Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s Climate Record: A Focus on Justice | Article

In the United States today, people of color and low-income people are disproportionately likely to be exposed to dangerous air pollutants. People of color make up more than half of those living close to toxic waste disposal sites, are more likely to have their children suffer from fatal lead poisoning, and have historically received less federal financial assistance in the wake of natural disasters.

During the 116th Congress (2019-2020), Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who was the junior senator from California at the time, sponsored four bills that focused on climate and environmental justice to address such disparities. Harris also co-sponsored eight resolutions and 24 bills aimed at limiting pollution, enhancing wildlife conservation, and addressing climate change. We’ve taken a closer look at the four bills she sponsored below.

Water Justice Act

Approximately 43 percent of school districts have water supplies that have tested positive for lead, and 13 million households rely on water from wells not subject to federal regulation or tested for contaminants. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the nation’s water infrastructure a “D” grade and estimates that $1 trillion in investments over 25 years is needed to bring the infrastructure up to standards. In 2016, 15 million Americans experienced a water shutoff due to nonpayment, with the highest shutoff rates disproportionately concentrated in low-income communities. Water issues in the United States range from contaminants and public health impacts to infrastructure and affordability.

The Water Justice Act (S.2466) sponsored by Harris, aimed to reshape U.S. water policies in order to ensure a supply of "safe, affordable, and sustainable" water for all Americans. Then-Senator Harris introduced this legislation as the Senate counterpart of H.R.4033 sponsored by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who represents Flint, Michigan, one of the highest-profile examples of the failure to provide clean water to communities.

The legislation focuses on a range of major federal investments in water security, including the management of stormwater, wastewater, and drinking water. Grants would be directed to a suite of water supply, recycling, and conservation programs, ranging from studying the need for new regulations on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS—manmade industrial chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer) to funding investments in water efficiency and conservation block grant programs. One major new program would identify “environmentally at-risk households”—households facing heightened environmental risks from hazards like a nearby toxic pollution site or highly contaminated water—and disburse grants to aid these households with contaminated water remediation.

Environmental Justice for All Act

Harris introduced the Senate counterpart of the Environmental Justice For All Act (S.4401) in July 2020. The House bill (H.R.5986), released earlier in 2020, resulted from extensive listening sessions with environmental justice advocates and stakeholders—the first federal effort of its kind with the environmental justice community.

The stories told during on-going stakeholder engagements are intensely personal and expose the profound depth of the environmental inequities and harms that persist in the United States today. Sharon Lavigne, a local activist with Rise Saint James in Louisiana, for example, shared that pollution from nearby oil refineries and petrochemical facilities regularly made many of her friends and family seriously ill.

The bill would update the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by prohibiting discrimination based on “disparate impacts” on race, color, or national origin, overturning the Supreme Court case Alexander v. Sandoval (2001). Under the interpretation of the Civil Rights Act put forth in Sandoval, a disparate impact created by the decisions of an entity or individual is not sufficient grounds for the impacted individuals to seek legal remedy through the court system. The Environmental Justice for All Act would explicitly legalize the “private right of action.” This provision would open an important new channel for environmental justice communities to seek redress.

The bill would also strengthen environmental regulations and procedures to incorporate environmental justice into a wide range of policy decisions. It would require federal agencies to incorporate environmental justice considerations into their rulemaking and strategies and to collaborate through an interagency environmental justice working group, as originally laid out in the Clinton administration’s Executive Order 12898.

The Environmental Justice for All Act would enhance procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act to require consideration of impacts on environmental justice communities, build out disclosures of environmental impact findings, and require early and meaningful community consultation for projects with environmental impacts. The bill would also boost requirements for assessments of the “cumulative impacts” of development decisions—considering not only the immediate impacts of those decisions, but how those decisions interact with past and present development patterns and resulting environmental impacts.

Climate Equity Act of 2020

Together with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), then-Senator Harris introduced the Climate Equity Act of 2020 (S.4513/H.R.8019) after a year-long set of listening sessions with representatives of communities facing disparate impacts from environmental and climate injustices. The bill aims to ensure that the federal government is accountable and responsive to the interests of frontline communities by establishing two new federal offices within the legislative and executive branches. A Climate and Environmental Equity Office within the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would prepare an analysis of any bill related to environmental or climate change areas that is reported on by a Congressional committee, in a similar fashion to the reviews already conducted by the CBO. The analysis would include the impact of proposed legislation on frontline communities, and would provide each proposed bill with an equity score. A new Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would measure the costs of proposed federal regulations to frontline communities and consider alternatives in order to minimize environmental impacts.

Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act of 2019

Superfund sites are areas contaminated with hazardous substances registered with and monitored by the federal government. Under current law, some remedial actions to clean up Superfund sites are allowed to leave hazardous material at the site, and a review every five years is required to ensure that these sites do not pose a danger to human and environmental health. The Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act of 2019 (S.2893) would require that these reviews account for the extra dangers posed by natural disasters exacerbated by climate change (i.e., climate risks), thus mitigating the possibility of increased risk of exposure to these toxic substances.

While Vice President-elect Harris made important strides to put environmental justice at the forefront of the national agenda while she was in the Senate, introducing legislation is only the first step. Harris now has the opportunity to continue to prioritize environmental and climate justice across the federal government as Vice President.

Author: Joseph Glandorf