Washington Post Meets With CIDA
The Washington Post reached out to our executive director and founder Mr. Hilton Kelley to speak with him about his perspective on the recent climate deal passed. This deal includes detrimental trade offs that have massive impacts on our environment, in that they permit more industry drilling in exchange for billions of dollars in clean environmental practices. Mr. Kelley highlights the effects these tradeoffs will have on the community of Port Arthur Texas and the environment at large.
This climate deal will effect everyone nationally and have even more effects on vulnerable, low income fence line communities similar to Port Arthur Texas.
Mr. Kelley states in the interview, "We’re battling for a clean environment, not just for the sake of climate change, but for the sake of the air that we breathe and the water that we drink.”
Mr. Kelley as well as local residents of Port Arthur share the same sentiment. Many fence line residents who are currently enduring industry related health issues such as respiratory, cancer, and kidney issues fear the worsening of their health. As many celebrate the "progression" of this legislation the echoing sentiment is that many citizens feel left behind in this effort of "progressing" environmental efforts.
“To me, it’s kind of like a double-edged sword,” Kelley told Danielle Nelson, a Prince Hall resident. “You know, it’s a good deal in some ways. It’s pouring money back to our state and eventually to our community. But it’s a bad deal they had to give up so much of the regulation that helps protect our health and the environment.”
"Making the most of the act will require a lot of work from community groups like his, Kelley said — small nonprofits with few support staff often struggle to access federal funds. But ultimately, he said, he aims to embrace the opportunities the law provides: to increase air pollution monitoring and improve public housing, to attract new businesses to Port Arthur’s struggling downtown, and to curb demand for the fuels that threaten his neighborhood and the world."
Read the full Washington Post article here.
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