Justice 40
In 2021, President Biden established the Justice 40 Initiative to advance environmental justice and spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities. Justice 40 is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that Federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.
Although Justice40 holds the potential to strategically invest in communities that have historically been environmentally and economically left behind by infrastructure redlining in the past, it’s going to take more than money. The Administration must create the conditions for the infrastructure dollars to be spent equitably and actually reach historically marginalized communities, including the need for greater accountability and transparency of federal agencies charged with distributing and investing funds.
History has shown that too often projects intended to benefit our communities never reach us. Thus, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice will launch a Justice 40 Community Engagement Project that will build the capacity of communities through education and training to participate in the “just” implementation of Justice 40. We have designed this project using the insight of hard-learned lessons from our 30 year history of research, education and community engagement work to document, address and bring change through our struggle for Environmental Justice.
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