Achieving progress on environmental justice policy implementation: Community organizer and policymaker perceptions on equitable solutions

Urban environmental injustices are rooted in structurally racist discriminatory policy outcomes like segregation, redlining, highway construction, and deindustrialization. Uncovering policymakers’ and community organizers’ perceptions can guide equitable solutions to systemic environmental harms. To address decades of underinvestment and ongoing environmental injustices, Executive Order 14008 launched the Justice40 Initiative. Justice40 set a goal of directing 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investment flows to address the following environmental justice program areas: climate change, clean energy, energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable housing, workforce development, cleanup of industrial pollution, and development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. Justice40’s implementation processes must incorporate policymaker and organizer perspectives to ensure equitable program and policy design.

In an October 2022 article, researchers from RAND Corporation investigated the perceptions of community organizers and policymakers on existing and proposed environmental justice policies. Motivated by Justice40, the authors explore perceptions of environmental justice-oriented policy design and implementation processes. Published by the journal Environmental Justice, the researchers interviewed 19 environmental leaders across eight U.S. cities. They used a semi-structured interview guide and developed a codebook of shared patterns and concerns among organizers and policymakers. When asked about how environmental history shapes their current priorities, interviewees across sectors reported on the value of cultivating trust through meaningful engagement, prioritizing procedural and distributional equity, and demonstrating awareness of unintended consequences.

The authors find that gaining community organizers’ trust involves transparency, accountability, and avoiding false promises. Policymakers can address this challenge by committing to procedural and distributional equity in policy design and implementation. In this study, procedural equity prioritizes meaningful community engagement and consultation through scoping and decision-making processes. Distributional equity aims to ensure equitable percentages of benefits from solutions are allocated to historically underserved and underinvested communities. Interviewees in this study shared policies underway to tackle urban environmental injustices that align with Justice40’s goals.

Procedural and distributional equity also include community education and outreach. Organizers believe residents also need to know the connections between historical actions and current challenges. They advocate for educational programming on the systemic origins of environmental injustices. Across interviews, organizers named the ways discriminatory policy outcomes like segregation, redlining, racial covenants, highway construction, and deindustrialization entrenched environmental harm across generations. Yet organizers highlight a gap between these histories and current community perceptions and priorities.

The authors also called attention to the unintended consequences of environmental justice policy implementation. Across interviews, organizers and policymakers expressed concerns about green gentrification, affordable housing, and physical and cultural displacement. Accordingly, the study unveiled frustrations from community members when funding allocation and attention toward environmental justice policies disregard their broader economic, social, and political livelihoods. The authors’ analysis suggests combining environmental justice policy design with affordable housing and anti-displacement initiatives to ease these sentiments.

It is necessary to use policymaker and organizer perceptions on environmental justice policies as critical insight for Justice40 implementation. This study highlights the importance of embracing meaningful community engagement to avoid unintended consequences, such as gentrification and delayed investment in housing, parks, and infrastructure. Integrating procedural and distributional equity can help address urban environmental injustices and guide progress on policies aligned with the goals of Justice40.

Original Paper: Siddiqi, S. M., Mingoya-LaFortune, C., Chari, R., Preston, B. L., Gahlon, G., Hernandez, C. C., Huttinger, A., Stephenson, S. R., & Madrigano, J. (2022). The Road to Justice40: Organizer and Policymaker Perspectives on the Historical Roots of and Solutions for Environmental Justice Inequities in U.S. Cities. Environmental Justice, env.2022.0038. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2022.0038

To read the original article in Yale Environment Review, click here.

Hydropower and Sustainable Development at Climate Week NYC

What is Climate Week NYC?

Climate Week NYC is the largest annual climate event of its kind, bringing together some 400 events and activities across the City of New York – in person, hybrid and online. Each year, business leaders, political change makers, local decision takers and civil society representatives of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the world, gather to drive the transition, speed up progress, and champion change that is already happening.

What event did Acadia Center specifically take part in?

Acadia Center president Dan Sosland was invited to join a panel of experts to discuss large-scale hydropower operations, climate, and sustainability issues. The International Hydropower Association (IHA) has developed a Hydropower Sustainability Standard (HSS) intended to provide an objective set of criteria to assess the operations of existing hydropower facilities. The HSS covers 11 major areas of hydropower operations, including ecosystem and community impacts.

The HSS was developed by NGOs, including the World Wildlife Federation, the Hydropower Sustainability Council, an independent NGO, and government and industry participants. Certification of a project indicates that it meets minimum sustainability expectations across a comprehensive range of topics using up-to-date and sector-specific sustainability guidance.

Hydro-Québec chose to become the first North American hydropower generator to seek certification, a process that began in May 2022 with the audit of its facilities at the Eastmain-1 Development.

In addition to Dan, panelists included prominent international environmental leader Ashok Khosla with the Hydropower Sustainability Council, who is credited with coining the concept of international sustainability, Gia Schneider, founder of Natel Energy, who works on innovation approaches to fisheries protection, and Margaret Trias, an international consultant expert in certification who was one of three independent assessors of the Eastmain-1 project. The panel was moderated by Carolyn Kissane, clinical professor at NYU and Director of the NYU SPS Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability (ECJS) Lab. Final words were provided by Aaron Mair, of the Adirondack Council, a leading environmental justice advocate in New York.

Why did Acadia Center specifically involve itself with this topic?

Acadia Center’s mission includes addressing climate and clean energy issues across the region of the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada. Cross-border interactions between these states and provinces occur in many ways. By taking an extensive view of the region, Acadia Center looks for opportunities to advance and assess climate solutions that cross borders when they provide climate, consumer and environmental benefits. Acadia Center’s Dan Sosland has been involved in numerous regulatory issues surrounding hydropower and watershed impacts and protection. Acadia Center has been directly involved in issues surrounding the role of Canadian hydro as a decarbonization pathway. Acadia Center is currently working with Canadian partners on a project called the Northeast Grid Planning Forum to encourage dialogue to explore the benefits on both sides of the border of greater cooperation between U.S. and Canadian power grids to meet climate, cost, reliability and clean energy goals.

What role will hydropower play in the future of clean energy and sustainable development?

Large-scale hydropower offers both benefits and impacts. The hydropower system in Quebec is extensive and provides low-cost electricity in Quebec and to U.S. states and cities. Reputable independent academic studies have concluded that the existing hydropower system in Quebec generates electricity at very low emission levels, approaching that of solar energy. However, large-scale hydropower can also have significant impacts on watersheds, cultural issues, and indigenous populations.

This event had some prominent panelists. What did you learn from them?

A key takeaway is that the Hydropower Sustainability Standard can significantly influence how a hydropower developer like Hydro-Quebec manages its system. As Joao Costa with the International Hydropower Association explained in a detailed presentation, like other certification approaches such as the U.S. EPA’s EnergyStar and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, hydro operations can be significantly and positively improved by evaluating against objective, best practices criteria.

What are the high-end takeaways from this event?

Hydropower currently plays a large role around the world as a low-cost and low-emission energy resource. The Hydropower Sustainability Standard can have a positive impact on hydropower operations, including ecological and cultural concerns. Future new developments, however, will depend upon whether a proposed project assesses the full scope of impacts and whether it has the support of local populations. Changes in operations and approaches are happening. For example, in the multi-billion Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line project connecting Hydro-Quebec to New York City, the portion of the new transmission line in Canada will be jointly owned by the Mohawk community and Hydro-Quebec.

State finally unveils carbon reduction plan draft. Clock is ticking to ask questions and comment

The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) is now taking public comment on its long-awaited carbon reduction plan.

RIDOT published the 51-page draft online Wednesday and will accept input through Nov. 3 — 12 days before a final plan must be submitted to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA).

Under the federal government’s Bipartisan Infrastructure law passed in 2021, states are required to create a plan and submit it to the FHA  by November 2023 in order to receive funding for implementation — of which Rhode Island is slated to get more than $35.7 million over five years. Overall, Rhode Island is set to receive $576 million of federal funds between 2022 and 2026 to improve its transportation infrastructure.

Transit and climate activists say they’re glad Rhode Islanders can now have a say in the process. But they are concerned about the short timeframe RIDOT has to consider public comments with one month to go.

“I don’t expect to really get direct responses on what is and isn’t incorporated,” said Emily Koo, program director of the Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Chapter.

Koo was one of more than 20 advocates who sent a letter to RIDOT last month demanding that it release the plan for comment as soon as possible, much like Maine and Vermont did earlier in the year.

Though she lambasted the department’s stealth process in her letter, Koo said in a phone interview Friday that she did meet with DOT officials at an internal workshop in mid-September that “had a lot of forward-looking strategies.”

Still, Koo had several critiques of the draft plan, which includes strategies ranging from adding to RIDOT’s fleet of electric vehicles, sidewalk installations, bike path preservation, and greenway enhancements.

The carbon plan does acknowledge the need to do more beyond car infrastructure, but Koo said there are no clear commitments from the state.

“They say a lot, yet there isn’t any action,” Koo said.

Koo said there was plenty of discussion on the need for more multimodal transit  options at the internal meeting in September and hopes this will be considered in the final draft plan sent to the federal government.

“It would be incredible if DOT took any of them and funded them,” she said.

To read the full article from the Rhode Island Current, click here.

Así impulsan las organizaciones sociales la energía solar en Estados Unidos

Según el último informe de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía sobre el desarrollo de la energía fotovoltaica en el mundo, España es el séptimo país del mundo en potencia fotovoltaica instalada (26,6 GW). Si nos fijamos en América Latina, Brasil es el mercado más dinámico, con 9,9 GW instalados en 2022, seguido de Chile, que instaló alrededor de 1,8 GW, y México, con 680 MW.

Las organizaciones analizadas (Carolina Land and Lakes, Acadia Center y Energy Trust of Oregon) fomentan las energías renovables desde un enfoque especializado, tecnológico, educativo y orientado a objetivos concretos.

Todo este trabajo preliminar ha sido importante tanto para la causa de las organizaciones sociales como para la expansión de un sector emergente como el solar. Con esas actividades han contribuido a legitimarlo y hacerlo viable. Además de clarificar la oferta de las empresas, ejercen presión sobre los entes públicos para establecer los marcos jurídicos que les permitan operar y dirigirse a clientes potenciales.

Acadia Center, por ejemplo, publica datos sobre el impacto positivo de las renovables en la creación de empleo y el crecimiento económico. También diseña estrategias de mercado para las renovables y propone políticas para implementarlas.

Translation

Title: This is how social organizations promote solar energy in the United States

According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency on the development of photovoltaic energy in the world, Spain is the seventh country in the world in installed photovoltaic power (26.6 GW). If we look at Latin America, Brazil is the most dynamic market, with 9.9 GW installed in 2022, followed by Chile, which installed around 1.8 GW, and Mexico, with 680 MW.

The organizations analyzed (Carolina Land and Lakes, Acadia Center and Energy Trust of Oregon) promote renewable energy from a specialized, technological, educational and goal-oriented approach.

All this preliminary work has been important both for the cause of social organizations and for the expansion of an emerging sector such as solar. With these activities they have contributed to legitimizing it and making it viable. In addition to clarifying the companies’ offerings, they put pressure on public entities to establish the legal frameworks that allow them to operate and target potential clients.

Acadia Center, for example, publishes data on the positive impact of renewables on job creation and economic growth. It also designs market strategies for renewables and proposes policies to implement them.

To read the full article from The Conversation, click here.

R.I.’s carbon reduction plan is due in two months. Will there be time for public input?

Where’s the plan?

That’s the question climate and transit advocates are posing to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) as it nears a Nov. 15 deadline to submit its carbon reduction plan (CRP) to the federal government.

In a five-page letter dated Sept. 19 to RIDOT Director Peter Alviti, the group of 23 organizations spearheaded by Acadia Center Program Director Emily Koo ask that the public have a chance to provide their input on the best ways to lower emissions from vehicles.

“With less than two months remaining, we as climate advocates are concerned by the absence of [a] public process surrounding a document with such significant implications for how transportation projects will be analyzed and funded in the years and decades to come,” they wrote.

To read the full article from the Rhode Island Current, click here.

Fossil fuel company wants to expand gas pipeline in Northeast

At a time when many states in the Northeast are actively trying to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels to help fight climate change, the company that owns a major natural gas pipeline in the region wants to expand the system and bring in more fracked gas.

Dubbed “Project Maple,” the proposal from Enbridge — a large Canadian energy company with fossil fuel infrastructure throughout the U.S. — would involve substantial upgrades on the Algonquin Gas Transmission line. This pipeline runs from northern New Jersey through parts of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and into Massachusetts, where feeds into the Weymouth Natural Gas Compressor Station and then connects to another pipeline north of Boston.

“I’m skeptical of Enbridge’s claims that this project would be beneficial to the region,” said Kyle Murray, the Massachusetts program director at Acadia Center. “As we saw this past winter, with dramatic energy price spikes occurring in the natural gas market, our region is already over reliant upon natural gas for its heating and electric needs. Expanding this pipeline as the region is quickly moving to electrify its heating sources and develop more renewable generation makes little sense.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Enbridge Announces Project to Increase Northeast Pipeline Capacity

Enbridge is soliciting requests for service as part of a natural gas pipeline expansion project that would significantly increase capacity to the Northeast, the company said in an open season notice issued this month.

The company said the project would expand capacity on the Algonquin gas system by up to 500,000 Dth/d at the Ramapo, N.Y., receipt point at the western end of the pipeline and 250,000 Dth/d at the Salem, Mass., receipt point at the eastern end. The total current capacity of the Algonquin system is just over 3 million Dth/d.

Joe LaRusso, a senior advocate at Acadia Center, told RTO Insider the Maple Project likely will need to rely on firm contracts with the region’s local distribution companies to demonstrate demand for the project. Enbridge’s announcement noted that New England gas generators make up only about 6% of the contracted firm gas transportation on Algonquin, a dynamic the company called an “untenable disconnect.”

“Will the Project Maple AGTP expansion project succeed? Impossible to say,” LaRusso wrote on social media site Mastodon. “One thing IS certain: When it comes to fossil gas pipelines in New England, everything that’s old is new again.”

To read the full article from RTO Insider, click here.

Where is RIDOT’s Carbon Reduction Plan? Climate Advocates Would Like to Know

A recent letter signed by a range of local climate and community advocates wants to know where the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s Carbon Reduction Plan is hiding. They noted the development of the plan represents a critical step in tackling greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

That sector, the state’s largest source of carbon emissions, is responsible for nearly 40% of the climate-changing pollution spewed locally. In fact, between 2016 and 2019, transportation emissions increased by nearly 9%. Rhode Island is trending in the wrong direction when it comes to mitigating the climate crisis.

The 23 organizations, including Acadia Center and Grow Smart Rhode Island, that signed the 5-page letter sent to RIDOT director Peter Alviti noted transportation is at the center of strategic actions the state needs to advance to meet Act on Climate mandates.

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.

International Clean Energy Grid Coordination in the Northeast and Eastern Canada: Starting the Northeast Grid Planning Forum Dialogue

The Northeastern states and neighboring Canadian Eastern Provinces have set ambitious targets to reduce climate emissions by 2050. Fossil fuel power generation must be replaced with low and no-carbon electricity sources and electrified building heating and transportation to meet these goals. Studies show that a 4-fold or greater increase in clean energy generation is necessary to achieve these targets. Transitioning the electric power grid is central to success in our region and North America.

An essential tool the region can add to the climate toolbox would spur greater cooperation and coordination between the electric power grids on both sides of the U.S./Canada border. Acadia Center and the Quebec-based clean energy organization Nergica, with experts from both sides of the border, are convening the Northeast Grid Planning Forum for these discussions. The Northeast Grid Planning Forum will spur conversations to imagine a power grid that conducts itself according to the following public interest values:

• Reliable, efficient service.
• Attaining climate decarbonization and clean energy goals.
• Providing a respectful process for community and indigenous concerns.
• Prioritizing consumer and justice needs.

The Northeast Grid Planning Forum will bring voices to the table to address planning, investment, market design, and operational approaches that optimize clean energy supply, infrastructure, and complementary resources on both sides of the border. Currently, the region lacks a coherent planning process, resulting in uncoordinated projects that fail to align with a shared vision for the future energy system. Vulnerable communities, including low-income communities, communities of color, and non-English speaking communities, bear the brunt of these impacts.

The benefits of a better-coordinated grid include cost savings, reduced emissions, improved reliability, lower compliance costs for climate goals, expanded energy efficiency, and reduced environmental justice impacts. Coordinated grid integration would also facilitate the expansion of locally distributed clean energy, streamline opportunities presented by federal action, and provide a process for communities to be engaged in project development and siting.

The Northeast Grid Planning Forum proposes several next steps, including initiating conversations with interested entities, drafting a “bill of principles,” developing information and best practices, and outlining an outreach and messaging framework. These steps aim to build stakeholder buy-in, generate interest from decision-makers, attract investment, and ensure a socially accepted and equitable transition.

There is significant support from states, experts, regulators, and advocates in the U.S. and Canada for grid coordination. Meeting the climate goals requires an unprecedented “build-out” that demands rapid action and investment in new transmission lines and expanded distributed energy. By coordinating grid integration efforts and addressing community and stakeholder concerns, the region can leverage clean energy resources efficiently and achieve a more sustainable and equitable energy system for the future.

Why Massachusetts Needs a Clean Heat Standard

Ben Butterworth, Director of Climate, Energy, and Equity Analysis, spoke at the Building Decarbonization Coalition’s National Policy Call for Massachusetts about the Clean Heat Standard (CHS) and gas system planning. A Clean Heat Standard (CHS) is a performance standard requiring heating energy providers to replace fossil fuel heating with clean heat over time. They can do this by implementing clean heat measures, such as high-efficiency electric heat pumps or purchasing credits. A CHS requires either a gradually increasing percentage of low-emission heating services to customers over time or credits that are allocated based on the number of tons of greenhouse gas reduced. Heating energy providers include natural gas utilities, delivered fuel providers like heating oil and propane, and potentially electric utilities.

How Could Massachusetts Benefit from a CHS?

The MA Global Warming Solutions Act requires economy-wide net zero emissions by 2050 and 50% below 1990 levels by 2030. The building heat and cooling sector itself has a goal of a 49% reduction by 2030. The state’s energy efficiency program has been one of the critical drivers of building decarbonization, but more is needed. Spreading the cost of the building energy transition to natural gas, propane, and heating oil customers rather than only electric heating customers is the only sustainable way forward. A Clean Heat Standard can provide a solid boost to other efforts to decarbonize buildings, such as energy efficiency incentives, public funding and taxes, updated building codes, and fossil gas bans that take time to work.

One core challenge Massachusetts faces is not having a comprehensive plan for the future of gas systems over the next three decades. Coordination with gas system planning is vital because it allows for long-term planning that supports the least-cost pathway to net zero instead of only permitting short-term strategies that produce marginal reductions in emissions. The Future of Gas docket (DPU 20-80) attempted to create that vision, and Acadia Center was heavily involved throughout that process. The DPU has failed to rule on this issue as of September 2023. The CHS would complement strategic, geographically targeted decommissioning of the gas distribution system in a least-cost, equitable manner.

So, how does the state create an equitable CHS?

Disadvantaged communities disproportionately live in older, less efficiently heated households. These communities must be involved in the design of the CHS program. To ensure equitable design of the CHS, a “just transition fee” can be imposed on projects that don’t support equitable outcomes, “carve out” requirements for disadvantaged communities, and generate higher program incentives for equitable projects. Additionally, coordination with policy solutions outside the scope of CHS, such as rate reform, is also essential.

A Clean Heat Standard must ensure that the right clean energy technologies are promoted and that there is a straightforward way to measure the emissions impacts of the program. For example, the CHS promotes biomass heating in some states, which is a high-emitting energy choice. To meet its goals, the MA CHS must advance those new heating measures to meet the state’s climate goals.

You can watch the full webinar below.