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For Immediate Release
June 30, 2022
Media Contact: Hendrik Voss, [email protected] ,
202-425-5128

CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE CONDEMNS THE INCREASED POLITICIZATION OF THE
SUPREME COURT, DEMANDS REGULATION OF POLLUTING INDUSTRIES TO SAFEGUARD
FRONTLINE COMMUNITIES

On the heels of the devastating decision from the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS)
to abandon people’s right to bodily self-determination last week by
overturning Roe v. Wade, today they further diminish the rights of
Indigenous Peoples, Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, poor white
communities, and other frontline communities most affected by the climate
crisis, a further assault on our bodies and rights.

Effectively, the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency ruling
limits the established powers of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses
(though a 2007 ruling stated they could be regulated by the Clean Air Act)
from power plants that are overwhelmingly located in disenfranchised
communities. The dissenting justices in the vote stated “Today, the Court
strips the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the power Congress gave
it to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time. The
Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency—the
decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more
frightening.” Neither can we - as this ruling clearly undermines the
broad powers of the EPA to regulate pollution, which is needed to address
the deepening climate crisis and frontline communities most impacted by
inaction.

CJA Co-Executive Director Bineshi Albert pointed out,_“The Environmental
Protection Agency, at minimum, should be able to regulate emissions,
however now even that is being called into question with this ruling by the
largely Republican-influenced Supreme Court. Those on the frontlines of the
climate crisis fought hard to enact the Clean Air Act and other
environmental justice protections, and we can't afford for these to be
eroded. Instead of subordinating the US Government to the needs and profits
of the oil, coal and gas industries and the politicians in their pockets,
the Supreme Court should ensure that people's health and well-being be
safeguarded and protected.”_

Make no mistake - those who will be most harmed by this decision are
Indigenous Peoples, Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, poor white
communities,women of color, and other frontline communities who continue to
bear the brunt of the burden of our interlinked economic, racial, social
and climate crises. In a system supposedly constructed with integrated
checks and balances, the SCOTUS has taken it upon themselves to overturn
long-held precedents, with no regard for justice.

For generations, we have battled to secure self-determination and equal
protection under the law for our communities, but in less than a year
we’ve seen the courts take away bodily autonomy and the right to choose,
limit the ability to enforce Miranda rights, protect police liability,
compromise the authority of states to protect their constituents by
overturning state-based gun reform laws, and block residents of Puerto Rico
from receiving federal benefits. All of these protect the police state,
keep people in poverty, protect corporations at the expense of the people
and the environment. These rulings further de-legitimize SCOTUS ability to
uphold justice.

_“Our government can’t protect our children and communities from guns,
our government can't protect people from forced pregnancies, and now it
can’t protect our lungs from toxic pollution,”_ says Maria Lopez-Nunez,
Deputy Director, Ironbound Community Corporation and CJA Board Members.
_“The Supreme Court is really calling into question the purpose of the
government with this ruling. After fighting for decades against
environmental racism it’s hard to find faith in our government but not in
our communities. At the end of the day only the people will save the
people. We must keep fighting.” _

Enough is enough. _“[We] are sick and tired of being sick and tired,”_
as Fannie Lou Hamer named in 1964 at a rally with Macolm X, _“For three
hundred years, we've given them time. We want a change. We want a change in
this society in America because, you see, we can no longer ignore the
facts.”_ We have the facts and we have little time. We know that the
right is pulling out all the stops to maintain control and “protect white
life”. The Biden Administration and Congress must take bold, visionary,
and decisive steps NOW to:

* Hold the Supreme Court accountable to uphold justice immediately,
including exploring options like expanding the court.

* Ensure consistent, immediate, and strong regulation by the EPA to stop
climate crisis impacts in frontline communities - protections that will
also address the historic harm of pollution to our rights and our bodies.

* Ensure Justice40 investments go directly to EJ communities, cause no
harm to EJ communities, and ensure robust community input on its
applications and enforcement across all agencies to address the deepening
climate crisis.

* Use President Biden’s executive powers (for which CJA issued a letter
along with 1,4000 organizations [3]) to immediately 1) ban all new oil and
gas contracts on federal areas, 2) stop approving fossil fuel projects, and
3) declare a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act that will
unlock special powers to fast track renewable projects that will benefit us
all.

###

ADDITIONAL QUOTES FROM CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE MEMBERS

_“The disgraceful Supreme Court ruling is moving backward, while the
majority of the country demands and is taking meaningful action on the
climate crisis. For more than a decade, New Jersey environmental justice
(EJ) leaders fought for a bill to protect their communities. The bill
finally passed in 2020, and is now strongest EJ law in the country,
protecting communities that are already overburdened with polluting
industries that impact their health. And we need to go further, we need the
federal government and the EPA to also be able to regulate emissions that
cause climate change and hold corporations accountable across the nation.
We need Congress and the White House to immediately remove all fossil fuel
subsidies that support polluting coal, gas, and oil production; to enact
legislation and executive orders that end the use of fossil fuels; to
disallow pollution trading and offsets; and invest into a clean,
emissions-free, community-controlled energy system. We are doing the work
to prevent devastating impacts on our communities who bear the brunt of
this crisis - we need our federal government to follow the lead of
frontline communities and do the same.” _

- Melissa Miles, Executive Director, New Jersey Environmental Justice
Alliance

_“The decades-long effort by the fossil fuel industry to strip EPA of its
ability to protect our communities when power plants are emitting
greenhouse gasses is a direct affront to environmental justice. In
California, the majority of fossil-fueled power plants are polluting in
low-income communities of color. Because the entire Western grid is
connected, a polluting power plant in Southeast LA can be supplying power
to wealthy White communities in Utah; same as when California imports
power, frontline communities in Arizona, where coal-fired power plants are
operating in low-income communities of color, are being polluted. We need a
nationwide regulatory strategy, and the Court has stolen that from us. Our
communities demand better; we demand action from the Biden administration
and from Congress.” _

- DARRYL MOLINA SARMIENTO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITIES FOR A BETTER
ENVIRONMENT

_“For decades, frontline environmental justice communities all across
this country have waged powerful campaigns to protect our children and
loved ones from breathing toxic air, drinking contaminated water, and
facing life threatening illness from waste buried in the lands where we
live, work and play. All of this hangs in the balance in the face of this
political moment. The rightwing extremist Supreme Court majority have laid
bare in each of these decisions from Roe to West Virginia their contempt
for racial and gender justice, and their willingness to sacrifice our
survival for the sake of corporate power and profit. They have already
illegitimized themselves, and our power must be reclaimed in our organizing
and resistance.”_

– JARON BROWNE, ORGANIZING DIRECTOR, GRASSROOTS GLOBAL JUSTICE ALLIANCE

 

Climate Justice Alliance is a member-led organization of 84 urban and rural
frontline communities, organizations and support networks in the climate
justice movement. We work to build real solutions to the climate crisis
through building local, living, regenerative economies while pushing back
against false promises from corporate controlled interests.

Climate Justice Alliance

1960A University Ave
Berkeley, CA, 94704
United States


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