[00:00:18] Speaker A: Welcome to Uptown Chats, a podcast where we share stories about environmental justice by and for everyday people. I'm your co host, Jarrende.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: And I'm your other co host, Lonnie.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And today we're starting to wrap up our wrong direction mini series with a special interview about cumulative impacts with Doctor Nikki Sheetz. This will be our second to last episode in this mini series, and we'll be reflecting on some of our previous episodes.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: But before we get to that, Lonnie.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Can you share WEAC's mission?
[00:00:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: We act's mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and or low income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Nailed it. So, like we said before, today's episode is about cumulative impacts. It's a big word for anyone unfamiliar with this concept of cumulative impacts. It refers to the total effect of chemical and non chemical stressors, or pollutants on a community's health being caused by a combination of factors, including some of the social determinants of health. So you think about race, economic status, other social factors, extreme weather events, chemical pollutants in the air, water, and land, and lots of other things, noise, light, and air pollution, all those things. And essentially, the negative effects of those stressors disproportionately fall on communities of color and low income communities. And this concept of cumulative impact is really at the core of what environmental justice is about. And it kind of helps highlight how different factors, different sources of stress can impact the community all at the same time. And as we discussed in previous episodes in this mini series, there are new technologies that are being invested in at the federal level, like carbon capture and storage or hydrogen and other things that are adding to this cumulative burden that communities are already experiencing.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Exactly. But fortunately, in the last couple of years, New York and New Jersey both passed laws that require cumulative impacts to be taken into account when citing facilities that create pollution, like power plants, and possibly the new technologies like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen. So New York's law was inspired by New Jersey and we act, work to pass this cumulative impacts law. And other states are working on it, too. And there is a entire campaign that we're working on right now called dismantling injustice. Dismantling injustice is a model that we act has developed in partnership with Michael Gerard, who's the director of Columbia Law School's Sabin center for Climate Change Law. And the goal of this is for the model to be used by advocacy groups to help establish a solid foundation of local and state legislation throughout the United States that tackles cumulative impacts head on. We also want to let you know that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has started the rulemaking process for implementing New York state's cumulative impacts law, which will go into effect in 2025. If you want to be part of that process and help ensure the law is effective, be sure to follow our newsletter and social media for opportunities to get involved. You can find more information in a link to a sign up for our upcoming webinar on October 16. In the show notes, one of the key players in advocating for the cumulative impacts law in New Jersey was the New Jersey Environmental Justice alliance, co founded by Doctor Nikki Sheets. In our interview with him, he'll help us unpack what cumulative impacts looks like in communities and how this new law helps protect environmental justice communities.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: So with that, let's go ahead and jump into our interview.
[00:04:00] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for joining us, Doctor Sheets. We're so excited to have you on this episode of our wrong direction mini series, and I'm grateful that we're kind of touching on this concept of, of cumulative impacts at this point. We've had a lot of episodes in this mini series up to this point, talking about different false solutions, different technologies that are a part of this wrong direction framework, things that are being invested in at the federal level that really just aren't taking us in the direction that we need to be moving for climate justice, for environmental justice. And at the heart of that is the burden it's adding to for environmental justice communities.
And you're kind of an expert on this concept of cumulative impacts. And so we're grateful to have you on this episode to really dive into it and talk more about it. So before we get too far in, can you just help us really define cumulative impacts and how you see it as a concept?
[00:04:57] Speaker E: Also, you can introduce yourself.
[00:04:59] Speaker D: Well, thanks for having me on the podcast. First of all, my name is Nikki Sheetz and I work at Kent University, which is in central New Jersey. And I run a small policy center called the center for the Urban Environment, which is part of a larger policy institute called John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research. And I'm also a member of New Jersey Environmental Justice alliance, one of the co founders years ago, and work with many EJ organizations in the state of New Jersey and around the country.
So thanks for inviting me to the podcast. I've been working on cumulative impacts for a long time. Let me give you a formal and informal definition. Formal definition. And this is one we've kind of crafted in New Jersey. There are other similar definitions. Is a cumulative impact, is the risk and impacts caused by multiple pollutants and how they interact with each other and with any social vulnerabilities that exist in the neighborhood. And these multiple pollutants are usually emitted by multiple sources of pollution. A more informal definition is think of just the total amount of pollution in the neighborhood and how all this pollution interacts with each other, how all the pollutants interact with each other, and how they also interact with social vulnerabilities. And when we say social vulnerabilities, you know, we're talking about low income, we're talking about racism, all the vulnerabilities connected with. With race, because we're talking about environmental justice neighborhoods, communities of color, communities with low income, and all the social. You know, there are a lot of social vulnerabilities attached to those kind of neighborhoods which other neighborhoods might not have, and then all the social vulnerabilities, including economic vulnerabilities, political vulnerabilities that are attached to all neighborhoods.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Great.
[00:06:53] Speaker E: I appreciate that definition. And I think what happens sometimes when it comes to these kind of concepts of, like, cumulative impact, it can kind of come across sometimes as very academic and just kind of out there and a little more abstract. Can you talk a little bit about how cumulative impact shows up kind of like on the ground in the work of environmental justice and what we're doing, and talk a little bit about the work that you've done in New Jersey to kind of realize and actualize through legislation and policy work to realize cumulative impacts.
[00:07:24] Speaker D: Well, think of especially in environmental justice neighborhoods, communities of color, low income communities. It typically shows up as multiple sources of pollution.
Think of all the polluting sources that can be in these neighborhoods. In New Jersey. We think of incinerators, sewage plants, different kinds of industry, like cement plants, and all of those same things packed into a neighborhood. And there are more of them. Hazardous waste sites. There are more of them in our communities than there are in other communities. Typically, there are more of them. So there tends to be more pollution in our communities. And while we worry about this, so more total pollution in communities, higher level of cumulative impacts. We say there are disproportionate pollution loads, often disproportionate pollution loads in communities of color and communities with low income. And why we worry about this is that these disproportionate pollution loads are one reason, not the only reason, but one reason, why we also have disparate health concerns in environmental justice communities. So disproportionate pollution loads are linked to disproportionate disease and death in environmental justice communities. And so that's why we worry about it in New Jersey. We worked on it for a long time. One day, I took a deep dive on my computer. You know, I do a lot of talking about it to put together a timeline, and I still remember this meeting. And I. And I'm pretty sure it was in 2007 when we were meeting New Jersey. And when I say we, usually, when I say we, I mean New Jersey Environmental Justice alliance. We were meeting in Camden, and we said, you know, if we don't do something about cumulative impacts, no one else is.
And we formed our first committee on cumulative impacts. It wasn't just New Jersey Environmental justice alliance, it was other groups. But we formed our first committee on it then back in 2007, and we just kept working on it. We developed policies, statewide policy, around it around 2013.
And we kept bringing up the statewide policy, which government would not implement. We developed a city ordinance, a municipal ordinance for Newark, which Newark actually adopted. You know, just kind of. Kind of kept up, kept at it. We brought it up on both the state level and national level. And in 2017, Senator Booker finally bit. He brought us a. Brought us, again, New Jersey Environmental Justice alliance, other EJ groups in New Jersey. He brought us a EJ bill he wanted to do on a national level, and it didn't have cumulative impact in it. We said, what, if you're going to do environmental justice, glad you're doing the bill. You want to do environmental justice, though, you need to put cumulative impacts in it. And we sent our statewide cumulative impacts policy to his office, and I think they gave the Legislative council, and it was incorporated into the bill, not exactly the way we had it, but it was incorporated into the bill. We spent a lot of time on that bill, had calls with EJ organizations all over the country.
And Senator Booker submitted the bill. It was not passed. It's never been passed, but it kept the conversation alive.
And this is just what we wanted. And I think prompted then work in New Jersey, a legislator in New Jersey, Senator Singleton, to actually construct a cumulative impacts bill in New Jersey that was ultimately passed in 2020. And then after that, I shouldn't stop there, because then you have to develop the regulations to implement the bill, which is just as important as the bill.
And so those were developed after a lot of work. We spent a lot of time. We, again, New Jersey EJ community, talking to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection about the regulations and they were finally.
I'm losing the years now. They were finally put in place, I guess two years ago, 2022, I think April 2022. And now we're trying to see how the law is going to be implemented. It's just starting. We're getting the first hearings on the law, so we'll see how it's going to be implemented. Try to watch overdose, try to make sure it's implemented in a way that helps to help communities.
[00:12:19] Speaker E: I think this is a good segue and kind of to the next question. It has inspired and sparked a lot of other interests across the country and a little bit more thinking about cumulative impacts when it comes to policies. You know, obviously the law in New Jersey inspired the law that's now in New York. But kind of thinking about this mini series and talking about wrong direction and false energy solution, how do you see cuneif impacts legislation kind of connecting to and potentially protecting communities from these false energy solutions?
[00:12:52] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a great question. And let me say upfront, it doesn't have to be legislation necessarily. It could be rulemaking, but it depends on whether you think the state thinks it has legal authority to do the rulemaking without passing new legislation.
And that could be a strategic decision made by the environmental justice group. That is like advocating around human pacts. So false solutions. So I immediately think of climate change policy, climate change mitigation policy. And the EJ community, I think, has uniquely, even though more people are kind of coming on board now, but has kind of uniquely said that climate change mitigation policy should not just be about fighting climate change right now. We want to fight climate change because our community is hit, as we say, first and worst by climate change, by the detrimental impacts of climate change. But we also want to use it to fight the cumulative impacts. We're talking about the local pollution, the local disproportionate levels of pollution that we often find in environmental justice communities. And why we want to use climate change mitigation policy is one the energy infrastructure. We normally think of power plants. But, you know, all the things that are. That are contributing to climate change, they not only admit the climate change causing pollutants, usually carbon dioxide, but they also admit other.
In the vernacular of climate change mitigation policy, we call co pollutants, things like airborne particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and they go into making up the local disproportionate pollution loads. So we want climate change mitigation policy to fight not only climate change, reduce carbon dioxide, but just as importantly for us is to reduce these other local air pollutants emitted alone to carbon dioxide that are making people sick and causing higher levels of death as we speak.
So that is kind of a kind of unique view of crime change mitigation policy. I think that we have been largely responsible for introducing that. I won't say we're the only ones think about that. Other people have, but I think we have been really kind of focused on that. Often what we have termed false solutions, things like ccs, carbon capture and sequestration of storage, hydrogen co firing, to some degree, carbon trading, you know, market based mechanisms can. Pure market based mechanisms. We really want climate change mitigation policy to guarantee emissions reductions of these other pollutants.
And some of these other solutions do not.
Carbon trading may give you some emissions reductions in EJ communities, but it's not guaranteed.
And the worst case scenario, carbon trading and ccs and hydrogen cofiing actually increase local pollutants.
And there is, you know, hot debate on all of these methods, whether they actually decrease carbon, whether they actually work to decrease carbonous. But even if they do work, let's just say for argument's sake, they do work in decreased carbon, they could still harm environmental justice communities by increasing the local pollution.
Now, and there are other things like people don't like, say about carbon trading. It commodifies the atmosphere. CCS may prolong the life of the fossil fuel industry, and, you know, other portions of it that DJ advocates generally don't like. But a lot of the focus has been on their ability and possibility to increase local air pollution. So that's kind of the substantive reason we want to use climate change mitigation policy to fight the local air pollution, because the energy infrastructure, the way it is now, contributes to it. But also there is some political will to fight climate change, and there are efforts to fight climate change. So I argue also that we should use that political will to, you know, there's a moment in time where we can use that political will to fight climate change, to also benefit environmental justice communities on the local level. And so we should take advantage of that opportunity. And if we don't take advantage of it now, I'm afraid that we may miss it.
So that's how, that's how we kind of connect the climate change mitigation fight false solutions to climate change mitigation policy.
Now, let me add this to be more specific.
On the federal level, and I don't know if Ana, if Doctor Baptista talked about this, but on the federal level right now, their EPA has passed part of a rule and is considering passing more, the remainder of the rule to fight climate change.
It has to do with power plants, and it is promoting CCS.
And so we're worried about that. As I said before, CCS runs the risk of increasing co pollutant emissions. So what we're trying to do is convince the federal government to integrate a cumulative impact policy into the rule. Well, first of all, we said don't use ccs, but if you're going to use CCS, then integrated cumulative impacts policy in the rule that would protect environmental justice communities, overburdened environmental justice communities from the risk of ccs increasing corporations.
So we're still talking to EPA and organizing around that.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: I appreciate the way that you framed that. I think you did two things really well, that I appreciate. One, just helping understand how the environmental justice framing is fitting into this moment, this momentum that's been built around, like you said, the political will to address climate change and treating it as kind of not an either or, but a yes and yes, let's deal with the climate mitigation and use that momentum to address these environmental justice concerns. All this investment especially, and all this investment in energy infrastructure, let's use that to benefit these communities that have been burdened and impacted for so long. But then also tying this thread through all these different technologies that we've talked about and mentioning them, you know, the carbon capture and storage. And this is basically a reminder for all of our listeners, if you haven't listened to those episodes, definitely go back and do that. We have a nice deep dive with Doctor underbabtista about carbon capture and storage. So I really appreciate that framing. And I'm curious, you know, we talked about how this New Jersey cumulative impacts law is in this implementation phase and really trying to understand what that's going to look like. And I'm curious, one, what you're anticipating as, like you said, it's the verdict still out to see what that impact's going to be, what you're maybe anticipating some of those challenges and maybe opportunities that come along with implementation of that law. But then also I had a second piece of it and I lost it. So I'm going to come back to that. I'm going to let you start with that. Hopefully your answer will help jog my memory. But yeah, what do you see as we're kind of shifting into this implementation phase of that law?
[00:20:54] Speaker D: So you're talking about climate change, the law in general, or climate change mitigation in particular with the law, the false solutions?
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Why not both? Yeah. If you want to tie that in as well, I think that would be interesting. But, yeah, just thinking about some of those challenges and opportunities that come along with, now that you're in the implementation phase of this law, how does that maybe. Yeah. Create opportunities to address some of those concerns?
[00:21:17] Speaker D: Maybe, you know, the law should, is intended to address disproportionate pollution loads in EJ communities. You know, by saying that if a proposed plant, proposed facility would contribute to pollution in a neighborhood, and that pollution level is higher in environmental justice neighborhood, communities of color, low income neighborhood than in other communities in New Jersey, then you can't do that. You won't get a pollution permit for that new facility.
Now, for an existing facility, it says, if the facility is in a community of color, low income neighborhood and is contributing to higher levels of pollution in that neighborhood than other communities, then it won't be shut down.
But New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection can put conditions on the permit to try to limit and reduce that pollution. So in general, it's supposed to hopefully protect overburdened environmental justice communities from additional source of pollution and hopefully ratchet down existing pollution.
So if you think of a power plant, and this will be interesting with power plants, it should certainly protect EJ communities from new power plants if they're going to contribute higher levels of pollution.
How will it work on existing power plants that may want to add ccs or may want to introduce. We haven't talked about hydrogen co fire, that's mixing hydrogen into the fuel source of a power plant and burn hydrogen. So on existing plants, there's several questions we have to ask.
If you want to add hydrogen co firing or ccs, will the law stop that from happening?
If either one will increase co pollutants?
To me, that will be kind of a test of the law and a test of us, frankly, and a test of the state whether we really want to protect these communities. So I think we can see ways that the law could do that. We're certainly going to argue that it does do that and should do that legally. Can do that, and I'll keep it positive, you know, believe that it will, but will be tested.
You know, one thing I didn't add when I talked earlier about climate change mitigation policy, a climate change mitigation policy that only focuses on carbon dioxide, that's what we're talking about, is a problem. And those are the existing policies, frankly. And we call it, I've heard different terms for it, but we generally call it carbon dioxide reductionism. And, you know, that's why we're introducing the concern about co pollutants and local air pollution into that. So hopefully, the law will operate and protect overburdened EJ communities from kind of climate change mitigation methodologies that we think are problematic.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: That makes sense. I remembered my question. I think you already kind of touched on it, but I'll say it anyway in case you have anything to add to it. But yeah, as New Jersey cumulative impacts, and now the New York one as well, kind of in past and I guess, being implemented. And there's, like we've talked about so far, these investments at the federal level and this energy infrastructure, how do you see the balance there? I guess as the implementation is happening at the state level, does it seem responsive to these investments at the federal level, as the implementation is taking place? Is it like, okay, well, we want to factor in how there might be changes in the landscape of this infrastructure based on the investments. Or are they kind of treating it separately? What does that look like? Because they're kind of happening simultaneously. So I'm just kind of curious what that looks like. Yeah, you kind of touched on a little bit, but I'm not sure if you had anything you wanted to add.
[00:25:35] Speaker D: Well, the investments at the federal level are kind of a two edged sword. They present a lot of opportunities for EJ communities. I mean, in amount possible investment, in just amounts we've never had access to before. And so hopefully, communities can use those investments as they see, you know, as they see fit to improve their local conditions. But there are also investments there for ccs and hydrogen that can harm EJ communities, too. So along with investments, we really need policy development at the federal level to protect EJ communities. And I think that has been lacking. And we still need a lot of policy development to make sure those investments are used in a way that helps EJ communities and doesn't harm EJ communities. Now, at the state level, since we don't have, I would argue anyway, that federal infrastructure that will definitely protect EJ communities, then the state level becomes a backstop. Well, not even a backstop. It becomes a front stop in efforts to protect DJ communities. So hopefully, we have the best of both worlds. Then hopefully we have those investments at the federal level that can really help potential to help DJ communities. And then at the state level, at least New Jersey, New York, and some other states, we'll have the policy there that will protect the EJ communities from investments for the funds being invested in a way that we don't agree with. There is one thing I want to add to. We hope the law protects these jay communities. But New Jersey were also redeveloped in New Jersey. And other people contributed to this. And not just contribute thought about this. Also the concern over co pollutants. Other people have had this concern also. But we've developed a policy we call mandatory misproduction. Where we say that plants located in environmental justice communities or overburdened environmental justice communities should be forced to reduce their emissions as part of climate change mitigation policy.
And we're really trying to get at the coal pollutants.
We want to force reduction of these cold pollutants along with the carbon dioxide. You know, that would be our go to policy. If we can get that aimed specifically at climate change mitigation policy in New Jersey, then that should hopefully also take care of the risk we see coming from the false solutions. But then if we can't get that kind of affirmative policy implemented, then hopefully the EJ law will protect EJ communities anyway. And I think there are similar policies talked about in EJ groups in New York, California, I think, kind of similar efforts.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Thanks for that.
[00:28:56] Speaker E: I was just also being aware of time and everything. I think you captured and answered all of the questions that we kind of had. And I really appreciate you coming on to help really thread the needle with us on how cumulative impacts connects to kind of the wrong direction work that we have going on throughout the country.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: At the federal level.
[00:29:16] Speaker E: And also like, what's going on at kind of state and local levels as well. And the need for the call for policy, I think, is always kind of something that I'm thinking about, too. And looking at, as someone who works on the policy team, is how are we making sure that there are multiple policies that get at all of the different root causes and problems that create a cumulative impact to begin with? And then also, how does that relate to the climate crisis and reducing our reliance on things like fossil fuel? But there's got to be. There's multiple things that have to happen. There's multiple different pieces of legislation and policy and rulemaking, and it kind of all has to happen at the same time, as opposed to, there's not going to be one big solution that's going to just solve all of this. There's not going to be one policy or legislation that can do that. So I appreciate you putting that into the conversation as well as we come to the end of our mini series and talking a little bit more about a just transition. And what does that actually look like to kind of combat all of these false solutions that we talked about.
[00:30:15] Speaker D: Well, both of you are prompted ideas in my head, too. So thanks for doing that. Remind me to say something. Lonnie, what you just said, I think is important that we don't view the law in New Jersey as like a silver bullet that would take care of all of environmental justice problems and, you know, cumulative impacts.
And when I present, I usually say this, you can fight cumulative impacts. I would argue to you that there's going to be at least two general ways to fight cumulative impacts. One is going to be policy, laws, regulations, whatever. They use the concept of cumulative impacts itself to fight cumulative impacts. That's like the law in New Jersey and the law in New York.
But then I think you're going to need these other policies to work with it that look at the different types of pollution that go into making up the high levels, cumulative impacts in EJ communities and disproportionate pollution loads and develop policies that go directly to those types of pollution. So that's what we're trying to do with the mandatory mis reduction. Right. We're looking at. At the pollution that is contributed by the power sector in particular. And that'll work, hopefully, with the. If we can get this kind of regulation of law, legislation passed, I'll work with the New Jersey EJ law. So we've kind of coined the terms that you're going to need cumulative policies to address cumulative impacts.
And the other thing is not just the cumulative policies.
And I challenge myself with this also.
How do we make sure that you're connecting these policies and the communities are involved in developing these policies, or at least a positive, reflecting the concerns of the community.
You know, how do we kind of, can we take affirmative steps to ensure that? And that's a challenge to the EJ movement, you know, to not only do the policy, but don't do it in isolation, don't do it in a vacuum. Make sure you're connected to communities when you're doing the policy. And to every extent possible, they're helping and you're connected, you know, to those. To those communities, which for WEAC, you know, we act, is rooted in the community in North Harlem. But New Jersey EJ alliance, we're a statewide organization. So we don't just come out of one community. So that's a little bit tougher for us. But, you know, I think that's a challenge for all of us in EJ movement that are doing. They're doing policy, trying to do each day policy.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: I appreciate that I always like to touch on that. Anytime I've ever given a presentation about environmental justice, I always, you know, like, just like you framed it, I like to touch on the two pieces. It's the what are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? Like the law, the policy, you know, that the outcome piece of it. And what's the procedural justice piece like? How are we involving people and making sure that they are shaping the landscape of their community? And I appreciate that is a nice reminder that that's there, and that's an important part of the work that we do. So thank you. I appreciate that. That's a nice summation of our conversation, and I appreciate your closing thoughts. And I feel like this really nicely fits into our mini series. Just a bit of foreshadowing. Our next and finally, the last episode of this miniseries, we'll be talking about just transition. Lonnie kind of alluded to a little bit, but thinking forward a little bit. You know, we spent a lot of time talking about the false solutions in the wrong direction. We're going to tease a little bit about, you know, how can we look forward and think about what's on the horizon and how do we get to this place that you've kind of described? Doctor? She told a little bit about this place that we're getting, where we have this nice cumulative structure to address cumulative impacts in a cohesive way and bring benefits, not just undo the harms, but bring benefits to communities that have been historically impacted by pollution.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. Make sure to check out our next and last episode of this wrong direction mini series on October 28. We'll be reflecting on our previous episodes and thinking forward to what's on the horizon for environmental justice. If you liked this episode, make sure to rate and review the show on whatever platform you listen on. If you've already done that, thank you so much.
[00:34:48] Speaker C: And if you have thoughts about the.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Show, we encourage you to reach out to us with your thoughts and
[email protected].
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Dot check out weact on Facebook.
That's w e a c t f o r e j on Instagram. X YouTube at weact four ej. That's w e a c t number for EJ. And check out our website, weact.org, for more information about environmental justice.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Until next time.
