigarettes
and smokeless tobacco, and the Supreme
Courthalted Biden’s COVID
vaccine
mandate earlier
this year. And the Supreme Court - whose
conservativejustices owe their seats to
Koch Industries and
other Big Oil donors - is inviting these
challenges, highlightingthe need for
federal court reform.
And
although the IRA does not overturn West
Virginia v. EPA, it
boosts the
agency’s power to cut
greenhouse gases and could discourage some
of these courtchallenges
to
its authority.
But as they say, the struggle
continues. This new law is not the end ofthe
story, and the Supreme Court is coming for
the EPA and other parts of the government,
in an effort to do away with
environmentalregulations and regulations in
general- which will severely impact Black
people.
If you
can judge a policy by who opposes it, then
the reaction of Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to
the IRA tells the story. Cruz said
the
quiet part out loud and gave
away the secret plans when he said: “It’s
buriedin there … the Democrats are trying
to overturn the Supreme Court’s West
Virginia v. EPA
victory.” The court is coming for the
administrative state -which was the goal
of Steve
Bannon and the
Trump administration - and also includes
allowing the courtto override Congress and
the executive branch and kill all these
regulations meant to protect people.
Cruz, who
fled to Cancún when his state of Texas
was
freezing and out of electricity, has
shown his lack of concern about the impact
of climate change andpollution on
vulnerable communities. Black residents of
Houston are
suffering from cancer and are demanding
that Union Pacific cleanup their
neighborhoods that the railroad company
contaminated with creosote - a
cancer-causing substance used to preserve
rail ties.
“The
pollutants disproportionally sickening
communities of color &shortening lives
are the same ones driving the global #climatecrisis,”
tweeted environmental justice activist Dr.
Mustafa Santiago Ali, who
welcomed President Biden signing the
Inflation Reduction Act intolaw. Dr. Ali
has also urged Biden to declare a climate
emergency and noted that our community
must continue to mobilize and
strategize,just as we have struggled for
every advancement, because “no
one is coming to save us.”
“I wonder
if the millions of climate activists,
business owners,politicians, funders,
Green groups & others who utilized
their power & influence to get the
#InflationReductionAct passed Willnow use
that same energy & privilege to get
the #EnvironmentalJusticeForAllAct
passed?” Ali
added.
The
Environmental Justice For All Act would
amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to allow
communities to suepolluters for
intentional discrimination and remedy the
disproportionate
impact
of pollution on
Black, Indigenous and other vulnerable
communi ies.
Despite
the praise from many environmental
organizations and the benefits
to
Black communities touted
by the White House, some activists and
advocates representinglow-income, Black,
brown and Indigenous people rejected the
IRA because of the compromises made to
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) to pass the
bill, such as speedingup pipeline permits,
funding for carbon capture technology
promoted by Big Oil and committing to oil
and gas lease sales.
The
Movement for Black Lives opposed
the IRA for enabling the fossil fuel
industry amid the“greatest crisis of our
generation,” saying it is “woefully
inadequate to meet the severity of the
climate crisisand the needs of the Black
communities on the frontlines of its
impacts.” The group added the IRA “offers
up Black livesto the oil and gas industry
for political gain on a global scale. This
is true for communities from Appalachia,
to the Gulf South,those on the frontlines
of climate impacts, and across the Global
Black Diaspora.”
Black
Millennials
For Flint noted
the IRA had significant wins along with
compromises that madefor “lackluster”
environmental justice provisions, “which
puts disenfranchised communities in even
greater danger.” Andthe
Indigenous Environmental Network called
the IRA “a distraction from the need to
declare aClimate Emergency while allowing
polluting industries to continue business
as usual.” And the Climate
Justice
Alliance said the
IRA is not a climate justice bill.
All of this means that while the
Inflation Reduction Act might be themost
significant step America has taken on
climate change - and Black people stand to
benefit - we have much more work to do to
getenvironmental justice. The movement is
here, and we must be a part of it because
our very lives depend on it.
This
commentary
is also
posted
on The Grio
