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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. As the Democratic Convention kicks off today, one of the issues that vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is centering is Environmental Justice. Just this month, she introduced the bill called the Climate Equity Act based on a previous bill she had introduced last year in the Senate, along with New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in the House. The bill emphasizes the disproportionate public health impact of pollution in low-income communities of color.

Now, this happens to coincide with some traditionally, mostly white environmental groups, we visiting their pasts as well as their current missions. The Sierra Club, for example, last month, issued a statement about this. This is from The Washington Post story about this on July 22nd. Listen to this, says, "As Confederate statues fall across the country, Sierra Club Executive Director, Michael Brune said in an early morning post on the group's website, 'It's time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club's early history.' Refers to John Muir, the patron Saint of The American Wilderness as he is sometimes called, who fought to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Forest".

"He wants to refer to African-Americans", according to this Washington Post story as lazy, "Sambo, that racist pejorative that many black people consider to be as offensive as the N-word. While recounting a legendary walk from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, Muir described native Americans he encountered as dirty." This article goes on in The Washington Post, "Muir's friendships in the early 1900 were equally troubling. The Sierra Club said, 'Henry Fairfield Osborn, a close associate, led the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, and following Muir's death, helped establish the American Eugenics Society, which labeled non-white people, including Jews at the time as inferior".

You get the idea from The Washington Post on July 22nd. With me now is one of America's great environmental justice activists. It's been 32 years since Peggy Shepard founded the group known as WE ACT originally for West Harlem environmental action, now WE ACT for Environmental Justice. She has since won many awards, served as the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council for the U.S. EPA, worked internationally as well. This year was appointed chair of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Environmental Justice advisory board in New York City. Peggy, great to talk to you again, thanks for coming on WNYC during an important week.

Peggy Shepard: Wonderful to be here. I listen to you every day. It's great to be on.

Brian: I'm so glad to hear that, Peggy. Can I start on the news? Are you familiar with Kamala Harris's Climate Equity Act?

Peggy: Absolutely. I had a chance to visit her office as she was beginning to think about developing this Equity Act and we were able to provide some recommendations, but it's a great act that I hope happens within their first hundred days, if we're lucky enough for that. It really aims to center accountability and equity impact in federal climate and environmental action. It would really be a screen for all climates legislation and policy to ensure that frontline communities have a seat at the table.

Brian: I see that Joe Biden also released a platform position last month called a Plan to Secure Environmental Justice and Equitable Opportunity in a Clean Energy Future. That's just the title. That's not the plan. It sets a goal of 40% of clean energy spending, going to disadvantaged communities. What kinds of spending would that be if you happen to know?

Peggy: Certainly. That would include some very strong infrastructure development in frontline communities. It would include developing affordable housing that is energy efficient. It would include subsidizing some energy bills for low-income households. It would really make a strong difference and I should say that it's modeled on the New York State Climate and Community Protection Act. Which also directs 40% investment to frontline environmental justice community. New York, has really been a policy leader.

Brian: Now, as it happens, there's other environmental news just this morning, I don't know if you've seen this yet. The Trump administration released its plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and he caused the Democratic ticket anti-energy. Does the Arctic Wildlife Refuge have an environmental justice angle to it or has added another category?

Peggy: No, absolutely. In fact, he's been threatening to do this for most of his administration. It absolutely has an environmental justice impact. We work with groups in Alaska and there are many indigenous populations that really depend on their subsistence for the Caribou who are there, for fishing. As it is, in terms of climate change, they're already having to relocate from the oceanfront because of rising seas. To allow exploration in the Arctic region really would mean wildlife diminishing that indigenous folks depend on, and their lifestyle would be very, very changed.

Brian: Now, Trump would say, "Republican approaches to energy are better for equity because they create lots of private-sector jobs in oil and other industries. The U.S. is the leading exporter of natural gas now, where we were once importers of energy, and the Biden Harris plan to end or limit fracking and the use of coal", he would say, "Only make more expensive the energy that people need to buy, including poor people, obviously, with an extra burden from that and eliminates jobs that the private sector is creating to replace them with an energy sector more dependent on government tax dollars." What would your response be to any of that?

Peggy: We believe that a green new deal, and that much of the Biden plan really is focused on bringing hundreds of thousands of new jobs through an inclusive-and-empowering-all-government approach that really will focus decisions driven by data and science, and will, certainly, ensure that we are creating new wind and moving new wind power, moving waste from fossil fuel dependence. We believe that that will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs to a new energy-efficient future.

Brian: Does all of this suggest a change in the relationship over time of the environmental justice movement to the economic justice movement? I think in the past, there was more of a sense that energy environmentalism might hurt the economy at least in the short run, but it was necessary for something ambiguously called the Planet. Now we have the green new deal, which even in its title, merges environmental and economic justice. In a way that I'm not sure people thought about a generation ago.

Peggy: The National Environmental Justice movement, which has been active over 30 some years, has always centered the economy in our communities as well. It might not be something-- a lot of people are just hearing about environmental justice now, but we've always talked about environmental and economic justice because both are inseparable.

You mentioned Trump talking about job development. If you look down in New Orleans, in the Cancer Alley Corridor you have hundreds of miles of chemical and oil refineries, but guess what? None of the people in those communities have jobs there. The whole idea is that Trump is going to create jobs. It doesn't create jobs for people of color living in frontline communities. The Biden plan centers those frontline communities for jobs, for Good Union jobs, for apprenticeship programs to really move people into family-sustaining jobs. His energy program is really centering on job creation. I think that's a very big difference between the Trump plan which, of course, not only is not improving jobs for people of color, but it's also which 98 rollbacks of environmental regulations, is just creating more pollution in the communities that are already disproportionately impacted. Of course, we see that with COVID-19 and I think it's really highlighted air pollution and environmental justice issues when we see that folks living in polluted communities are dying, especially people of color and African-Americans, at twice or three times the rate of white residents.

I believe that COVID-19 has really highlighted the impact of a poor environment's health outcomes. We know that over 71% of Latinx people live in non-attainment areas within clean air standards and over 70% of African-Americans. We can understand now why there is glaring health disparities, and why these communities are dying of COVID-19 at a higher rate.

Brian: Listeners, we invite you to call in and ask Peggy Shepard anything about environmental justice or tell us something about it that you're thinking to be it a local issue if you're in the New York area, or local to wherever you happen to be, or a national green new deal issue. 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280 for Peggy Shepard founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. She's been at this since 1988 and has become so prominent. As she points out where there's now more people awareness than it ever was before and suddenly, for a lot of Americans over the last few years, let's say, this thing called environmental justice. It's not new, but it's newly being centered.

646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. We invite you to call in or tweet a question or a comment at @brianlehrer. Peggy, what do you think of the Sierra Club announcement on the racism of its founder John Muir? Were you surprised that they came out so explicitly?

Peggy: Michael Brune, who's the president of Sierra Club, has been very active in promoting environmental justice and promoting a stronger climate platform that centers equity. It doesn't surprise me that he's done that. Of course, those of us in the environmental justice movement have known about John Muir and talked about this for decades. I believe that there has been a coming-to-Jesus moment for many of the big green organizations who have not centered people of color in their organizations. Of course, that's a whole other issue when we think about the lack of diversity in green groups. You probably know there's been a green 2.0 report that looks at the state of diversity in environmental organizations.

Michael Brune and many, many others having issuing statements around Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd death, and we all see a change in how the green groups are developing diversity strategies, improving their hiring. There has been an improvement in hiring, the problem is that they're leaking talent and it's not been able to necessarily sustain the recruitment of people of color for a variety of reasons.

The Sierra Club's admission does not surprise me. Also, I think, their last two or three chairs of the board had been people of color. An African-American, Erin Mayor, from Albany, right here in New York, and Ramon Cruz, who is Puerto Rican board chair. Again, having that diversity at the top levels of the organization I think has really set organizations to be better.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Debbie, in Lacey, New Jersey you're on WNYC with Peggy Shepard. Hi Debbie.

Debbie: Hello. I am writing an environmental Bible study book for my church. I guess what I'm encountering as I talk to people and try to get people's views on the topic is quite a few people believe that either man is not responsible for the environment or that we don't have any responsibility to do anything about it because this is maybe God's plan, what God had proposed or told in revelations, so they don't want to take any responsibility for it or don't even see it as a problem. What do you recommend for talking to people in a church setting about the [chuckles] environment? How to get them to understand the issue and understand their responsibility?

Peggy: Well, in many denominations there is this concept of creation theory. If you really go back to the Bible, as many denominations do so thoroughly, I think many parishioners will see that the Bible, and God, and Jesus have really discussed the idea of maintaining a sustainable earth, and maintaining the eco-diversity and the biodiversity of our planet. I think that when faith leaders really go directly back to the Bible and teach those aspects, that it should be influential to many of those churchgoers and people of faith.

Brian: Jane in Great Neck­­­­ you're on WNYC with Peggy Shepard. Hi Jane.

Jane: Hi there, thank you for taking my call. I have a question about the concept of life-cycle costs. In other words, if you look at the Wildlife Refuge or look at the areas of Louisiana that your guests referred to, the concept of how you repair the damage doesn't seem to be factored into how much this is costing our country. It seems to be more prominent in Europe that they take into consideration the life-cycle costs, so that's really my question. How does she view that?

Peggy: Well, we view that as very, very important, especially we have a lot of activists working on toxics and chemicals. The chemical lobby and the business lobby has been very adamant about really holding forth, not testing. As you know, our federal government tests only a handful of chemicals, so we really have a problem with the chemical and business industry that will not focus on safety. Looking at the life cycle of our products is very important, as you said, it's very active in Europe, but we have not been able to make that happen. Hopefully, with a new administration, we can begin to look at enforcement and studies around some of these chemicals, and looking at the life cycle of our product. Certainly, there's been a lot more emphasis on this in terms of plastics and the plastic pollution that we're all living with.

Brian: To that point, when you say life-cycle and when the caller says life-cycle of a product, you're talking about building into the cost of a product the cost of disposing of the product, eventually, and of its packaging, rather than leaving that to the tax rolls down the line, right?

Peggy: Exactly, or leaving it to a landfill or to exporting it to a third world country, which doesn't have the regulations to ensure protection of its residents.

Brian: There it becomes an environmental justice issue again. We have to take a break, we'll come back back and finish up with Peggy Shepard. More of your phone calls. Stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk with Peggy Shepard, founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice as one of our guests for this first day of the Democratic Convention with Kamala Harris, just recently introducing a Climate Equity Act before being named the running mate of Joe Biden and environmental justice issues being centered more than in the past. Including with the Sierra Club and other traditionally mostly white environmental groups coming out and acknowledging past-racism in their own groups, so that's another thing that's happening this summer. Diane in Park Slope, you're on WNYC. Hi, Diane.

Diane: Hi. How are you, Brian?

Brian: Good, thank you for calling.

Diane: I'm calling because I do feel it's just so difficult for the average person, whoever that might be, to relate to a lot of these environmental concerns. I hear a report today, what's going on in Alaska, and it's horrible and then I forget about it. To me, it feels analogous to the war in Vietnam that, once the draft was ended, there's a lot less in terms of protest, and concern, and focus on sending people to war because it's so far out there. So many white middle-class people, they don't go into the army, people who basically have little choice are people who volunteer. It's out there, it's somewhere far away. I think this is something Gore struggled with, how do you make the environmental justice more immediate?

Brian: Seen more relevant to people. More immediate to people who are more comfortable. It's a essential question Peggy, isn't it?

Peggy: It absolutely is. There's a little more media attention in the last few months on environmental justice concerns, but believe me, if the media would help folks tell their stories from the front line, believe me, you would find that the Flint water crisis is just one of the incredible issues that are happening around this country in every state and every city. The problem is the lack of exposure and media attention to those issues that people are living with every day.

The legacy of pollution in this country is incredible. The 98 rollbacks from the Trump administration have helped increased air pollution, water pollution, whether it's in urban communities or rural communities. I think the messaging of the environmental community can be better, especially around climate. You hear a lot about reducing greenhouse gases, we hear a lot about carbon sequestration and reductions by certain dates, but we don't hear a lot about legacy pollution. We don't hear a lot about connecting climate change with the values of everyday people and the concerns of everyday people because climate and environmental issues impact every aspect of our lives. We're not always able to articulate that and understand that, but that is a fact and [crosstalk] again to message.

Brian: We have 30 seconds Peggy, who do you think is going to talk about environmental justice from the podium, or from their homes or wherever they're doing their speeches from at the Democratic Convention this week? Is anyone assigned to it as far as you know?

Peggy: Absolutely. I'm really happy to be on a Climate and Environmental panel, which is Tuesday from 4:00 to 8:00. Governor Inslee, who's been great on these issues, will be talking about climate change. We have a whole stellar line-up of candidates-- not candidates, but elected officials and activists who will be talking about these issues, so tune in.

Brian: Peggy Shepard, founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Thanks a lot, Peggy. We really appreciate it.

Peggy: All right. Bye-bye.

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