You read that title correctly. What might Hilda Solis, Barack Obama's selection for Secretary of Labor, mean for the environment? The Department of Labor is not a branch of the government we normally associate with environmental health, safety, or remediation.
That may change soon. Labor leaders like David Bonoir and Andy Stern rave about Hilda Solis's record on labor issues, but Rep. Solis may be the most proactive Cabinet appointee on environmental justice issues in our nation's history. (Including administrators of the EPA.) That record, in the position she has been nominated to take in 2009, may have real meaning for the health and safety of millions of Americans.
I'll discuss Rep. Solis soon, but want to provide context about environmental justice first. The environmental justice movement has, for the past quarter century or so, raised awareness of unequal exposure to environmental hazards dependent on race and class. (In a diary I wrote about one year ago, I explored some of the ways in which the term has evolved over time.) One of the ongoing projects in environmental history is assessing the scope of these inequalities over the past two centuries, but the movement itself in the United States can be traced to a series of protests around toxic waste dumps between 1978 and 1987. My earlier diary has some of the key people and studies in that period; for the purposes of this diary, I will link to the 1991 Principles of Environmental Justice. Though the movement has not been static the past 17 years, these principles outline the broad goals of the movement.
1. Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.
2. Environmental Justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias.
3. Environmental Justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.
4. Environmental Justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food.
5. Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.
6. Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.
7. Environmental Justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation.
8. Environmental Justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards.
9. Environmental Justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.
10. Environmental Justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide.
11. Environmental Justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination.
12. Environmental Justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and provided fair access for all to the full range of resources.
13. Environmental Justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color.
14. Environmental Justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national corporations.
15. Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.
16. Environmental Justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives.
17. Environmental Justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to insure the health of the natural world for present and future generations.
What does this have to do with the new selection for Secretary of Labor? While environmental justice is a movement that has gained increasing support amongst activists and academics over the past twenty years, it has not been broadly embraced by our elected officials. Harold Meyerson, in a post entitled "Hilda Solis is Great," discussed many of her accomplishments in California's state legislature (where Solis served for eight years before winning her Congressional seat in 2000).
[Solis] became the chief proponent in state government for the environmental justice movement that was bubbling up in various working-class communities around the state, steering to passage bills that reduced airborne carcinogens in industrial areas and that created parkland alongside the rivers that run through some of Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods.
This work did not end when she went to Washington. Last year, Rep. Solis introduced the Environmental Justice Act of 2007 (H.R 1103) which attempted to get the Bush Administration to attend to environmental justice issues by codifying President Clinton's Environmental Justice Executive Order into law that the Bush Administration would not ignore. (Sigh....such are the limits of legislative checks on the executive branch absent impeachment proceedings.) Her official House web site has a relatively lengthy page devoted to environmental justice issues, among them the siting of toxic waste dumps, water and air pollution, and access to green space. For these reasons, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said that "the Sierra Club is overjoyed at the news of Hilda Solis's selection as Secretary of Labor."
Hilda Solis will be a Secretary of Labor who recognizes that environmental inequalities are a serious problem for millions of working Americans. We may see how significant her appointment truly is when we observe the performance of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) over the coming years. OSHA, the agency that monitors workers' safety, has a broad swath of oversight, including environmental workplace hazards.
As Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis will have supervisory authority over OSHA and a couple thousand employees who may be sent to monitor and enforce the nation's workplace safety laws. She will have the power to regulate workplace safety at historically dangerous workplaces to work in and live near, including PCB dumps, materials recycling facilities (MRFs), and incinerators. Such enterprises not only pose high risks to their workers, but also have histories of being located in communities of color, and of the economically and politically disempowered. Placing Hilda Solis in charge of the Department of Labor gives the federal government a new opportunity to go beyond placing the burden of alleviating environmental inequalities that (on the federal level) has been placed solely on the EPA.
Readers of my recent diaries know that the selection of Lisa Jackson as administrator of the EPA left me asking some questions about her ability to be an effective manager of an environmental regulatory agency. The selection of Hilda Solis serves as a reminder that the Obama transition team is looking at the environment as a broad-based issue that involves the coordination of multiple branches of government. Certainly the discussion of the rollout of the new "Green Team" at energy, EPA, and CEQ was that of a coordinated team, but most of that discussion centered (quite rightly) on climate change and sustainable energy. With Hilda Solis's appointment, we now have evidence that the coordinated environmental policy of the Obama Administration also includes a more holistic approach to environmental justice than the federal government has yet attempted.
It remains to be seen how this will actually work. Perhaps additional agencies, such as the Department of Justice, will work with Labor and the EPA on these issues. It is possible that EJ concerns will be secondary to other issues once the new administration is in place. Time will tell, but as 2008 nears an end, the news of Hilda Solis's new job gives environmental justice advocates much to anticipate in the new year.