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FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE                                                           
  SEPT. 30, 2021 Contact: Bineshi Albert at 505-350-0851,
[email protected] / Ashley Engle at [email protected] /
Margaret Kwateng at [email protected]

-------------------------
The Decade of False Solutions: Our Position on the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Package & Build Back Better Act

Statement by Indigenous Environmental Network, Climate Justice Alliance,
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Let us be frank. As communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis and
fossil fuel extraction, our situation is dire. While we experience
unparalleled disaster in the form of floods, fires, droughts, Missing &
Murdered Indigenous Peoples and state-sanctioned violence against
Indigenous and Black communities, the crisis at the so-called border, and
other results of climate chaos, we know U.S. elected leadership is in the
position to redirect course on behalf of Mother Earth and future
generations. The truth is, Congress promised our communities they would
work to _solve_ the climate crisis and environmental justice once we
elected them into office, but instead, we see them fighting to fund fossil
fuels and false promises masquerading as climate solutions to the tune of
billions of dollars. Rather than solving climate change Congress is
exacerbating it.

Over the course of positive engagement over the last several months, we
asked Congress - and received many assurances - that the provisions,
technologies, and projects in the Bipartisan Infrastructure package and the
Build Back Better Act (the reconciliation package) will support Indigenous,
Black, Brown, Asian and Pacific Islanders, communities of color, low
income, migrant, and frontline communities to address environmental
justice. While we are happy to claim our wins (which we see as a testament
to the power of frontline intervention in federal policy), it is important
to also name what is missing and what is harmful in these packages.
Specifically, we demanded Congress oppose false “clean energy”
solutions in the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), include
set-asides for frontline communities, and include both Justice40 and
climate standards in the Build Back Better Act. Unfortunately, these
important requests and demands were undermined through a political process
intentionally designed to silence the voices of impacted communities while
maintaining the status quo.

Congress claims these packages will be historical provisions for climate
action and environmental justice - but we know better. While we have fought
hard for measures including increased care, social safeguards, affordable
housing, building upgrades, public transit, and paid sick leave, there are
many components of these two packages that will deepen injustices, entrench
climate impacts, displace families, upend local economies, and deadlock us
into a decade of false solutions. We cannot be complicit by letting it
proceed without challenge. It is imperative we make clear our position
while explaining the environmental and community harm as well as the human
rights impacts these legislative measures will perpetrate.

HOW THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE PACKAGE AND BUILD BACK BETTER ACT
CONFLICT WITH ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PRINCIPLES

JUSTICE

THE JUSTICE40 pledge will not be met in the infrastructure packages.
Frontline communities were promised 40% of funding to be earmarked for
projects to build safer and stronger communities in order to confront the
climate emergency. We already see a structure being set up that would allow
for the funding to be used as “benefits” and not direct funding. These
so-called benefits could take the form of harmful programs and some that
should have happened anyway. Further, there is a mapping tool being built
that replicates old colonial mapping systems to differentiate whether a
community will fall under their criteria or not.

While there are set-asides for Tribes, they are inadequate and absent in a
robust recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and assurances for Free,
Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). The federal government is obligated
through laws, trust responsibilities, treaties and other policies to ensure
that funding under Justice40 and other federal programs to Indigenous
nations is more than adequate to address significant disparities resulting
from colonization.

THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT (NEPA) is designed to ensure that
agencies and departments consider the significant environmental
consequences of their proposed actions and inform the public about
decision-making. However, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill includes
language to suppress public input, shorten permitting processes to
determine how a project will impact a community, shrink consideration of
alternative approaches, and create large exclusions for multiple categories
of projects.

ENERGY & WATER

FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES are included in both packages. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Bill has $25 billion slated for new fossil fuel subsidies.
In addition, the Build Back Better Act also includes at least $15 billion.
This does not even include the subsidies for fake “clean” energy in the
CEPP. Ramping up fossil fuel development locks us into decades of
extractivism, violence and injustice.

ALASKA LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS EXPORT TERMINAL is funded through the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Package and oil and gas development in The Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge is expanded.

THE CLEAN ELECTRICITY PERFORMANCE PROGRAM (CEPP) in the Build Back Better
Act provides incentive payments and does not penalize utility corporations
for the generation of electricity from fossil fuels and false solutions.
This includes: fossil gas with and without carbon capture and storage and
other fossil-based technologies; waste incineration and other
combustion-based technologies; bioenergy including biomass, biofuels,
factory farm gas, landfill gas, and wood pellets; hydrogen; nuclear; and
new, large-scale and ecosystem-altering hydropower, and all market-based
accounting systems like offsets. Earlier this year, over 700 groups
endorsed a letter [3] to fight for distributed renewable energy for
frontline communities. We were largely ignored. Instead, the CEPP is being
touted as the flagship program for climate action. We cannot keep providing
billions to these industries and pretend it is a win for climate justice.
This false “clean” energy will increase the pollution burden on
Indigenous, Black, POC and frontline communities. Instead of funding these
false solutions, the funding should be allocated to distributed renewable
energy for wind and solar with 40 percent clearly set aside for frontline
communities.

LEAD SERVICE LINE REPLACEMENT is earmarked at $15 billion in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Bill, which would only address approximately 25 percent of
lead service lines and resign multiple generations to compromised health.
The House has included an additional $30 billion for lead pipes replacement
in their version of the budget, however no clear commitment has come out of
the Senate, making the total amount of funds for lead pipes replacement
uncertain. Billions more are needed to ensure that Indigenous, low-income
communities and communities of color have access to safe drinking water and
sewage line installation.

FALSE SOLUTIONS

False solutions are funded in both packages. Some as direct funding in the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better Act and other funding
through the CEPP in the Build Back Better Act. This is a short list of just
some of the false solutions we oppose in the packages:

* Carbon capture in all of its forms
* CO2 “utilization products” for plastics
* 45Q tax credit for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) expanded in the Build
Back Better Act until 2032
* $1.9 billion in loan guarantees for carbon capture pipelines in the BIF
* Direct air capture
* Geoengineering technologies
* Bioenergy
* Incineration
* Cap and trade/offsets/carbon tax/carbon pricing
* Nuclear energy
* Landfill gas
* Climate smart agriculture
* Agriculture and soils offsets
* Liquified natural gas
* Fossil fuel heat waste
* Hydrogen and hydrogen hubs
* Fossil hydrogen is given a rebate in the Build Back Better Act and
considered “carbon neutral”
* “Clean” coal and coal waste
* Chemical recycling is burning plastic incinerators funded in the BIF
* Carbon taxes have been proposed to fund the Build Back Better Act
* Carbon pricing has been proposed (and while everyone has been distracted
a cap and trade program for HFCs was passed outside of the infrastructure
packages to be administered through the EPA)

Congress is demonstrating what happens when frontline and impacted
communities are not centered in federal policy. Life-saving priorities are
watered down or completely abandoned through the process, while greedy and
harmful corporations come out on top. The truth is, we learned that many in
Congress are not fully invested in frontline communities or solving the
climate emergency, even though they say they are. This is why it is vital
we continue engaging and pushing Congress to remain accountable to the
promises they made. We know the true power lies with the people. Now is the
moment to stand on the right side of history, on behalf of Mother Earth and
future generations. Rather than pretend this legislation does not
perpetuate injustices to Indigenous, Black, and frontline communities and
exacerbate the climate crisis, we will continue to stand with frontline
struggles and uplift principles of environmental and economic justice. And
we will continue to demand Congress do the same.

###

Climate Justice Alliance

PO BOX 10202
Berkeley, CA 94709
United States


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