Victory for Environmental Justice: Minnesota's New Cumulative Impacts Law

Today's episode features two incredible Environmental Justice organizers: Sasha Lewis-Norelle, environmental health and justice organizer for Clean Water Action, and Carolina Ortiz, associate executive director for COPAL, an organization that leads social impact initiatives to improve the quality of life for Latin American families. Sasha and Carolina discuss Minnesota's new Cumulative Impacts law and the critical work they are doing to protect frontline communities from harm. www.cleanwater.org/podcast

Make a special gift to support our podcast today at www.cleanwater.org/donate

Transcript

0:00

Cumulative impacts refer to the combined effects of multiple actions or changes that happen over time. So imagine that you have a bucket and you keep adding drops of water into it. Each drop alone might not seem like much, but as you keep adding more and more drops, eventually So these impacts can happen in our environment and in our communities, and it's about looking at the overall impact of those little things happening rather than just focusing on one thing in. Hello everyone. Welcome to We All Live Downstream, a Clean Water Action podcast. In each episode, we will be interviewing leading environmental and their work in the field. We'll dive deep into topics from drinking water and climate change to environmental justice, plastic pollution, and toxic chemicals. I'm your host Jenny Vickers, the National Communications Manager for Clean Water Action. Today I'm very excited to welcome two incredible environmental justice advocates to we all live downstream. Sasha Lewis Norrell is the Environmental Health and Justice organizer for Clean Water Action. And Carol Nina Ortiz is the Associate Executive Director for kapal, an organization that leads social impact initiatives to improve the quality of life for Latin American families. Welcome. So happy to have you here. Thank you. Jenny. It's good to be here. Yeah, thanks so much. Excited for this. So today's podcast, we will focus on environmental justice issues, and in particular, the recent incredible victory that you both played, a crucial role in the passage of Minnesota's environmental justice law, the Cumulative Impacts Law, known as Minnesota's Frontline Community Protection Act. But before we dive into that, I'd like to learn a little bit more about you. I want to know where did you grow up, where do you live now, and how did you get your start in activism? Yeah, absolutely. I can start. So I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and grew up around a family that was very involved in activism and had a lot about social issues, environmental issues, all of that. And so it's a good environment to have that just as a part of my life growing up. And I think one of the biggest sort of formative moments of that childhood was actually back in high school. We took a road trip to support the fight against Dapple, the Dakota Access Pipeline. And it was just so impactful to be around so many incredible people and to start to learn more about indigenous sovereignty and the ways that these communities are being harmed by pipelines and other projects like that, and the ways that a lot of our state governments are working to perpetuate that as opposed to actually protecting those communities. And so then I graduated and went to college in Minnesota at McAllister College. And so I currently live in the Twin Cities and have been doing environmental activism and organizing since pretty much I got to college. I first got involved with McAllister's divestment campaign around fossil fuels and the sunrise movements and the fight against the Line three pipeline, and it just kept on going from there. Awesome, thank you. Carolina? Yes, I was born in Saka, Mexico, which I know is a handful there. It's really hard to pronounce, but Minnesota has been my home since age two. So I've been here all my life. And I would say that really I think the moment in my life where I began to be more engaged with my community and the topics that were important to me were at age nine when my brother was deported At that time, I was just upset, upset, didn't understand why so many deportations were happening. As an undocumented child, I didn't understand why some families didn't have access to healthcare or why some people were having a hard time in different aspects of their life. And I started getting engaged with my church group. I started attending different protests. There I was with my little sign feeling like I was making a change, but I continued to be involved with my community questioning what was happening around me. And of course, as I got older, I started connecting with individuals that were doing more to change our system and to change how things were being done. And I've been involved with my community since then. So really all my life. Well, it's so nice to meet both of you. I've worked at Climate Interaction for my lifetime. So out of college I knew I wanted to be environmental activist. I studied multicultural literature and ethnic studies and creative writing, and I learned a lot about community organizing through read. And I just knew I didn't want to do anything else except I just didn't want to work for a corporation. So I stumbled upon action. And ever since then, I've just met so many incredible people just like you. And I just want to hear more about your story. So thank you for sharing that. I think it's really important to connect to people on that level. So you both were involved in the passage of the environmental justice law in Minnesota, but before we get into the details of the law, I just want to, people may not know exactly what are cumulative impacts. Cumulative impacts refer to the combined effects of multiple actions or changes that happen over time. So imagine that you have a bucket and you keep adding drops of water into it. Each drop alone might not seem like much, but as you keep adding more and more drops, eventually So these impacts can happen in our environment and in our communities, and it's about looking at the overall impact of those little things happening rather than just focusing on one thing in isolation. I mentioned that I started participating more at age nine. I used to live by the hurricanes rator, and that is when I started having more of my asthma attacks and having health issues. By age 14, I was in a really bad condition because those years of my life I was exposed to so many chemicals, toxins, and just a lot of really bad unhealthy stuff in my life. So with the accumulation of those years, it just continues to get worse. Sasha, did you want to add anything about cumulative impacts or. I think one thing to highlight is that these sorts of impacts are almost always disproportionately impacting low-income communities and bipo communities and just general. And that is for a number of reasons and the region can vary place to place, but there is such a long history of different policies that have kept bipo communities or low-income people out of certain areas or in certain areas. And those areas have also been made a lot easier to get polluting facilities into, especially because non-bio communities, like a lot of white communities and more affluent communities have a lot more power to say no to those sorts of projects. And so those facilities just end up being centralized in these communities that are already dealing with other burdens like Carolina was saying. And that's a good leadway into my next question because the main point is to have the ability to have a voice at the table to just say no. So tell me more about the cumulative impact law and why is it so important at this moment in time in Minnesota? Yeah, I can get into that. So I think an important point of context is that this law was originally intended to be statewide, but due to the very slim majority that we had in our state senate, there was some senators that are affiliated with the Democratic Farmer and Labor Party, the DFL, which is our democratic party here, who did not want it impacting their districts or felt support across greater Minnesota to warrant it being a statewide policy. So currently the law covers the seven county metro area, but those are the main counties around the Twin Cities and then Rochester and Duluth, which are the two other largest cities in Minnesota with an ability for the tribes in Minnesota to opt into the policy as well. And within those areas, the law defines environmental justice communities using census track data from the 2020 census. And so any census that has either 35% or more people of color, 40% or more low income or 40% or more English as a second language or low English proficiency is defined as an environmental justice community. And then it looks at any facilities that have larger air permits, so like manufacturing facilities or just facilities that might be emitting a good amount of air pollution. And if one of those facilities with those permits is either within a census tract that is an environmental justice area or within one mile of those census tracts that's an environmental justice area, then it may be subject to conduct a cumulative impacts analysis. And that is both for if a new permit is being applied for, so a new facility wants to be cited there or if a current facility wants to expand or even when it has to renew its current permit. There are some facilities that have non expiring permits, which is a legacy of some older policies and a whole other issue that we need to tackle because facilities should not just be able to ride on a decades old permit. But for the most part, a lot of the major concerning facilities that are within the areas covered and are either within an environmental justice census tract or within one mile of them would be included in this in terms of what the analysis itself, they would be looking at what are the other sources of pollution in this area and what are different ways that the community that is nearby might be more susceptible to the burdens of pollution. I think it's important to highlight as well that a lot of the details of this law are being defined in the process known as rulemaking, which we'll get into a bit more later. But there are some details that are not fully clarified yet because the agency, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is currently working on defining those details. So for example, the agency will be defining when to require a cumulative impacts analysis by setting a set of guidelines or benchmarks so that if the facility meets any of those benchmarks, they would automatically be required to do the analysis, otherwise the commissioner may still require it. But we wanted to make sure that there were protocols to require an analysis and that it wasn't just up to the commissioner because commissioners can change based off of who is in power and different criteria. And so we wanted to have this law be able to function regardless of who the commissioner is. And so once those benchmarks are set, if the facility meets those benchmarks, then they would be required to do this analysis and look at other sources of pollution and ways that they might be impacting the nearby community. And then if they determine if the analysis shows that the proposed facility or the expansion or even the current facility is having a significant or a substantial adverse impact on the community, then the permit must either be denied or the facility must enter into a community benefit agreement. Sorry. And there's a few things that will be further defined in rulemaking. For example, substantial adverse impact is defined in rulemaking. We want to have clear criteria around that so that it's not just up to the commissioner or worst case scenario. We don't want to have a complicated court case where a judge decides whether or not it was actually adverse impact. And so we want to, in the rule making set up standards for that that are very clear that we'll ensure that decisions are made on hopefully data-driven basis and that we don't have to put up with a bunch of complicated lawsuits with industry time to through the agency over this law. I also mentioned that again, when a permit meets that definition of substantial adverse impact, they will either be denied or have to enter into a community benefit agreement. One thing that was a complicated concession with this law, because again, it was a very, was a narrowly divided senate and we were having to negotiate these kind of last minute this session was with the community benefit agreement, the language was kind of being altered very last minute. And so the language itself says that the agency must enter into a community benefit agreement with the permit applicant, which is not how a community benefit agreement really works. It should be between a project or a facility and the community that is being impacted. And so one thing during rulemaking that we're really pushing for is for the agency to basically have to have the community ratify any sort of agreement before the agency signs on. And that way the community has leadership in the process. The facility has to actually work with the community and make sure that the agreement actually works for both sides. Again, we want this to be something that will last a long time and we'll work for the community and empower the community to either say, yes, we understand that we are taking on more of a burden of pollution, but we think that the benefits from maybe jobs and this community benefit agreement will outweigh that or no, we are already very overburdened. Even if you are going to employ some people locally and provide some benefits, provide, it's not worth us further sacrificing our And so that's why this coming rulemaking process is really important. So we can really submit some of those details, but again, we'll get into that more later. Yeah, I was going to say you both must be incredibly busy engaging folks in this process because in Newark here in New Jersey, it took years for our rulemaking to finally get finalized earlier this year, and I know it was just a long process, so I know you must be so busy. I wanted to talk a little bit before we get into the rulemaking and other details is actually first before, because this is something I missed earlier, is how did the two of you meet and start working together before I get into my next question? Yeah. So we're both part of this coalition called the Frontline Coalition that has been working to pass this law for the last four or five years now. And so when I joined Clean Water Action Minnesota in 2021, our organization was already part of the coalition. And so I got involved with the work there and yeah. Carolina, do you want to tell your side of how you got, we met through this work particularly, but yeah, Carolina, do you want to tell your side of the story? Yeah, no, it truly has been through the coalition work that I've had the privilege to work with Sasha and other amazing individuals that are really doing everything that they possibly can to have a better life for everybody that lives in Minnesota. So it's been an honor and really great to have such amazing people to work with. And as you said, it's a lot of work. It's very intense, but it's easier when you have the right people around you. Yes, totally agree. You have to have that people power coalition and support and like-minded people working with you because you're up against a lot. Which leads me into my next question. I understand it was an uphill battle for sure. So what are some of the challenges you face working to pass this law in Minnesota? Yeah, so I alluded to some of this earlier, this point in particular, but Minnesota does have, I wouldn't say a completely unique experience with this this as well, but we do have a pretty strong urban and rural divide, which can manifest itself in our politics in certain ways. And I think that it's important that we all work collectively to bridge that gap. But I think it's also important to acknowledge that there are different needs from these different communities. And in our politics itself, that can mean that our politics look different or that even when there is a majority for one party, if that majority is split between primarily urban and then some rural legislators or vice versa, then there's going to have to be some compromises or there will be some disagreements. So for example, our law ended up being limited geographically because of the DFL, our Democratic party who did not want it impact in their districts. And we also just, a lot of our organizations work and we want to work more with rural communities and and just build better connections and have better mutual understanding of what we're trying to do, what they're trying to do, what the issues that they're facing are, how we can kind of support each other and work together. But that work takes time and this process, while it's been going on for a number of years, has been also just trying to get any momentum until this last year. And so yeah, I think that we didn't have the support that we wanted to from greater Minnesota across the board. And so that made it more difficult to say that all of Minnesota wants to pass this even though we think it's important that all of Minnesota has these sorts of protections. And when it gets down to this, this is about empowering communities. We're not even saying that every community should, that has a polluting facility, should have that facility shut down. We're saying that communities should have the choice of whether or not a polluting facility gets to be in their space. But again, because we didn't have the right connections with Greater Minnesota and we didn't have the support, we were not able to push back on some of the greater Minnesota legislators who did not want it impacting their districts. And so that was definitely a challenge, and we're definitely still interested in building those connections, as I said, and there's potential to expand this law to cover more areas or make it statewide in the future. But that was definitely something that was a struggle during this last legislative session. I would add on to some of those challenges, just the ability to bring community into such a complicated government process that just makes it intentionally very difficult to be part of. And I think that is still something that as we continue into the rulemaking process, we will continue to be challenged with. And it's something that blew my mind at first. I do this for work and I do this every single day, and it's still hard for me to understand. So really it was shocking to me when I started learning about rulemaking. And even if you are able to get a law passed, there's still so many things that could happen in rulemaking that could actually take you a few steps back. So it's been a process to try and figure out how do we make it accessible not only in English, because it's hard enough to understand in English, but also translating it into Spanish and other languages for community members to be able to be part of the process. So you got the law passed, and I know now Minnesota joins New Jersey and New York, so there's three states now that has cumulative impacts legislation. And you mentioned you're part of the Frontline Communities Before I get a little bit more into the coalition, is the Minnesota law modeled after either of the states or how did the law come about originally? Did you look at New York and New Jersey's law or is your law a little bit more unique? Yeah, we definitely took a lot of inspiration, particularly from the New Jersey law. I think it's also important to provide the context of Minnesota has passed cumulative impacts legislation before in 2008, former state representative Karen Clark worked with the East Phillips community in Minneapolis, which is a very overbearing community, has a very large indigenous population, and a lot of just diversity in general. And they were able to pass a law that provides some of those protections to South Minneapolis as an environmental justice community. And so some of this was building off of that previous work, learning from some of the lessons from that effort and just the ways that the agency has implemented that law. But there was also a lot of inspiration, particularly from the New Jersey law. So for example, we took the definition of an environmental justice community from New Jersey's law. We also highlighted the importance of public health stressors in looking at the analysis and making decisions, and now we're using some of those same lessons from the rulemaking process that New Jersey just finished up to push for similar processes and similar decisions within our current rulemaking process. Oh, that's awesome. I just wanted to throw out there, if anyone's listening and they wanted to do something similar in their state, just kind of the process that you go through, there are some unique situations, but again, there isn't a lot of similarities to happening across the country. So you formed this coalition, the Frontline Communities which Clean Water Action Capal part of. You've been working to pass this legislation for years. Can you talk about the coalition a little bit more maybe who are some of the members and how important this work is in Minnesota right now? Yeah, and Sash already mentioned a little bit more on the history. It really started with Karen Clark and a lot of community members that started this work even prior to 2008. But I also do want to say in 2017, one CMEJ and Roxanne O'Brien, who is a community leader in North Minneapolis, started to really push for Representative Few Lee, one of our state representatives to actually get something written and proposed. And that's really where we started to see a little bit more momentum. Our coalition started to come together in 2019, and really we wanted to elevate and continue to support the efforts that were already in place to get cumulative impact legislation passed. And our biggest mission and continues to be is how do we work together to address environmental injustices at a systemic level and support ongoing fights for environmental justice across the state. So that's something again that we still continue to do and work together to accomplish. And I know you asked who some of the individuals were in the coalition, of course, clean Water Action Cure, climate Generation, copa, Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, MEP. There are a few more that we actually have listed on our website, but it's a really powerful coalition that has been, again, working together to get this passed. Sasha, I don't know if I'm forgetting anything. I don't think so. I mean, just to clarify some of the acronyms. MEP is Minnesota Environmental Partnership. We also MCEA, Minnesota, some different environmental advocacy, just a lot of different organizations that have a lot of individual power and have been doing this kind of work for years. And I think it's great that we've been able to come together and build collective power. And again, this does not stop with this law or this rulemaking. This is an ongoing process to address these systemic issues like Carolina said. And so I think it's great that we've been able to build the power to where we have it now, and the work is also far from done. So that's why it's important to have things like coalitions and spaces where we can pool our collective power, our resources and Mentioned a lot of work to be done, and we've talked a little bit about the rulemaking. So right now you're in the rulemaking process. So rulemaking is simply the process of a state agency writing rules to clarify implementation of the law. So where are we at in this process right now? So the law was passed earlier this year, and the rulemaking officially began in July. The rulemaking has to legally be done by, I think June of 2026. We've got a long deadline for that. It's going to be likely a couple of years. They can finish earlier than that if they draft rules that feel like they are in a good place. But for the most part, it's going to be the next couple of years to work on this. And right now we are in the initial phase of this. There is a comment period that is actually closing tomorrow that was open from July 24th until October 6th. And we have been working to mobilize comments and educate people about this issue and start to bring them into the fold of this process. The agency also held five different community meetings, one that was virtual, two in the Twin Cities, and then one in Rochester and one in Duluth. And so we worked to help to turn people out to those. And again, this initial part of the process, none of the rules have been drafted. It's really just to educate people about the law that was passed and the rulemaking that is going to be happening and get some of the initial feedback. And so after that, we are going to be working with the agency to figure out what the next part of the process looks like in terms of how do we start drafting these rules? What are the most important parts to get done first? What do we need to do to educate ourselves on those different parts? For example, how do we figure out what a community benefit agreement should look like and the process behind that? And so this next part is really going to be the next year and a half or so of working with the agency and the agency working with us and other stakeholders to figure out what the draft of these roles is going to look like. And then it'll have to be open for another public comment period, and then go in front of an administrative law judge and hopefully get approved in all of that. But yeah, this next part of the process in particular, when we're actually drafting the laws, we're really pushing for the agency to have it be very collaborative and iterative so that it's not just the agency right through own rules and then shows us and asks for us to sign off on them. It's that we're working together and that the agency can take feedback on a continuing basis and that we hopefully come out of it with rules that suit us all. I would just add to that, that I'm really proud of the work that we have been doing because we have been pushing for things to be done differently, and as we think about the next steps in rulemaking, it's just that continued thought process of how do we bring equity into the conversation and really use it as an example, not only for cumulative impact legislation, but for other things as well. Thank you both so much for sharing your stories, sharing the process of getting a law passed and how much more there is to go. And I know everyone listening right now might want to get involved, so we are clean water action. Of course, we always want to end our podcast with a call to action. So Sasha and Carolina, how can people take action or get involved in environmental justice in their communities? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned this earlier, Jenny, but in terms of cumulative impacts policy, I think it's important to look at what other places have done and see if your state, or even if your local municipalities are considering anything similar or if they've done anything similar. And so I think the first thing is look into what your state has or your county or your city, have they talked about this? Do they talk about environmental justice in general? What are the conversations there? Are there other groups that are thinking about this as they're talking about this? And if you can find groups to connect with or people who are already talking about this, then working with them to elevate the conversation is always great. If you can't find anyone, then be the one to start that conversation. Contact your local elected official or an environmental organization that you might know locally and tell them about the work that you heard about in New Jersey or New York or Minnesota and say that you think that your state or your city or your county should have that too. I think starting that conversation is a really powerful way to create power and to shift the conversation when we're talking about things like pollution, environmental justice, regulations, all of that. Yeah, I think that's super important. You can actually go to cleanwater action.org and go to our Minnesota page to find out more or New Jersey page. You could also click on join our email list, and then we could get in touch with you that way as well. Carolina and Caroline, I would like you to tell us how people can take action as well as share your website too. Yes, so I mentioned it earlier, but we do have the coalition landing page, and that's f ccp cmn.org. And we do have, you'll be able to see some of our latest media articles, some of the history that we talked about today, who we are. We also have a one-pager of cumulative impacts, what they are, how they impact you, how people can get involved. But we also have a section where you can share your story, and I think that's one of the most powerful ways to really uplift some of the things that are happening as well as get enrolled or subscribe to receive the latest news of what's going on in Minnesota. So definitely recommend checking it out and signing up or sharing your story if you feel comfortable doing so. Well, thank you both so much for joining. We All Live Downstream podcast today and taking the time to speak with us. Is there anything you wanted to add that maybe I didn't ask or mention before we end the podcast today? Just want to thank you for your time, Jenny. It's been a pleasure having this conversation and really just excited for what's coming next and excited that Minnesota is now the third in the nation, but also excited to continue to see that more states hopefully add on. And yeah, we need to build collective power and continue push for equity. Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for joining us in all the work you do. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining us. To learn more about Clean Water Action visit clean water.org. If you'd like to support us, click on the Donate button As a nonprofit organization, your donations keep our engines running and allow us to continue to fight for healthier communities and a more just world. For all, be sure to subscribe to cleanwater Actions podcast. We all live downstream available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, and all of your favorite podcast streaming apps. Bye-Bye everyone.