it is important to recognize that governments seldom initiate action to address environmental problems. Governments generally respond to outside pres… - Beverly Wright

On liquefied natural gas, the majority of the places where they want to put liquefied gas facilities are in poor and minority communities. So the same group of people is now being asked to bear the burden of our transition [from fossil fuels]. What kind of transition is that for communities?

Any project that moves forward should be inclusive of three things: It will not harm communities. It will not contribute to the climate crisis. And it will not perpetuate racially disproportionate burdens of pollution. Any program that we bring in to solve the problem must have these three principles embedded in it so we don’t make the same mistakes.

Environmental justice becomes a major point of contention for us in that we have to ask the question: if we were in Boston, for example, in an area that was mostly white, how long would it take for them to clean up that city? We were promised initially that in three months the Army Corps of Engineers would come in. It would take them three months to remove the topsoil and sweep the streets clean so that we can return. Then, all of the sudden, the whole discussion about contaminants completely disappeared, but the contaminants are still here.