“This is a profound moment in the history of not just Warren County, which happens to be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of the environmental justice movement, but for our world as a whole,” said Angella Dunston, NCLCV Board Member who participated in the march as child.
She was speaking of Warren County, but may well have described the environmental justice movement itself. Warren County is broadly recognized as the birthplace of the now-international citizens movement advocating for the equitable protection of poor, minority, and other disadvantaged communities from threats to their health and environment. That movement and the principles it advocates have become a recurring theme in public debate from state houses to the White House and Congress, and on to the chambers of the United Nations and other powerful international forums.
In passing the groundbreaking package of climate crisis investments contained within the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) this summer, Congress explicitly assigned billions of dollars to address the disparate impacts of the climate crisis and pollution on disadvantaged communities. Those investments were made politically possible by the advocacy of the environmental justice movement, which prominently includes historic civil rights organizations and environmental groups in partnership. NCLCV and the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) are active parts of that movement.
At the same time, we must recognize that we still have far to go in realizing environmental justice goals. Pro-polluter members of Congress, acting at the behest of the dirty energy fossil fuel lobby, succeeded in exacting some counterproductive items as the price of their support for the package as a whole. Those items included rulemaking changes designed to promote offshore oil drilling and fracked-gas pipelines that would disproportionately impact already disadvantaged communities.
It is encouraging—and essential—that support now continues to build in the states and in Congress to block the worst of those proposals from going into effect. Among the key issues is the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, which has been repeatedly held back by community legal advocacy in state courts and federal forums alike.
Citizen advocacy to stop abuse of the legislative process to mandate the MVP is urgent. “At a time when we need to be doing everything we can to secure a clean energy future, the Mountain Valley Pipeline would take us in the wrong direction, undermining the very tangible progress on climate action that Congress has taken in recent months,” said Michael Town, Executive Director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. “The MVP is billions of dollars over budget, years behind schedule, and lacks the permits it needs to proceed because it’s a flawed project and shouldn’t be built. Congress shouldn’t break precedent and change the rules for this pipeline or any other particular project. That’s bad policy and bad for the communities in Southwest Virginia already dealing with the environmental degradation the MVP has already forced upon them.”
New studies and evidence continue to mount that both existing pollution and health problems, and ones which will be made worse by climate change, fall hardest on poor communities of color.
Our work for environmental and climate justice is far from done. But in moving forward to advocate for that work, “it is our season.”
