JOHN,

I held a congressional field hearing in my district this week to hear from courageous residents and advocates who are fighting back against environmental racism.

We heard from residents like Daeya Redding, who described the ongoing fight against corporate polluters that have sacrificed her, her family, and her neighbors for profit.

These corporations pay a nominal fee for violating their air permits and just continue operating. Meanwhile, Daeya pointed out, community members are paying for this pollution with their lives and their bodies.

Our current environmental permitting and enforcement systems are broken, and we have an urgent moral duty to build new systems that will put people first, while centering the people who are directly affected.

We’ve included frontline communities’ input in the Environmental Justice For All Act, which would regulate cumulative impacts of pollution and restore civil rights protections for vulnerable communities.

I will continue to hold corporate polluters accountable, and right now I am fighting for that right by pushing back against a “permitting reform” bill written by the American Petroleum Institute—which would fast-track dirty fossil fuel projects by further taking away power from local communities and gutting bedrock environmental laws.

Will you chip in what you can today so we can keep fighting for people’s right to breathe clean air and drink clean water?

For too long, corporate polluters and regulatory agencies have sacrificed Black, brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and low-wealth communities.

“Please listen to us,” asked Daeya’s mother Pamela McGhee at our field hearing. She explained how multiple generations of her family struggle with asthma, miscarriages, infertility, and more. And she called for shutting down polluting facilities like the hazardous waste site near her.

We heard from Detroit residents like Robert Shobe, whose life has been deeply impacted by living next to a Stellantis plant.

After receiving $400 million in taxpayer dollars to expand their plant in a 94% Black neighborhood that’s already been harmed by industrial pollution, Stellantis couldn’t even bother to install pollution controls correctly. We only found that out thanks to neighbors sounding the alarm to regulatory agencies. Residents are still waiting for enforcement, and keep calling to report pollution, which has resulted in multiple air permit violations issued so far.

Describing his and his neighbors’ health conditions such as cancer, asthma, migraines, and more, Robert explained: “This plant is making us sick.”

We must center the lived experiences of people on the frontlines of environmental injustice, living next to corporate polluters. These folks have been harmed and wronged, with no accountability.

As Vice-Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment, I will keep bringing members of Congress to my district to connect with people on the ground and better understand the urgent need for environmental justice.

And I promise I will continue to hold corporate polluters accountable for treating communities of color like mine as sacrifice zones.

I know a better world is possible, if we keep fighting for it together.

Please chip in what you can so we can keep fighting for the right to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

Thank you,
Rashida