Dear John,

The streets of DC are swarming with the military and there’s something back from the dead. Unfortunately, no, we aren’t starting the Halloween season early. 

At this point the news about Trump’s takeover of DC is everywhere, but there’s something else we’re keeping our eyes on: permitting reform. It’s been given many names – Energy Permitting Reform Act, the Polluters Priority Plan, the Manchin Bill, the dirty deal, it even earned the moniker the zombie bill at one point because it just wouldn’t go away.

Ultimately, it all comes down to making our communities less safe and less healthy by giving harmful industries a free pass to pollute, destroy, and basically do whatever they want without community input or government oversight. 

Last December, Joe Manchin (the senator who tried to move along this dirty deal) announced the end to his attempts to include the package into the continuing resolution meant to keep the government funded. That hasn’t stopped politicians from trying to raise it from the dead though, along with a slew of other anti-people and anti-environment moves unleashed this summer. Learn about some of the most egregious here and spread the word.

As legislators return from August recess, we’re gearing up for the fall by working with coalition partners to gather information on what’s coming in regards to bipartisan permitting legislation that could likely weaken the Safe Drinking Water Act, accelerate the development of harmful infrastructure -especially related to energy and mining- and limit community input.

We’ll also continue to celebrate the wins of communities that can often get drowned out in the current political climate. Read on for more inspiration in our summer edition of Frontline Temp Check.

This summer, CJA outgoing board member, Mateo Nube, co-founder of Movement Generation and a member of Los Nadies (translated to ‘The Nobodies’ in English), released a new album! The name of their group is taken from a poem by Eduardo Galeano about the unseen & invisibilized people in society. 

Los Nadies are musical cross-pollinators extraordinaire, blending rumba flamenco, hip-hop, cumbia, and rock into a funky, brash, and irresistibly danceable sound. With impassioned vocals, poetic lyrics, and boundary-breaking innovation, their music reflects immigrant roots and the vibrant Latino experience in a globalized U.S. 

If you need some inspiration, you can listen to the new album here. 

At the end of August, CJA members and staff headed to Memphis, Tennessee to participate in a gathering focused on data centers hosted by the NAACP, Memphis Communities Against Pollution (MCAP), and Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE). For two days, environmental justice and climate justice leaders, including CJA member groups, ACE, Center for Coalfield Justice, Just Transition Northwest Indiana, and the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program engaged in knowledge building, skill sharing, and coalition building to gear up to fight back against data centers and AI, the latest iteration of environmental racism and climate injustice in practice.

On the federal and state level, CJA continued our work this summer to track and research the full steam ahead approach to AI and the build out of data centers to support the "AI Boom," and we are very concerned. Here’s why: AI and data centers are extremely energy and water intensive and will have devastating human, environmental and public resource impacts on everything from school budgets to public water supply. We are already seeing this from impacted communities in Ohio and Georgia. At the same time, the big tech and oil and gas companies peddling these data centers often receive state tax breaks and subsidies, all the while advocating for more dirty industry as they drain local water and energy supplies. This accelerates the climate crisis and sacrifices public health.

From the Northeast to the Gulf South, data centers are being peddled in largely Black, Brown, low-income and Indigenous communities by big business and tech despite having any real community benefit. It's good to remember that technology is not just made up of parts, it is a complex set of relationships of resources and power over time. 

We support democratically-developed and democratically-managed technologies, ones that are health affirming and benefit the public good. This AI build out is not one of them. Now more than ever, we need informed and courageous leaders who listen to communities and put their constituents well-being over the interests of big tech, oil and gas. To learn more read and share our statement on Trump’s AI Action Plan, AI and data centers here.

While the Trump administration continued to attack working-class families, migrants, and democracy itself this summer, frontline communities forged ahead with bold new paths toward justice and resilience that benefit everyone.

In Brooklyn, NY, CJA member UPROSE is proving that community power can deliver real victories. In case you missed it, join us in celebrating the construction kick-off of Sunset Park Solar—New York City’s first-ever community-led solar project—on the rooftop of the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Watch the video here.

This milestone was made possible through the unshakable vision and determination of UPROSE, along with support from Reinvest in Our Power, a Climate Justice Alliance-led collaborative effort to shift capital and governance from extractive to regenerative systems.

Share what energy democracy looks like in action with your community.

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Instead of cutting pollution and transitioning off fossil fuels, polluters are still pushing risky, untested technology that interferes with nature and puts communities at risk.

Geoengineering is often hidden behind greenwashed, misleading terms, making projects seem harmless. Here’s what you might hear instead of the word “geoengineering”:

• Natured-based solution(s)
• Climate restoration technologies
• Climate engineering (technologies)
• Negative emissions technologies
• Nature-mimicking solution(s)
• Ocean nourishment
  

These names are designed to make risky and unproven projects sound natural or harmless – even when they aren’t. And if they are coming to your area you need to know more.

To learn the facts check out our newest fact sheet on geoengineering and find out what you can do, especially if a project is coming to your community. You can also check it out on socials and share with your friends.