Yesterday, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held an important hearing about the impacts of climate change on communities of color. We heard testimony from several expert witnesses, including Martin Luther King III and Professor Eileen Gauna of the University of New Mexico. Calling climate change the “defining issue of our time,� witnesses urged Congress and the Administration to take swift action to reduce emissions in a manner which protects vulnerable communities in the United States and abroad.

This hearing was important because environmental justice communities and other low-income communities are not only impacted by changes to the climate and energy policy, but could also be impacted by a national global warming policy. For example, estimates show that global warming legislation that would reduce emissions by 15 percent could lead to a $750 to $1,000 increase in household costs per year for low income families. But, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, increased costs to low-income families can be eliminated by auctioning emissions allowances and channeling just 14 percent of the revenue generated to low-income families.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration continues to bury its head in the sand, organizing summits to discuss “aspirational goals� and delaying real action. This denial of the science is particularly damaging to environmental justice communities who are already on the front lines of cumulative environmental exposures. For example, five and one half million Latinos and 68 percent of all African Americans live within the range where health impacts from power plants are the most severe. More than 70 percent of African Americans and Latinos live in counties that violate federal air pollution standards. Climate change poses additional, significant risks to the health and economic security of these communities.

Today we face the twin challenge of developing a domestic mandatory emission reduction plan that protects vulnerable communities, while ensuring that the process to develop this plan is as diverse as those it will impact. As policymakers, it is morally imperative that the policy adopted protects all vulnerable communities, not the aggregate. This policy must re-invest in our underserved communities, not in multinational corporations. And we must develop this plan with our underserved communities at the table.

I am proud that Chairman Markey gave representatives of our diverse communities an opportunity to have their voices heard. I look forward to continuing this dialogue, and to developing domestic and international policies that acknowledge the effects of our nation’s energy policy and climate change on vulnerable communities. I hope the Bush Administration and my Republican colleagues will join us.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:57 am and is filed under Politics, Energy/Environment .