Cleaner environment does not increase economic hardship

In a March 19 opinion in the Hill’s Congress Blog, civil rights luminary and Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) leader Charles Steele offered a good piece of advice: “Don’t treat one problem by creating another, potentially more serious challenge.”

It’s good advice, coming from an organization that has inspired me since childhood, and an organization that continues to fight for the health and wealth of African Americans. Unfortunately, Steele was sadly off target about what solution was creating a more serious challenge for communities of color, unwittingly supporting those who would harm those he’s spent a lifetime protecting.  

{mosads}Steele is buying into an emerging and false narrative pushed by big polluters and their allies in Congress. This narrative would have African Americans and other communities of color believe that protecting them from dangerous pollution will create economic hardships, and that these hardships are worse for them than the pollution-caused asthma and other health problems, not to mention the rising health care costs that go with them.  

Contrary to Steele’s assertions, American power plants are not “far cleaner.”   He’s also mistaken when he says they “are no longer the largest source of carbon emissions.”   Power plants (particularly coal fired power plants) are by far the biggest contributor of the carbon pollution causing the most significant climate impacts for minority communities, including disproportionately higher rates of asthma and increased vulnerability to extreme weather like Superstorms Sandy and Katrina.  

It’s vitally important that our Civil Rights institutions have accurate information about the issues affecting minority communities. That’s especially true for the issue of climate change, where there is a great deal of misinformation out there from big polluters and climate deniers who would try to divide and conquer communities of color in the same way that they try to divide and conquer all Americans on the issue of the climate crisis. So let’s set the record straight, about both public opinion and the economic projections.

First, there is broad support for climate solutions and the Clean Power Plan, both among Americans generally and communities of color specifically.  Supermajorities in fact.   Green for All’s 2014 “Climate Change and Communities of Color” poll found that 76 percent of minority voters agree that new standards will spur innovations that keep costs down, despite big polluter supported messaging telling them that carbon standards would raise prices.  In fact, those nearly 8 in 10 minority voters support climate change solutions like the Clean Power Plan even while conceding big polluters main (and unfounded) contention that “carbon emission standards for power plants might raise prices and cost some jobs.”

Luckily, we don’t have to make such a Sophie’s choice. Even more to the point, most minority voters know emissions standards will ultimately “spur research and innovations that will help keep costs down and, more importantly, create new industries with well-paying jobs.”  As EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy often points out, we don’t have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy.  

In fact, communities of color can, and believe they can, benefit from investing in climate mitigation in important ways, identifying the following as among the most important positive impacts: providing training opportunities for workers to transition out of shrinking industries (7.4 on a scale of zero to 10, 10 being most important); creating nearly 2 million jobs the EPA estimates that will result from basic repairs to our water infrastructure (7.3); stimulating growth in manufacturing sectors (7.1); and helping the United States lead the world once again in technology and innovation (7.1).

Second, even some Republicans agree, basing their argument on economic growth.  Former Republican EPA Administrator (and ex-New Jersey Governor) Christine Todd Whitman pointed out in a 2014 op-ed that GDP continues to grow even as the level of environmental pollutants decreases. For example, between 1970 and 2006, U.S. GDP grew by 195 percent, even through the creation of the EPA and Clean Air Act regulations that significantly decreased carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide pollution and other dangerous and deadly pollutants.

Third: economically, this plan works for our people. It doesn’t hurt, but rather helps the economic outlook of all families – and let’s put that concern about rising energy bills to rest. As Administrator McCarthy has highlighted, “for every dollar we invest in the Clean Power Plan, families will see $7 dollars in health benefits. And if states are smart about taking advantage of efficiency opportunities, and I know they are, when the effects of this plan are in place in 2030, average electricity bills will be 8 percent cheaper.” This is very important to understand – even if energy rates increase, personal energy bills will go down. Every state can implement the standards in their own way, so if they use the flexibility they have in developing state implementation plans under the Clean Power Plan to protect those most vulnerable from an economic and public health standpoint, our people will see lower energy bills. That’s what Steele, the SCLC, and other Civil Rights groups can devote their energy toward if they’re worried about more economic hardship – encourage states to protect their most vulnerable residents by creating fair implementation plans.  

It’s up to leaders of our Civil Rights and legacy organizations in the African American community to be forward thinking and prepare our people for the future. With all due respect to Dr. Steele and the SCLC, when it comes to the EPA’s efforts to cut dangerous carbon pollution from power plants, we’re not swapping one problem for another. We’re protecting both the economic and the public health of low income and minority communities.  That’s why we can’t allow ourselves to be divided by misinformation campaigns funded by deep-pocketed corporate polluters who would protect profits at the expense of public health. 

Silvestri is former executive director of Green For All, a noted expert on social equity issues and environmental justice, as well as one of the The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2014.