[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to Uptown Chats, a podcast where we share stories about environmental justice by and for everyday people. I'm your co host, Jaron, and.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: And I'm your other co host, Lonnie.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: And today we're starting off the new year by reflecting on some of WEAct's major wins from 2024 and looking ahead at what's in store for 2025 with help from WEAC's new director of policy, Lonnie Portis.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: That is me. But before we get to that, Jaron, can you share WEAC's mission?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: I sure can. WEAC'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.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: So, yeah, always that kind of idea of New Year, new me kind of situation. But we want to take a second and we want to reflect on what happened in 2024. We act had some major wins. All the work, hard work we've been doing and the work that a lot of you who listen as well have helped us achieve some of these, these wins. And so we want to kind of go through them and talk about them a little bit. Jaron, do you want to kick us off?
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And to make it more fun, I thought we'd play a little game, not just because I'm a shoot nerd and I love role playing, but also because these are big highlights from 2024. So I thought it would be fun for us to share some of these highlights from 2024 using our best newscaster voices. So I don't know if your vocal cords are ready, if you're warmed up, if you're read. Should I take a stab at the first one?
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Oh, hold on, let me. I have to. I have to think about this.
Okay. Newscaster voice. Okay. Am I. Go ahead. You go ahead, you start and you set it off. And I will. I'll see if I can follow.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: All right.
Thanks to our advocacy as part of multiple coalitions, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Lead Pipe Right to Know act in 2024, New York State leads the nation in cases of children with elevated blood levels, rates which are five to six times higher than those in Flint, Michigan at the peak of its water crisis. By passing this law requiring public water systems to identify where they have lead or possibly lead pipes, we can now push for legislation to replace them.
Pretty good, right?
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Not bad. Not bad.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: All right, well, you know what, Lonnie, it's your turn. Let's Hear it? Let's hear your attempt. Okay, channel your inner newscaster.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: We also strengthened federal rules for cleaner air. In early 2024, the U.S. supreme Court upheld the U.S. environmental Protection Agency, also the EPA regulation lowering air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. These included rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations, mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal fired power plants, and greenhouse gas from existing coal and new gas power plants. As part of the Clean Air for the Long Haul Coalition, we had successfully advocated to strengthen these rules, especially the methane and mercury and air toxic standards. So we're out here keeping, keeping the air cleaner.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, with just an air quality nerd. I'm all about it. I love to hear that. Also, thanks to the tireless advocacy of WEX Coalition and the leadership of City Council member Shawna Brayou, the New York City Council managed to restore more than $6 million for community composting that New York City Mayor Eric Adams had previously slashed from the city's budget. It will fundamentally improve waste disposal for all New Yorkers and benefit the environmental justice communities outside of New York City that have historically been burdened with the disposal of New York City's waste. And I know that you have a little bit of part of that as well. We'll talk about that more though later.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a big, that was a big win for us here at W.E. acton for our members. We also successfully advocated for liquefied natural gas export infrastructure pause. And we're happy to report that our advocacy convinced the White House to pause the permitting of pending and future LNG infrastructure. During this pause, the Department of Energy reviewed these projects to gauge their economic and environmental impact on local communities. And we talked a lot about in our Wrong Direction miniseries about liquefied natural gas and all of the issues and concerns with that.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. And last but not least, the We Act Thriving Communities Technical Assistance center, or TICTAC as you might hear it called, celebrated its first full year of operation fielding 132 requests for one on one technical assistance from grassroots organizations working on environmental and energy related projects in New Jersey and New York. And we act has engaged 1900 community members in outreach events across rural and urban communities throughout both states, offering in person and virtual training to 370 individuals and organizations. And we provided one to one assistance for grants to the 96 entities who've requested it. So doing some great work around movement building and supporting environmental justice communities in New York and New Jersey. So that's awesome.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm proud to be a part of we act and doing all of this work. And also our members are very much a part of all of this. And so everyone who's listening, who's been a part of any of these campaigns should definitely pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves for the work that they're doing and the advocacy that they took part in as well.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it wouldn't happen without you.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: So, Jaron, which one of those victories are you most proud of?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: That's a great question. I feel like as an air quality nerd, the first one that jumped out to me, and I'll go ahead and lean into that one, is the strengthening of the federal rules for cleaner air. So anyone who has paid attention to air quality standards over the last few decades, some of those numbers stay pretty stagnant for decades. And the idea is that the standards for our air quality, you might think of the Clean Air act, that that sets some of that helps set some of those standards. Those rules for, you know, how much pollution is allowed in the atmosphere are set by science. And, you know, science takes a long time to do its thing, to do research and find out what safe levels are. But the research out there has showed that there really is no, you know, quote unquote, safe level of a lot of these pollutants. So luckily, the EPA and these federal rules have helped lower those levels of pollution. So, you know, environmental justice communities, especially, who deal with so much of this pollution and are dealing with much higher levels, you know, with this stricter rule, you have the authority now to really reduce the amount of pollution in their communities. And so you think about the best bang for your buck. Everyone's breathing in air all the time. And so if we improve the air quality, everyone benefits, everyone gets to breathe cleaner air. And so for me, I was like, that's awesome. And I actually, you know, happen to be paying attention to that at the time. I was like, oh, yay, this is a great win. So I, of course, was really happy to see that. But what about you, Lonnie? Which of those victories are you most proud of? I know that you had maybe your hand in the game on some of those.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the exact one. So mine is the community composting. That was such a good win. I had a very close relationship with that win. And a community composting a lot of people don't realize and definitely encourage everyone to listen to our very first episode ever with Nando Rodriguez with where he talks about composting and community composting. And the importance of it and how it's just it really is so beneficial in many ways, not just for the environment or climate, but also just the community, the economy. Again, it's a really great program here in New York City that unfortunately was cut and, you know, but then we were able to restore some of that funding so that we can at least extend some community composting until we have to fight again.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's always an uphill battle and an ongoing battle just because, you know, something gets cut or, you know, you have a big win, chances are, I mean, really the fight continues regardless, right? Yeah, but you made a great point, Lonnie, and that's that we had some great interviews over the last, you know, now we're into our third year of the podcast, but we've had some great interviews over the last two years and we will never miss an opportunity to remind you to go back and listen to those episodes. So I was going to ask you, Lonnie, of, you know, those big victories that we just talked about, we had several of them that were, I mean, really all of them that were connected to a campaign that we covered on a previous episode of the podcast, some of them, you know, just happening last year. So which one of those of those topics? Which interview from those topics? What's your favorite and why? Did you have a favorite from any of those?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we have so many great episodes related to some of our victories, but I think for me it has to be, and I've listened to this one a couple times and it's the LNG episode during our Wrong Direction series where we spoke to Rochetta Ozane, who's an environmental justice leader, organizer, and she's the founder and CEO of the Vessel Project of Louisiana. And if you listen to that episode, just the way she explains how impactful in a negative way, the negative impacts of liquefied natural gas infrastructure and LNG hits the community and the kind of the greenwashing aspect of what they do, the promises that are made, the false promises that are made for lng. And I just thought that episode, to me is always, always going to be one of my favorite.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a good one. And again, if you haven't listened to it, definitely recommend you go back and check it out.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Jaron, what about, what about you? What is yours?
[00:10:31] Speaker A: All these topics have really good interviews associated with them. But the one that stands out in my memory the most, partly because it's more recent, but also because it really touched on a lot of different things beyond just the topic Itself. But it was our interview with Lisa Garcia, who's previously the EPA administrator for Administrator. I said it wrong so many times in that episode. The EPA administrator for Region two. And in our conversation with her, we Talked about the Tic Tac or those thriving communities technical assistance centers, and the We Act Tic Tac, specifically in Region 2. And part of our episode was just talking about, you know, reflecting on the year and thinking about some of the. Some of the major wins. And for one, I feel like I learned a lot about the different programs and work that the EPA does, especially, you know, within EPA Region 2, thinking about all the different partners that exist within that region. And in our conversation with Lisa, one of the things that we talked about is just thinking about, you know, the change in administration at the federal level and what that means for so much of the environmental justice work. And one of the things that we landed on is that every day there are folks working on protecting the health of people across the United States in the EPA and also in environmental justice organizations, everyone is continuing to do the work. And this is a theme that has kind of sprinkled in a lot of different interviews that we've had. But it was really prominent in that conversation. It really was kind of the focus at the end of that conversation was that regardless of who's in the leadership role at the federal level, people in the EPA and people in environmental justice communities are doing the work and will continue to do the work as long as there is work to do. And it was very. It was a super hopeful note to kind of wrap up the year on. I know a lot of people had a lot of big feelings towards the end of the year. So kind of having that coming from someone who's higher up in the EPA and feeling that and kind of validating a lot of the work that we're doing, and both talking about the work that we act does, but other organizations in the EPA as a whole was really, really reassuring and just kind of gives. Gives me a little bit of hope that, yeah, I'm on the right track, I'm doing important work, and other folks are continuing to do that work, too. And you know what? We're all in this together, so let's just keep doing it. I really like that not only did we get a chance to talk about the TIC Tac, which is a part of the work that we act is doing to help strengthen and support other environmental justice organizations and EJ work in the region, but also just touching on a more hopeful note that this work goes on regardless of who's in charge.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I also appreciated that too. And it kind of also reminds me of kind of even with Rochetta's episode about liquefied natural gas, this idea and sense of community and how they can fight back and coming together to push back against kind of the fossil fuel industry and some of these wrong direction technologies that we talked about as well. So I do love that kind of hopeful spirit that both of us were really kind of touched by when we, when we interviewed both Rochetta and, and Lisa.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: And speaking of, you know, changes in leadership, this is probably a good opportunity for us to turn towards our interview segment for, for this episode, which is a special case because today I'm interviewing you, Lonnie, which is a fun, a fun twist. You happen to be both the co host and special guest of the episode. How fun. And, and you're a news anchor now too. Why? You have a man of so many talents. You have so much responsibility now. How do you feel about that?
[00:14:04] Speaker B: My news anchor skills are not there and I, I'm not.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Not a part of your new job description.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: It's not at all. Not even a little bit. Not even maybe for the best. Still co host of the greatest podcast ever. But yes, not a newscaster.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well. Well, obviously the folks know you already, so I won't make you reintroduce yourself yet. But other than saying that you're now the current Director of Policy, oeact, Right? Is that the official title?
[00:14:30] Speaker B: The official title is I am the Acting Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Very nice. We love it.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Don't ask me what that means, but we'll all find out together.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Yes, we'll get to that. Circling back to something you mentioned earlier and talking about some of the victories from 2024 for WE Act. You mentioned the restoring community composting piece and the win of restoring some of that funding. And I know that you played a major role in WE Act's effort on that and getting some of that funding restored. So I figure this is a chance to maybe talk a little bit more about that. What did that campaign look like and what did your role in that work look like?
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of stumbled upon that campaign when it all kind of started. So in 2023, we passed the New York City Zero Waste act, which is a series of bills that aim to get New York City to zero waste. Right. That is the goal, is that we want to reduce our waste as much as possible to the point where we don't have any. So we're Making sure we're separating all of our waste. And we had an episode on waste recently, so you can always go back and check that one. But we want to make sure we're separating our organic materials, food scraps, things like that, from our plastics, from our refuse, all of those things. And, you know, some laws were passed and we were able to get some mandatory curbside composting going in the city, meaning that they will pick up food scraps now on the curbside through the city. It's universal. Everyone has it. Before it was optional, Right. So we passed this and we were moving towards this. This momentum that we all had about zero waste. And a lot of groups who had done community composting had been working on composting as well. We're excited about, you know, this kind of reinvigorated desire for people to want to actually now engage in composting in its many forms. But community composting, you know, being able to separate, drop off site, drop off to a site that's local near you. And we were expecting kind of like the, you know, expansion of those, of those organizations in those spaces. And unfortunately, last year in 2024, the budget came out and the community composting program was completely gone. It was just taken away. And so there was a group that formed called Save Our Compost New York City, a coalition of just advocates, composters, environmental advocates as well, like myself, and got really involved and came together to kind of fight to get those. Those funding restored. It was $7 million out of a $100 billion budget that was cut. And I think that was kind of what drew me to. It was just the absurdity of such a small amount of money for a program that does a lot, and it's very efficient for it to be cut just because they were. The mayor decided they wanted to do sweeping cuts across all of the agencies. And so that's kind of how the campaign came together, was just about all the advocates wanting to save this 7 million do. There was, you know, more money asked for because there were some other aspects to it. I think we were asking for, I think, $11 million in total to restore the, you know, the program altogether. Getting together, we had meetings after meetings, pulling together, getting community members involved. We act members involved, calling our council members, working with council member Shawna Brayeu, who really helped us kind of take everything through the finish line and navigating the internal negotiations that happen with city council and the mayor's office to restore at least some of that funding. I think $6 million was restored. So we've got some of the funding restored there to at least kind of operate, you know, throughout the rest of this. Throughout the rest of the year, throughout the fiscal year, so from June to June. But, yeah, that's kind of how the campaign came about. And I was really leading some of the policy work and aspect at the city level for that coalition, because a lot of those composters and other community orgs that are part of it, they don't necessarily work in policy every single day as I do. So I was able to lend my expertise and help to help build that campaign and take it across the finish line.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: What a beautiful summarization of all that work. And again, as Lonnie mentioned, if anyone who is less familiar with this, you know, work in New York City around waste, go back and check out that episode. Had lots of key points in there that kind of help explain why addressing this waste issue in New York City is so important. And that supports the fact that this is a really important campaign that we actually was working on and why. Why it was a top priority and why Lonnie spent a lot of time working on it. And I know for some people, when you start talking around numbers of, like, budget, it's hard to wrap your head around, like, is that a lot of money? Is that a little money? And I know, correct me if I'm wrong, the amount that's allocated for the composting and for waste stuff in New York City is pretty small compared to what other cities spend on dealing with their waste, right?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, New York City spends about almost half a billion dollars just to manage their waste altogether. And community compost is a very small portion of the waste budget, which, again, is $7 million, and the larger city budget is $100 billion. So we're thinking of a. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction when it comes to. To this program.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So drop in the bucket.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: So, yes.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Definitely feel like a silly thing given that it impacts so many people. So you kind of touched on where Things were at 2024. Any updates you want to share about where some of that work is going into this year, moving forward and what. What's happening in 2025 for the restoring community composting?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, we have to. Unfortunately, that money was given through what's called Schedule C, meaning that the city Council gave the money, not the mayor's office or the, you know, the Department of Sanitation. And so it was only good for that one fiscal year. And so what we have to do this year, again when the budget comes back out is we have to go through and we have to have that fight again and we're well equipped. We've done it once. What we need to do is we have to go back to City Council, working with Council member Brayeu again, who's the chair of sanitation at City Council, and really going through and doing the same thing we did again. But this time around, we want to make more of a permanent budget and light item for this program. The challenge here is going to be obviously the mayor.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Well, thank you. I feel like people always want to know how to get involved with some of this work, especially something piques their interest. So good to know that this work continues. Like we mentioned before, regardless of what happens, this work always continues on different issues.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: So if people want to get involved in that, in that work, definitely join WE ACT Climate justice working group. We talk a lot about a lot of different things, building, decarbonization, so making our buildings cleaner. But we also do talk about waste and kind of a just transition off of fossil fuels.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Thank you, Lonnie. So getting back to, you know, this exciting announcement that you are now serving as the acting director of policy at WE act, one of your new roles, new responsibilities in this role is helping to set the direction of policy advocacy for the year for WE act. So just to get a sense of what's in store for us for 2025 and maybe alluding to some topics we might be covering on the podcast this year, can you tell us more about what some of the top policy priorities are for we act for 2025?
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So our policy team works very hard every year to put together a policy agenda which we will definitely link it in the show notes as well. But I wanted to highlight four major campaigns that we're going to be working on at both the state and the city level. So the first one is, and I don't know if we mentioned it on the podcast yet, but we may have an episode soon coming up about the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition act or also we call it New York Heat. And so basically what New York Heat will do is it will reduce energy costs for New Yorkers by eliminating all of the wasteful kind of gas subsidies, all the money that we spend as rate payers to, you know, subsidize gas and fossil fuel industry and it will also cap energy bills at 6% of our household income. So we don't get these outrageous bills in the summertime for your cooling or heating in the wintertime. Plus, New York Heat can also Redirect up to almost about $150 billion of New Yorkers money toward neighborhood scale clean electrification projects. Money that would otherwise be spent replacing old gas pipes with new gas pipes that will become obsolete well before they're paid off by ratepayers. So this is one of our biggest campaigns is this New York Heat act, the next one we have. Also at the state level is our beauty justice bill. And so as co chair of the Just Green Partnership, a coalition of more than 60 organizations across New York State, we're working to pass environmental health policies. We act is going to be advocating for the passage of a bill to ban the most dangerous toxic chemicals to women and femme identifying peoples of color's health from a majority of personal care and beauty products sold in New York State. So if you don't know, there are a lot of horrible toxic chemicals and a lot of things that we do purchase a lot of personal care products as well compared to other countries like EU that ban a lot of different things so that they don't go in and make it into the products themselves. And so our goal is to make sure that New York State has the power to ban some of the most dangerous of those toxic chemicals so that they don't end up in your products at all.
And then at the city level we also have two major campaigns. One is the Community Land act, which we have an amazing episode with Annie Carforo who talks about this a lot. And if you remember from that episode, the Community Land act is like an urgently needed set of bills that give Community Land Trust and some other nonprofits tools to acquire and steward land in the communities in a way that better serves the actual needs for your neighborhood. Right. So this could include development and preservation of permanently affordable housing, community and commercial spaces, parks, green spaces, other critical needs, instead of some big developer coming along and just building five luxury condos that no one can afford in the neighborhood. And so this Community Land act will help communities take back the land that they have. And the bill package is two different bills. So it's the Community Opportunity to Purchase act and the Public Land for Public Good Act. And the last one, which is we act as no stranger to this. We talk about it every year, it comes up every time. We also have our Extreme Heat Bill package. And the work that we're doing there with Extreme Heat is also a major campaign. And we'll also be talking, giving some updates on that, where right now we are working towards looking into a law that would create a maximum indoor air temperature. So kind of Similar in the wintertime, there is a minimum temp that your apartment is supposed to be or your home is supposed to be. By law, we're looking to do something very similar with cooling. It's a very technical bill. It's very complex, and it took a lot of different people to put it together. But we're working on that. We're also working on a cooling center bill. The cooling center bill is helping to improve cooling centers and codify their existence. So making sure that we're improving our cooling center program, which is really vital for a lot of folks who don't have access to air conditioner or air conditioning or cannot run their air conditioner because of the cost to do so during the summertime. So cooling centers act as a great way for people to escape the deadly heat during the summer. And this bill has 42 co sponsors out of 51 council members. So it has a lot of momentum and we're looking forward to getting that across the finish line.
And the last bill in that extreme heat package is also a a cool pavement pilot program. So that way we can test out some technologies that keep pavements cool, which also help cool the surrounding areas so that they don't get as hot in the summertime. So those are some our four major campaigns that we've got kind of going on right this year that we're looking forward to helping, getting the help from folks to do some advocacy.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Well, thank you for that. So hopefully if any of those stood out to you as a listener again, you can look for ways to get involved. Going to weac.org and stay tuned for some awesome episodes coming out later this year that are going to touch on, I think, all of those topics in different ways, either directly or indirectly. So make sure to stay tuned in and listen for some great interviews on those different topics. But before we wrap up, Lonnie, any parting words or thoughts about either reflections from 2024 or. Or thinking ahead to this new year of exciting things that are to come in your new role or just in.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: General reflection of last year. I thought it was just, it's been such a fun ride to do this podcast with you and to, you know, interview people and hearing what people's perspectives and I think that's what we have strived to do this entire time. So just, it was just great. It was a great season for our podcast last year. So that's when I want to think that I want to reflect on and also, you know, looking forward to my new role. But then also continue continuing the podcast as well. I'm not going anywhere and talking about all these different topics.
Any, any thought, any final thoughts from you?
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Interviewer no, I'll echo you, Lonnie. I think that's a great point to acknowledge that we've had, we had a great, a great year last year for the podcast. Hopefully you got to enjoy some of those episodes. If you're a new listener, definitely go back and check out some of those episodes. We're going to be continuing our structure this year of two 30 minute episodes per month covering different topics and we're grateful to all of you who have, either if you've stuck with us from the very beginning, or if you've joined as a new listener in the last year, or if this is your very first episode. We're super grateful that you're checking this show out and encourage you to to share it and to just check out as many episodes as you can because it's super fun for us to put it together. Lonnie and I have a great time. As you can probably tell by all of our laughter, not all of it even makes it in. Believe it or not, there's lots of laughter that gets cut out just because otherwise it would be 30 minutes full of laughter. Which as much fun as that sounds, I don't know that anyone wants to listen to that. So I think that's it with that. I'll say one more time, thank you for listening. And if you like this episode, make sure to rate and review the show on whatever platform you listen on. If you have thoughts about the show, we encourage you to reach out to us with those thoughts and any suggestions you
[email protected] you can also check out.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: We act on Facebook at We act for ej. That's W E A C T F O R E J. Also on Instagram X and YouTube at weact4ej. That's W E A C T number 4ej and check out our website weact.org for more information about environmental justice. Until next time, bye.
