Dear John,

Tomorrow is officially the beginning of summer, but many people around the world have already started to feel the heat. These deadly heatwaves are fueled by climate change, and while we work to address the root causes of climate change, we also need to be prepared to navigate these crises. Check out these resources to find out who is most at risk and how to stay safe during extreme heat (spoiler alerts: mutual aid is one of the best ways to make sure no one falls through the cracks).

In this edition of the Frontline Temp Check, we're going to hear about CJA's work to create a national campaign to push back against false solutions/promises, community push-back against CCS and CCUS, our first training on our Be the Change curriculum in Chicago, and why HILCO's settlement for a botched smokestack implosion is not enough. 

Last month, twenty-five CJA member orgs came together for an historic meeting in Washington, D.C. to build out an actionable plan that will allow us to push back against carbon management, biofuels and hydrogen while building true community climate solutions as we organize a just energy transition in this particular political moment. We achieved great things together, including identifying member leads to support in crafting our own policy playbook and met with key legislators, committees and agencies to raise up the importance of cumulative impact, tracking federal funding opportunities and ensuring community engagement and leadership in the build out of new infrastructure.

Thanks to all the members who participated including:

Over the last two months, CJA members have been showing up strong to provide testimony and written public comment to a variety of federal agencies around certain federal legislation and funding, including what's rolling out under Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Earlier this month CJA members spoke at the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council's public comment session against CCS (carbon capture and storage) and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage) while lifting up the importance of taking into consideration cumulative impacts.

Here are just a few of their concerns:

“The term “carbon management” conflates different technologies, all of them flawed. One of them is [CCS], which claims to remove carbon dioxide from smokestacks, preventing greenhouse gas emissions. The entire point of this technology is to allow fossil fuel use without the greenhouse gas emissions. Hypothetically, even if this technology were to work, it will not address any of the other environmental harms of fossil fuels, such as toxic air emissions at the point of combustion, or air and water contamination from oil and gas drilling and coal mining. Because of the energy penalty of CCS technology, these toxic impacts are going to become worse. There are serious racial and economic disparities in who is most harmed by these toxic pollutants. Choosing to mitigate fossil fuel emissions by using fossil fuels with CCS instead of replacing them with renewable energy is a political choice to keep sacrificing frontline communities for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry. But the technology does not even work. CCS projects in Illinois, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere have been expensive failures.” - Basav Sen, Climate Policy Director at Institute for Policy Studies

“Many communities are steadfastly opposed to the use of carbon management technologies. New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance is appalled that these investments are being framed as Justice 40 initiatives and that hundreds of billions of tax dollars are being utilized to research and deploy CCS and CCUS at the expense of better, safer and more readily available systems of emissions reduction. Subsidies, tax breaks, loans and investments are being made on the backs of EJ communities.” - Melissa Miles, Executive Director of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance

“We cannot fiscally or environmentally continue to allow the fox to guard the henhouse, dumping on EJ communities who deserve a chance to thrive and be heard: We don’t want these toxic unproven experiments in our neighborhoods. A recent Treasury Department investigation revealed, of nearly $1 billion in CCS tax credits through 2019, $893 million was submitted in ways that didn’t meet EPA rules. There MUST be stringent IRS and EPA oversight and transparency of these rules and credits given to bad faith companies: companies who KNEW they were causing climate change since the 1970s. They KNOW carbon capture is a dangerous unproven false solution that will continue fossil fuel use and global warming yet their unscientific & unproven greenwashing campaigns have full DOE support that will harm the most vulnerable EJ communities.” - Susan Thomas, Director of Legislation & Policy for Just Transition Northwest Indiana

Pictured: Anacua Orellana Garcia (CJA), Carlos Torrealba (CJA), Caton Jones (Soulardarity), Katina Rentas Negron (Florida Rising), and Daniela Guerrero (Just Transition Northwest Indiana)

CJA’s Atlanta cohort of new trainers led their first Being the Change training in Chicago, IL for Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) staff and members! Being the Change is our foundational training program that introduces the concept of Just Transition to communities that are building regenerative economies that are equitable and just, while centering race, class, and gender. Back in January we held our first Being the Change training of the year, immediately followed by a Training for Trainers (T4T) session in Atlanta, GA. With T4T participants learn how to present and facilitate the Being the Change program, adapting it to their own communities.

A class action lawsuit filed over the botched implosion of a coal fired power plant smokestack in 2020 in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood has been signed off by a federal judge. This will usher in $12.25 million in settlement—around $317 per person.

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization’s Executive Director, Kim Wasserman, said after the final public hearing that the settlement is not enough.

“What we know is it a $12.25 million settlement is pennies, compared to what Hilco Redevelopment partner is worth–4 billion. What we know is 21,600 people in our community will receive about $317 barely enough to cover a week's worth of groceries,” she said.

Hilco, the company which commissioned the Crawford coal power plant demolition on April 11, 2020, continues to deny any wrongdoing in the implosion that coated the surrounding neighborhood with a massive cloud of dust and debris. Instead agreeing to pay the settlement to bring the lawsuit to a close.

For activists, however, the fight is far from over. In May, LVEJO organizers hosted the Clean Air Resource Fair to educate community members about campaigns and issues around air quality and diesel emissions.

Wasserman also said the community would continue to demand amid unanswered questions and lack of accountability.

“—What we don't know is what the long term effects on physical and mental health are from the implosion. Four years later and we still don't know when the Inspector General's report will be released four years later, and we don't know how the city has handled the recommendations from the IG report in regards to the staff who mishandled the demolition project except that one of those individuals has been promoted and another one has now been named the head of the Department of Buildings so we are here today to say to the city that the settlement is not enough,” she said.