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by Michael Albalah<\/p>\n
Senator Harris was picked by Presidential Candidate Joe Biden to be the next Vice President. Congratulations!<\/p>\n
Because the best way to measure someone is by assessing their conduct over time, I\u2019m going to review her track record on environmental justice.<\/p>\n
Harris is committed.\u00a0 In 2005, as the district attorney for the city of San Francisco, she created<\/a> an environmental justice unit dedicated to enforcing environmental crime that affected poor communities.\u00a0 She tasked Davina Pujari<\/a> to lead the unit.<\/p>\n As the Attorney General of California, she continued to prioritize environmental justice.\u00a0 In that role, she confronted<\/a> the fossil fuel industry by opposing Chevron\u2019s proposed refinery expansion in Richmond, a majority Black and Hispanic city.\u00a0 She also joined a coalition of 17 Democratic<\/a> attorneys general called the AGs United For Clean Power and continued her work holding energy companies accountable.<\/p>\n Later as Senator, she and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York unveiled a plan<\/a> to introduce climate legislation that would ensure new environmental regulations and legislation consider environmental justice before becoming law. They also introduced called the Climate Equity Act<\/a>. The act would set up an Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability within the Office of Management and Budget.\u00a0 Along with Senators Cory Booker and Tammy Duckworth she introduced legislation<\/a> that first acknowledged how segregation and racist zoning codes subjected communities of color to the effects of climate change and left them with limited resources to address ongoing environmental health disparities, and then aimed to engage impacted communities in government decision-making processes.<\/p>\n At this point, it shouldn\u2019t be surprising that Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris\u2019 climate plan<\/a> highlighted environmental justice.<\/p>\n Importantly, she supports abolishing the filibuster<\/a>, a step that\u00a0will likely be necessary<\/a>\u00a0to get any climate or environmental policy through Congress in a Biden administration.<\/p>\n