i like many aspects of the biden plan, but i feel like we're still sidestepping important questions of power and its allocation. the key to mitigating environmental racism – and the climate crisis more broadly – is redistributing power to communities of color. 1/

along with technical details, we need to always ask how climate plans are returning power to POC? and that means opportunities for ownership, wealth creation, and decision making. is the plan creating those opportunities and then providing the means to sustain and enforce them?

is it offering poor communities – especially those that are majority POC – the same level of control over decisions and access tp regulatory processes that well-off, white communities have?

will the money being allocated go to businesses and orgs in frontline communities, owned by women and POC, etc.? does it include supplementary policies to increase systemic access to green jobs for marginalized folks?

often policy design defaults (for good reason!) to existing grant structures and implementation mechanisms with little additional detail (ex. "require community benefits agreements"; "provide grants"; etc.) but often, these structures were designed in ways that are exclusionary.

ex. federal grants + contracts require lots of paperwork that many small non-profits or business can't handle – even if they are ideal for the work being funded. but you know who is ready? larger non-profits and suburban construction companies (which tend to be more white)

we have to pay attention to these kinds of downstream effects or we will quickly find that even the most progressive climate policies fail to deliver the equity they promise. i don't fault the biden team for not including them in the plan – this is a campaign doc, not a bill.

but i do hope that they – and we! – think about it. and if this sounds like a lot of work, it is! our country is deeply racist (and capitalist) on every level. if equity could have been achieved by a set of topline policies and a few new departments, we wouldn't be here