Energy

Annie Loya: My Story

Editor2 — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:17:31 -0500

By Annie Loya

My family is from a small rural town, Pearl Lagoon, in Nicaragua. At the time of our departure from Nicaragua, the country was in deep conflict—fighting the Reagan-backed Contra and Sandinista war. At the root of this war was a country trying to win social equity and maintain its natural wealth vs. the predator who wanted to gain control for its own economic ambitions. All the while, American media spun it as the United States trying to save yet another democratically challenged region.

We moved to East Palo Alto, California. A town that came into being by the driving force of its residents. There was no other city at the time that truly accepted people of color, so they created their own. It was a small start but a grand effort and message of self-determination. East Palo Alto inherited many burdens: a chemical waste plant, a county dump, land that sits on top of a water bed, and power lines over the city that emit electromagnetic waves. East Palo Alto looks very different from the neighboring city of Palo Alto. Palo Alto bears large green trees, smoothly paved streets, many parks and open spaces, grocery stores, and recreational spaces.

Energy Policy and Inner City Abandonment

Editor2 — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:25:21 -0500

Reprinted from RP&E Volume 2, No. 1: Energy

By Carl Anthony

Few people realize the price inner cities have paid for our national love affair with the automobile. But the evidence of devastation is not hard to find. White flight to the metropolitan fringe, driven in part by racism, is linked to destruction of human resources in the metropolitan core, to waste of petroleum energy, pollution of air and water, and degradation of urban biological resources. But older urban neighborhoods can help lead the way to more sustainable cities and suburbs...

The increasing concentration of poverty in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas is linked to the practice of investment in suburban sprawl, and divestment from energy-efficient, inner city communities where people of color live.

Transportation and energy issues are of critical concern to low income neighborhoods and practitioners of community-based economic development, but advocacy systems for energy and transportation issues are almost non-existent. These systems should be developed. Community development corporations in low-income and minority communities are well positioned to provide a new and potentially powerful national leadership in advocating energy- and transportation-efficient patterns for urban neighborhoods.

AB32: Energy Retrofits

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:07:42 -0600

AB32: Energy Retrofits for Low-Income Households
By Tara Marchant

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) aims to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent, bringing them back down to 1990 levels by 2020.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB), an 11-member body appointed by the governor, is the lead agency for implementing the legislation. After Gov. Schwarzenegger signed the bill in 2006, CARB spent two years working on a “Scoping Plan” that details the means for meeting the measure’s ambitious emissions-reduction targets. The recommendations in the plan will be fashioned into regulations subject to the agency’s usual rule-making process.

CARB focused on market-based mechanisms, explaining that “The development of a California cap-and-trade program that links with other Western Climate Initiative partner programs to create a regional market system is a central feature of the overall recommendation.”[1] But its plan also included recommendations for green buildings, which opens the door to local projects that can increase social equity as well as reduce emissions. These projects will be competing against those that benefit larger, better-funded stakeholders—with decisions made by an agency that is not readily held accountable to diverse communities.

Ensuring a Clean Energy Economy for All

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:27:50 -0600

By Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Leslie Moody

The fight to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) through the House of Representatives this summer saw unprecedented leadership from communities of color. That left more than a few people bewildered. Green For All, Partnership for Working Families, the AFL-CIO Building Trades, the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and other civil rights, labor, community, social justice, and environmental groups formed a broad coalition that successfully helped strengthen and pass the bill with the support of representatives Bobby Rush, Emmanuel Cleaver, Ben Ray Luján, and other members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses.

Energy Costs, Conservation, and the Poor

Editor2 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:07:04 -0500

By Andrew McAllister

Meeting monthly payments for household energy use is increasingly difficult for families with incomes at or near the poverty level. While the system of extraction, generation, and distribution of energy in usable form has many other economic and environmental impacts on most sectors of society, for the poor, the monthly bill is this system's most direct consequence. Living in (often forced to rent) the least efficient housing in the country, the typical poor household faces energy costs of up to 25% of its total income. This household has but two options: reduce consumption and/or look for aid in meeting unmanageable energy costs. Federal funding for both of these options, however, has been dwindling since the mid-80s; more and more responsibility for controlling these costs to the poor falls on local governments and groups.

Energy Policy and Inner City Abandonment

Editor2 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:42:18 -0500

By Carl Anthony

Oakland First City in the US to Contemplate Oil Independence!

Editor2 — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:44:08 -0600

The Oakland Apollo Alliance is excited to announce a recent step forward for "green-collar jobs" in Oakland. In October, Oakland became the nation's first city to explore "oil independence." The City Council voted unanimously to create an Oil Independence Task Force of experts to effectively research and write a plan for radically reducing Oakland's oil consumption by the year 2020. This is a critical development because the City Council required job creation to be a top priority in the search for solutions. In addition to restoring our environment, "Oil Independence" will also mean job opportunities for Oakland residents! The Task Force is expected to complete its work by mid-2007. The Oakland Apollo Alliance helped write portions of the City Council resolution, and also organized a well-attended rally at City Hall that highlighted growing public support for this effort. The Oakland Apollo Alliance is grateful to City Councilmember Nancy Nadel for her leadership in sponsoring the legislation.

Debunking False Solutions

Editor2 — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:29:59 -0500

By Sasha Lilley

Earlier this year, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman visited agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland’s Decatur, Illinois, headquarters to tout its part in President Bush’s Biofuels Initiative. The secretary posed for photos with then Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Chair G. Allen Andreas and announced that the Department of Energy would offer up to $160 million for the construction of three bio-refineries to expand U.S. ethanol production.

"Partnerships with industries like these will lead to new innovation and discovery that will usher in an era of reduced dependence on foreign sources of oil, while strengthening our economy at home,” Secretary Bodman said from ADM’s trade floor. Given the absence of conditions imposed by the Department of Energy, the three bio-refineries could well be partially coal-powered. ADM already operates coal-fired plants at its company base in Decatur, Illinois, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is currently adding another coal-powered facility at its Clinton, Iowa ethanol plant and planning another coal fired plant in the town of Columbus, Nebraska.

The Greening Economy

Editor2 — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:57:16 -0500

By Jackie Tsou Related story: Richmond Turns Green

In municipalities across the country, an unusual phenomenon is gaining momentum. It is the merger of two ideas traditionally believed to be opposites of each other—economic development and environmental protection—to create strategies for “green economic development,” or “sustainable development.” The creation of a “sustainable economy” is an attempt to find effective solutions to our country’s dependency on fossil fuels, while simultaneously boosting local economies through job creation. Now investors and policy-makers everywhere are pleasantly surprised to discover that green economic development promotes both, environmental protection and production performance.

Contaminated Contracting in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Editor2 — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:38:02 -0500

By Rita J.King

How is it possible that soil samples from St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans have been found to reveal a serious health threat by countless environmental groups, but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to insist that the area is safe, despite massive spills of oil and toxic chemicals?

“The first step in solving any problem is admitting that you have one, but the government is pretending there’s no problem,” says Anne Rolfes, executive director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), a non-profit that measures air and soil quality for residents near Exxon Mobil’s Chalmette power plant. After Katrina, LABB empowered residents to measure the contamination stemming from the toxic stew of chemicals and oil saturating the parish from 44 spills and Murphy Oil’s Meraux refinery.