Environmental Injustice and The Inflation Recovery Act with Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright

The inflation Reduction Act is being heralded by many environmental groups as a major victory in the fight against global warming.

But the bill has provoked criticism that it funds harmful false solutions and that environmental justice organizations, communities that they represent, and their concerns were ignored as the $360 billion deal was made.

In this episode of Breaking green, we will talk with Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright. Anthony publicly resigned from the board of Evergreen Action, a group whose stated mission is to build an all out national mobilization to defeat the climate crisis.

In his notice of resignation, Anthony noted Evergreen Action's failure to properly involve or communicate with environmental justice communities during critical phases of creating and passing the Inflation Reduction Act. He says that those left out of the process by the bigger, largely white driven environmental groups are those that will be most directly impacted by the fossil fuel false solutions increased mining and other extractive provisions contained in the bill.

Anthony serves as the Director of Environmental Justice for the group New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. He also served as the policy coordinator and Green New Deal policy lead at the Climate Justice Alliance. Anthony also led the effort to make the former Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative, the first health insurance provider in the state's history to remove transgender exclusions in 2012. He worked as a policy advisor for Senator Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign in 2020, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns of 2016 and 2020. He also serves on the board of directors of France, the Earth, the Backbone Campaign, and the Center for Sustainable Economy.

This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.

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Resources

Indigenous Environmental Network statement on IRA

Climate Justice Alliance Statement on IRA

Anthony  Kerefa Rogers-Wright's recent article in Black Agenda Report

Antony Kerefa Rogers-Wright's original notice of resignation.

1990 Southwest Organizing Project Letter

Equitable & Just National Climate Platform