WE ACT Helps Push Landmark Environmental Justice Bill Through the New York State Legislature
Requires State to Consider the Cumulative Impacts of Pollution on Disadvantaged Communities; Awaiting Governor Hochul’s Signature
Yesterday the New York State Senate and Assembly passed legislation – S.8830 and A.2103C, respectively – that will ensure that cumulative impacts are taken into consideration in the State’s Environmental Quality Review process when potentially polluting facilities seek permits in disadvantaged communities. This would be only the second such state law in the nation, following New Jersey’s groundbreaking legislation signed in 2020, which was advanced by the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and others.
What Are Cumulative Impacts?
Low-income communities and communities of color throughout New York State have historically been burdened by a disproportionate number of pollution-generating facilities such as factories, power plants, bus depots, sewage treatment plants, garbage dumps and transfer stations, and trucking centers. This inequitable siting has turned these communities into environmental sacrifice zones, with the cumulative impacts of these multiple sources of pollution exponentially harming their residents, causing health impacts such as asthma, lung and heart disease, increased birth defects, and learning impairments.
Current laws and regulations do not take the cumulative impacts of pollution into account when approving such facilities, instead treating them as if they were the only source of pollution that residents will have to endure. That is why this Cumulative Impacts bill will be landmark legislation in addressing the environmental racism that has plagued the health and well-being of these communities for generations.
“WE ACT earned its reputation on hard-fought wins that have helped reduce the cumulative impacts suffered by communities in Northern Manhattan, including the North River Sewage Treatment Plant, the majority of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Manhattan diesel bus depots, and the New York City Department of Sanitation’s marine transfer station,” said Sonal Jessel, Director of Policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “But we knew we really needed a law to safeguard all communities from this undue burden.”
“We saw disadvantaged communities across the state suffer higher rates of illness and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, with studies linking the higher incidence of chronic diseases to the adverse health impacts of air pollution and other forms of pollution, which studies also link to the cumulative impacts of exposure in these communities,” added Jessel. “We need to stop treating these communities as dumping grounds for pollution and other hazards, and that is the aim of this legislation.”
We thank Senate Majority Leader and sponsor Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D35) as well as Assemblymember and sponsor J. Gary Pretlow (D89) for their leadership in getting this passed. We also thank Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Todd Kaminsky (D9) and Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Steve Englebright (D4), and Speaker Carl Heastie (D83) for their leadership in getting it passed in the Assembly.
WE ACT championed this legislation in a partnership co-led by South Bronx Unite and the JustGreen Partnership, along with Clean and Healthy New York, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, New York State American Academy of Pediatrics, Environmental Advocates NY, Moms for a Nontoxic New York, Earthjustice, 350 Brooklyn/City Action, and other organizations.
“We thank our fellow advocates as well as our members who were instrumental in getting this bill passed,” said Peggy Shepard, Co-Founder and Executive Director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “And now we urge New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to demonstrate her commitment to environmental justice by signing this critical legislation into law."
