On the environment: ‘We speak for ourselves’

After four years of the Donald Trump administration, our country has experienced a rollback of public transparency and public input in the regulations that protect our environment and communities.

The incoming administration can turn the tide on this trend and build back better with a diverse team that reflects under-represented environmental justice communities. Los Jardines Institute supports the selection of U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as secretary for the Department of the Interior, announced Thursday, and we endorse the nomination of Cecilia Martinez to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Recognized by the Obama administration as a White House Champion of Change in 2016 for advancing climate equity, Martinez has a wealth of experience advising multiple agencies, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Energy. Her input has been crucial on everything from scientific technical guidance on health tracking and biomonitoring of environmental health hazards to climate finance mechanisms and interagency cooperation on environmental policy.

We have spent several decades fighting for environmental and economic justice. President-elect Joe Biden has a historic opportunity to accelerate progress on environmental justice issues through laws and by nominating Martinez to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Environmental justice communities, communities of color, Indigenous communities and economically oppressed communities have suffered a disproportionate burden of environmental degradation and pollution. Study after study has demonstrated this, but only modest progress has been made since President Bill Clinton signed an executive order to address environmental justice disparities.

While the EPA is the center of environmental regulations, regulatory decisions that adversely impact communities have come from nearly every agency in the federal system. To truly and finally begin to comprehensively address environmental justice, Biden must nominate someone who truly understands the plight of environmental justice communities to the Council on Environmental Quality, an entity tasked with harmonizing environmental policy across the federal government.

We can think of nobody more up to that task than Martinez. She has been at the forefront of scholarship around issues of environmental injustice and inequality since the 1980s. Martinez also has a long record of working directly with grassroots, community-based environmental justice organizations. We have direct working experience with her in a process that brought together activists and national environmental groups to develop the Equitable and Just Climate Platform.

A central tenet of environmental justice principles is that “we speak for ourselves.” With Martinez as chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, we are confident that environmental justice communities across the nation will have a champion who will ensure our voices are heard on federal policies that deeply impact our communities.