In New Orleans east, we have one supermarket. I went to the supermarket yesterday. I could get no lettuce, you know, no fruit…all the fruit gone. It … - Beverly Wright

When you looked at the map, the only areas that they were talking about not rebuilding were areas where the African-American population was about 75 to 80 percent. That was New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward.

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.

Any climate bill has to deal with both repairing EJ communities and reducing climate change. The fact of the matter is that they go hand in hand, because one of the reasons that we are the way we are is because of what we’ve done to communities of color across this country — putting fossil fuel industry facilities in our communities, not caring about our health or our lives, that’s why we’re here. We can’t move forward without addressing that.