[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
JUMPSTARTING MAIN STREET:
BRINGING JOBS AND WEALTH BACK
TO FORGOTTEN AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 16, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-29
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-855 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Ro Khanna, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Katie Porter, California Pete Sessions, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Andy Biggs, Arizona
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Scott Franklin, Florida
Georgia Jake LaTurner, Kansas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Pat Fallon, Texas
Jackie Speier, California Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Byron Donalds, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Mike Quigley, Illinois
Russell Anello, Staff Director
Katie Thomas, Subcommittee Staff Director
Amy Stratton, Deputy Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Environment
Ro Khanna, California, Chairman
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Ralph Norman, South Carolina,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Ranking Minority Member
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Jimmy Gomez, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Pat Fallon, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 16, 2021.................................... 1
Witnesses
Rick Bloomingdale, President, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Brandon Dennison, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Coalfield
Development
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Catherine Coleman Flowers, Founder, Center for Rural Enterprise
and Environmental Justice
Oral Statement................................................... 11
Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and
Urban Policy, The New School
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Ms. Michelle Martinez, Acting Executive Director, Michigan
Environment Justice Coalition
Oral Statement................................................... 14
Shay Hawkins, President, Opportunity Funds Association
Oral Statement................................................... 16
Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* No additional documents were entered into the record for this
hearing.
JUMPSTARTING MAIN STREET:.
BRINGING JOBS AND WEALTH BACK
TO FORGOTTEN AMERICA
----------
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:07 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Ro Khanna (chairman of
the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Khanna [presiding], Maloney,
Tlaib, Gomez, Bush, Norman, Gibbs, Fallon, and Herrell.
Mr. Khanna. [Presiding.] The committee will come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time. We will recess if there
are votes. I don't want any members on the committee to miss
votes.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement before
turning to our Ranking Member.
The purpose of this hearing is very simple. It is to show
that a climate agenda must be, can be, will be additive to
communities that are struggling. The President's climate agenda
will create jobs and bring prosperity to places across this
country, towns across this country, whether in Pennsylvania, or
South Carolina, or West Virginia, and will not take away any
opportunities. Today we will hear from witnesses about how to
create growth for towns and cities that have lost manufacturing
and fossil fuel jobs. These losses of jobs are taking place and
have nothing to do with our government policy. They are due to
automation, in many cases, and de-industrialization, which was
driven by mistakes in government policy. But we need to be able
to fix that by offering these communities new opportunities,
new jobs, that are now available with a strong investment in
clean technology.
Unfortunately, jobs have been in decline since the 1980's
in manufacturing. Jobs have also been in decline in the coal
industry since 1985 when there were 178,000 coal jobs, but
because of automation, there are now only 42,500 jobs, with
most of the decline happening actually in the 1980's and the
1990's. The pandemic has created another economic crisis. As of
May, 9.3 million people were unemployed, and the unemployment
rate is still too high at 5.8 percent. There are 7.6 million
fewer jobs in the U.S. since the pandemic began, and there are
over 20 million workers who are still being harmed to this day
by the pandemic. That includes Black and brown communities that
are experiencing unemployment the most and rural communities
that have also been particularly hard hit.
You know, in my district, we have over $10 trillion of
market cap in Silicon Valley of companies, and yet in towns,
particularly small towns, towns less than 50,000 people, wages
have stagnated in this country since 2008 and jobs have
declined. That must change. The unemployment rate is four
percentage points worse for Black Americans and two points
higher for Latinx Americans, a situation that is unjust. Women
are leaving the work force at an alarming rate. The work force
participation rate for women is 57.4 percent, a level not seen
since 1988. One-point-seven-nine million fewer women are in the
work force since the pandemic began, almost 2 million jobs
lost.
We have little time to act at the same time on the climate
crisis. The U.S. and the rest of the world, as everyone knows,
must achieve net zero emissions across all sectors of the
economy by 2050. This is what the science tells us. This can
only be accomplished with immediate mobilization. We must
invest in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, zero-
emission transportation, clean industry, and efficient and
electrified buildings. These are investments in jobs, and those
communities that are struggling must be prioritized. Those
communities that are most reliant on the fossil fuel industry
must be prioritized. They must be told and promised that we are
going to bring new jobs first, that the government policy is
going to bring jobs to their communities, not take any jobs
away. We can solve the climate and employment crisis at the
same time.
According to a study on the THRIVE agenda, an investment of
$1 trillion per year in a clean economy will create 15.5
million jobs, many of those jobs precisely in the communities
that have been left behind, jobs in the heartland of our
country, jobs in Black and brown communities. These investments
would also put the country on track to stay below the 1.5-
degree Celsius of warming. They would revitalize forgotten
communities that have lost manufacturing and fossil fuel jobs.
They must be, in many cases, union jobs. Strong labor and
equity standards will ensure that these are good jobs. We can't
tell a worker who is making 30 bucks an hour and had benefits
that suddenly they are going to be in a job that isn't as good.
That is unfair. These jobs must be as good as the jobs that
communities have lost, if not better.
The President's American Jobs Plan is a good start to this
crisis as is the President's infrastructure plan. Climate is
infrastructure because climate is about creating new jobs and
building the modern infrastructure in communities that are
hurting. The THRIVE Act, which I have co-sponsored, will also
provide family sustaining union jobs for 15 million Americans,
as will the WATER Act, which I am a proud co-lead on. These
bills are the kind of solutions that Congress should implement
to address the historic de-industrialization and discrimination
that we face as a Nation. I hope that we will have a
conversation, and I look forward to hearing from our experts on
what we can do to create these new jobs for the 21st century in
left-behind communities.
With that, I now recognize the distinguished Ranking
Member, Mr. Norman, for his opening statement.
Mr. Norman. Thank you so much, Chairman Khanna, for holding
this hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for taking your
time to appear.
The title of this hearing is, ``Jumpstarting Main Street:
Bringing Jobs and Wealth Back to Forgotten America.'' This is
an ironic title for the hearing considering that it is the
forgotten who are the ones that are being left behind by this
Administration. The President's American Jobs Plan would place
an enormous financial burden on the American taxpayer, and
particularly low-income Americans who are suffering
disproportionately from spikes in inflation. Ask anybody, have
you filled your car up with gas lately?
The American Jobs Plan calls for hundreds of billions of
dollars to be spent on reducing climate and energy emissions in
order to address climate change as one of the greatest
challenges of our time. The plan includes a very vague $213
billion proposal that will produce, preserve, and retrofit more
than 2 million affordable and sustainable places to live. I am
very interested to learn more about the plans for spending this
massive sum of taxpayers' money and how that will bring jobs
and wealth back to forgotten America. To say that I am
skeptical is an understatement.
Over the past year-and-a-half, the world's economy has
essentially been shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, even with this halt in activity, a recent National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NOAA, report from
April of this year shows that it barely made an impact on the
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If the most
unparalleled shutdown in human activity that closed schools and
businesses all around the world barely impacted CO2 levels, it
raises serious questions about whether spending massive amounts
of the United States' taxpayer money will actually affect the
climate, especially while countries like China and India
continue to pollute at record levels.
When Ms. Greta Thunberg appeared before our committee, I
asked her what leverage are you going to use with China to
incentivize them to cut their emissions. Her only response was
we will ask them and we will show through leadership. We are
dealing with a communist country, and that is not the type of
leverage that makes them respond to whatever we do.
The United States has made great strides when it comes to
emissions. The most recent U.S. EPA Annual Air Quality Report
shows that we are leading the world in reducing emissions,
having reduced more than the next 12 emission-reducing
countries combined. Because these reductions have come as a
result of innovation and market forces, energy costs have
decreased nationwide. The progress made in energy innovation
during the Trump Administration is at risk because of the
radical ideas the left is proposing. The Green New Deal would
damage our economy and do away with affordable energy while
destroying millions of jobs, as has occurred in the shutdown of
the Keystone pipeline and relying on countries that do not have
the best interest of the United States.
Americans all over the country are dealing with the
realities of the Biden Administration's policies. Gas and
lumber prices have skyrocketed since January. Lumber prices are
up over 400 percent since this time last year, and in the past
few weeks, I have seen hardworking South Carolinians waiting in
long lines at the gas station. This is not the American energy
dominance that we had seen over the prior four years during the
Trump Administration. As representatives, we will continue to
support responsible policies that work to solve our problems by
promoting innovation and investing in clean energy
infrastructure. However, I fear that a premature move away from
fossil fuels, particularly for poor areas, means that they will
continue to have little access to the type of cheap, reliable
energy that enables economic growth.
I look forward to hearing from Mr. Shay Hawkins today from
the Opportunity Fund Association to learn more about the work
he is doing to help promote opportunity fund investments in
distressed rural and urban communities. We should be looking at
ideas like opportunity funds to ensure that America is able to
help families and businesses respond from the COVID-19 pandemic
instead of relying on massive government mandates that will
only hamper and basically stop the recovery. The United States
has abundant clean energy natural resources. We must use those
resources to advance American interests while continuing to
lead the world in emissions reductions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to each of the
witnesses.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Norman. And while we obviously
have differences in ideology that are clear, I have always
appreciated your willingness to look for common ground on this
committee.
I now recognize the distinguished chair of the full
committee, which should be a testament to the witnesses as our
distinguished chair doesn't join every hearing, so we are
really honored that Carolyn Maloney, our chair, is with us.
And, Chair Maloney, if you would give your opening statement.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Chairman Rho Khanna and Ranking
Member Norman, for bringing the subcommittee's attention to
this vitally important issue. The United States has a once-in-
a-generation opportunity to combat the climate crisis and
create millions of good-paying jobs. Crucially, the American
Jobs Plan would commit the U.S. to a standards investment in
justice approach. Ambitious standards will help to reduce
carbon emissions on the timeline science says is necessary to
secure a livable climate. Direct investments spurs immediate
green deployment and job creation, and justice humanizes every
dollar and every agency decision for a generation.
Last Congress, the Oversight Committee and this
subcommittee partnered on a series of staff reports called
``The Urgent Need for Climate Action.'' These reports uncovered
the staggering cost of runaway pollution in several states and
the United States overall, and daunting as the numbers are, I
know that one of the key findings from that staff report is
that the U.S. will ``save lives, reduce illnesses, and save
trillions of dollars by acting now at a local, state, regional,
and national level.'' The most immediate benefits will come
from eliminating what committee staff reports called the
primary impacts of fossil fuel pollution. The carbon emissions
that drive global climate change also release deadly gases
teeming with particles that lodge in our lungs and enter the
bloodstream, leading to serious health impacts in many
communities. And in my own state of New York, reducing
emissions at the level consistent with the Paris Agreement
would save 400,000 lives simply due to cleaner air.
Because of the climate crisis, drawing down emissions is a
top priority, but in tackling this problem, we must ensure we
target the pollution crisis equitably, focusing on frontline
communities that are hurt first and worst. I am proud to
support the THRIVE Act and its sustained investment model. And
with the transition to a renewable economy, we can beat back
the climate crisis and move forward with more environmental
justice. Fundamentally, we need to direct at least 40 to 50
percent of investments to the most impacted communities,
meeting and hopefully exceeding the goal set by President Biden
in the American Jobs Plan. As we will hear today, these
communities are poised to lead the way to a green industrial
transformation.
I want to thank you, Chairman Ro Khanna, for having this
hearing, and I look forward to working with you as you move
forward with proposals to green America, create more jobs,
create a healthier environment, and I look forward to the
testimony. I yield back.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney. Now I will
introduce our distinguished witnesses. Our first witness today
is Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO,
who I remember said the key is to always talk about bringing
jobs first. Then we will hear from Brandon Dennison, founder
and chief executive officer of Coalfield Development in West
Virginia, who has really been working with local communities.
Next we will hear from Catherine Coleman Flowers, founder of
the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice in
Alabama; again, someone who is grounded and rooted in her
community. Then we will hear from Dr. Darrick Hamilton, the
Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New
School, really one of the most brilliant public intellectuals
of our time. Next, we will hear from Michelle Martinez, acting
executive director of the Michigan Environmental Justice
Coalition, who is doing extraordinary work, and I want to
recognize Representative Gomez on our committee for bringing
her work to our attention. Finally, we will hear from Shay
Hawkins, CEO of the Opportunity Funds Association. Thank you
for coming in person.
The witnesses will be unmuted so we can swear them in.
Please raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Mr. Khanna. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative. Thank you.
Without objection, your written statements will be made
part of our record.
With that, Mr. Bloomingdale, you are now recognized for
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RICK BLOOMINGDALE, PRESIDENT, PENNSYLVANIA AFL-CIO
Mr. Bloomingdale. Thank you, and good afternoon, Chairman
Khanna, Ranking Member Norman, and Chairwoman Maloney, and
members of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment.
Thank you for inviting me to testify today. As was said, my
name is Rick Bloomingdale, and I am the president of the
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. We represent over 700,000 union members
and more than 50 international unions across the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania. I am here before the subcommittee today to
testify regarding job creation in de-industrialized blue collar
communities across Pennsylvania as well as America.
Look around your districts. Our people in our lands are
struggling all across our Nation. As the past years have
progressed, we have gradually experienced the toll that the
past and latest recessions are having on our communities
throughout the Commonwealth and across the country. We must
understand the weight of living paycheck to paycheck that many
of our communities carry every single day. We need to target
investments in areas of the country that have been de-
industrialized and historically disadvantaged by working
together to create an economically and environmentally
sustainable pathway forward.
Over the past year-and-a-half, Pennsylvania has experienced
the highest unemployment rate in any of our lifetimes. We need
to understand the importance our infrastructure plays in
creating and maintaining good jobs that provide a steady
livelihood to hardworking Pennsylvanians. Diversifying our
energy work force through the addition of good, innovative jobs
can play a critical role in how we build the future our workers
and families deserve. We must be clear: environmental
sustainability cannot be economically unsustainable. To combat
and reverse climate change, we need to evolve how we produce
energy, expand energy efficiency for usage and conservation,
cleanup our atmosphere through carbon capture and
sequestration, as well as many other innovative energy ideas.
There is no singular solution, but, rather, with multiple
steps, we can create clean jobs that put working people first.
And let me just add that Pennsylvania is an energy
exporter. Many people may not know this: the first oil well in
America was drilled in Pennsylvania. Before that, we were the
major leader in coal production and powered the railroads that
built and expanded our Nation. Pennsylvania is proud of its
energy history and hopefully our energy future as we move
forward in new economic and environmentally sustainable energy
industries. It is critical we create good jobs in advance of
any actions that cause reductions in unemployment and fossil
fuel use. Working families and communities want to know and
deserve to know that doing what is necessary to fight climate
change won't result in unemployment or a reduced standard of
living. Rather than telling people you are going to have to
transition, let's make sure jobs are there first, and then the
transition happens rather than rolling the dice and putting
people out of work before we create the good union jobs that
will come to our struggling communities.
The shift to clean energy is a tremendous opportunity to
create union jobs. The Federal Government must lead the way by
insisting that public dollars are spent on American-made
products. This should include renewable energy goods, clean
vehicles, and while also ensuring that high labor standards are
built into every action and attached to every Federal incentive
for clean energy. We deeply appreciate President Biden's call
to invest in coal and other fossil fuel communities to create
good jobs in new industries and by cleaning up abandoned mines
and wells. We call on Congress to support this order with the
funding it requires, while doing more to require high labor
standards.
And just quickly, a little bit of history about Appalachia
and that part of Pennsylvania. The Federal Government--this is
nothing new--trying to help in Appalachia, the attempt by the
Federal Government to assist struggling communities is not new,
as I said. In fact, the AFL-CIO Appalachian Council is an
organization governed by the chief executive officers of the
AFL-CIO state labor councils in the 13 states of the
Appalachian region. Since 1964, the organization has developed
and implemented a broad range of social services through
various projects designed to lead to full employment, to the
extent possible, within a region blighted by poverty and
joblessness. The Council also recognized as technological
advances and economic forces brought about changes in the
workplace, workers would be required to have additional skill
sets that had not been necessary in previous generations. Much
of this is still true today.
Lately, we have been engaged with a group called Reimagine
Appalachia, and while many communities throughout our country
have been negatively impacted by de-industrialization, I would
like to focus on a strong initiative building out of Appalachia
that can serve as a framework for future success as this
Administration creates new pathways to build back better.
Reimagine Appalachia is a coalition formed of economic and
environmental community leaders and grassroots organizations
who are working to address the obstacles and propose solutions
on rebuilding a local economy that can adequately support
workers, communities, and the environment in the face of de-
industrialization. Rather than government officials coming into
local communities that are hurting and implementing change
without leveraging the voices and experiences of the local
population, Reimagine Appalachia is unique because it has built
forward from the input of local residents, those whose lives
are drastically and directly impacted and how they re-imagine
their Appalachia. Together, the Coalition has been working to
address the problems that these local stakeholders have
highlighted, incorporating their voices into creating a
blueprint for economically and environmentally sustainable
change.
This plan shows how Federal resources can support high-
quality jobs and sustainable manufacturing, a modern Civilian
Conservation Corps, and by building out the region's broadband
infrastructure, which is critical to any growth of any
businesses across America. The final report from a study by the
Political Economy Research Institute, PERI, at the University
of Massachusetts-Amherst, shows that the blueprint has the
potential to provide good, sustainable jobs for 250,000
Pennsylvanians every year for the next 10 years. The number is
for Pennsylvania alone. The job creation potential equates to
hundreds of thousands more jobs for each of our neighboring
states in the Appalachian region. These Federal investments
would not only represent a counter force in the economic
collapse associated with COVID-19, they would also build the
foundation for a more sustainable and vibrant Appalachia moving
forward.
But first we need to combat negative impacts that will
happen to fossil fuel industry workers. There are roughly
64,000 Pennsylvanians working in fossil fuel-based industries,
including oil and gas extraction, coal mining, and refineries.
The PERI analysis, driven by emissions reductions that come, in
part, from reduced energy consumption of high-emission fuels,
determined that by the year 2030, there would be 28,702 fewer
fossil fuel industry workers, about 1,000 of which each year
would retire, but the rest of which would require reemployment.
Each year for the next 10 years, roughly 1,800 workers will
deserve priority status for reemployment and jobs created via
national climate change legislation. The PERI analysis
recommends, among other things, income support from
supplemental wage insurance for any difference in pay levels
that result from moving into cleaner energy industries. Some
additional training for new work may also be necessary. For
this purpose, Federal funding should be allocated toward union
apprenticeship programs providing continuing learning
opportunities.
I am going to jump right to the conclusion here because
while I can't see the timer, I am guessing my five minutes is
almost up, but we do need to invest in the future. This is not
an ultimatum to protect either jobs or the climate. We
desperately need to do both. We need a vision for the future
that centers workers and their families and that includes
workers who aren't currently in the energy sector. When we talk
about energy, we want to create more jobs. This means creating
more work for people already in the industry and a pathway to
the good jobs for people who want to be in the energy
production industry. There is room for everyone if we do this
the right way.
As we look toward building a pathway to a better future for
our communities hardest hit through de-industrialization over
the past decades, we must create policy that truly centers the
vocalized needs from our local work forces in these areas.
State policymakers should leverage opportunities for stimulus
and recovery. The Federal Government also has a role to play
with advancing a just, people's budget for environmental
protection and conservation in Pennsylvania as well as the rest
of the Nation that helps to put residents back to work while
cutting carbon emissions and curbing water pollution.
Actions we can take include passing the PRO Act to ensure
good, sustainable union jobs are available as we create new
jobs and industries that target infrastructure, rehabilitation,
and development moving forward; creating a new grant program
that supports intermediary organizations that work with
employers to promote quality jobs; leveraging public funds to
help employers and labor management partnerships; reduce the
cost of training new hires to fill quality jobs and providing
funding to discourage further layoffs and, instead, encourage
employers to train and redeploy workers into the industries we
will be transitioning into; maximizing the creation of good
union jobs by requiring project labor agreements on
construction projects receiving $100,000 or more in Federal
funds; bundling small projects into aggregate contracts of at
least $1 million and enabling to form unions and bargain
collectively; targeting the benefits of job creation to
impacted workers and communities by developing a funding
formula that prioritizes communities previously left behind;
creating targeted hiring programs using first source hiring
systems for historically disadvantaged groups residing within a
specific radius of a project.
Mr. Khanna. Mr. Bloomingdale?
Mr. Bloomingdale. Requiring a percentage of work hours to
be completed by apprentices in registered or locally based
programs.
Mr. Khanna. Mr. Bloomingdale? Maybe if you could just wrap
up in a sentence or two.
Mr. Bloomingdale. I will finish up right here. Investments
and doing this right can lead to concrete, well-paying jobs and
help serve as a blueprint for how we sustainably diversify our
energy work force over the decades to come. As we map a more
sustainable future, we must continue to work to ensure that the
working class aren't left behind as we build forward together.
Thank you very much, and I apologize for going over the time
limit.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Dennison, you
are now recognized for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF BRANDON DENNISON, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, COALFIELD DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Dennison. Chairman Khanna, Ranking Member Norman,
committee members, distinguished guests, thank you for the
opportunity to share my perspective from the ground here in
West Virginia. My name is Brandon Dennison. I'm a lifelong West
Virginian. I'm a proud West Virginian. Even though many make
fun of my people, in an era of political correctness, it is
still somehow totally acceptable to demean rednecks,
hillbillies, trailer park trash, things like that. We can get
over the insults, but the deeper damage resulting from
America's scorn for Appalachia results from generations of
economic extraction, exploitation, and struggle. The addiction
epidemic, which was ravaging our hills and hollers even before
the COVID pandemic, is directly linked to the economic
hopelessness many of us feel, not just here in Appalachia, but
throughout rural America.
The country has demanded our natural resources, our high
rate of military volunteers, our preserved forests, but the
country has not supplied us with the long-term investments
necessary to enjoy the kind of wealth that bigger cities have
enjoyed. Broken promises have piled up here both from the
public and the private sectors. Many communities still lack
basic infrastructure, such as clean drinking water or cell
service, let alone internet service. Perhaps the most egregious
promise and broken promise was the false hope that the coal
industry could ever again be the engine of job creation that it
once was. But please understand this: even when coal boomed, we
still had some of the highest poverty rates in North America
here in Appalachia. In too many communities, the coal miners
really were the lucky ones. They got some of the few good-
paying jobs around. They got to keep their dignity. Our needs
in Appalachia are much larger than merely finding a solar job
from a coal job, and they are much more complex. We need large
and sustained place-based investment of a magnitude capable of
reversing decades of disinvestment and decay.
The organization I founded in 2010, Coalfield Development,
is creating new employment-based social enterprises in a
diverse array of sectors in order to model what a new and
diverse economy can actually look like. We helped start the
first solar company in our community, and we launched it out of
an old, beat-up, used ice cream truck. We launched a statewide
agriculture cooperative that now includes over 100 farmers. It
started on a former mountaintop removal site upon which many
figured nothing could ever grow again. We hire local workers to
revitalize abandoned and dilapidated buildings, and we put new
businesses and affordable housing in those old buildings.
The businesses we create purposely hire people who face
barriers to employment, more than 300 new jobs so far: those in
recovery from substance use disorder, racial minorities, people
on public assistance, and former coal miners. These folks work
according to what we call our 33-6-3 model; that is, 33 hours
of paid work each week, six hours of higher education, and
three hours of personal development. We learned early on that
job training alone is not enough to build a new post-coal
economy. We have to provide people with the training, but also
the new job at the same time. It has got to be paid because
people can't put their lives on hold to do a training program.
They've got families to feed.
Social enterprises are a unique business model that can
achieve both the training and the direct employment our people
need. They can also demonstrate very tangibly what a new
economy actually looks like. We are pioneering new markets for
our region. We are not asking for special treatment here in
Appalachia. We are asking for a fighting chance. Appalachians
have given so much to America, and we still have so much more
to give. We have the hands-on skills to literally rebuild a new
sustainable economy. We have the skills to retrofit buildings
to be more energy efficient, to install solar systems, to
reclaim scarred landscapes, to grow local food, and so much
more.
Too often, in discussions about a greener economy, it is
frustrating when rural extractive economies are sort of thought
of as collateral damage, and the idea is we need to get subsidy
there to mitigate the damage. I see that as totally backward. I
see rural America leading the way on a greener economy. We have
the gumption and the grit to do so, and really all that is
missing is the investment at a scale that's really necessary,
given both the size of the challenge but also the size of the
opportunity here in Appalachia and across rural America.
I ask this committee to consider big and bold investments
in our region. Thank you very much.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Dennison. Next, Ms. Flowers, you
are now recognized for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS, FOUNDER, CENTER FOR
RURAL ENTERPRISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Ms. Flowers. Thank you, Chairperson Khanna, Ranking Member
Norman, and all the members of the committee for the
opportunity to testify. My name is Catherine Coleman Flowers. I
serve as the development manager for the Equal Justice
Initiative and the founding director of the Center for Rural
Enterprise and Environmental Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. I
also serve as a practitioner in residence at Duke University, a
member of the board of advisors for the Center for Earth Ethics
at Union Theological Seminary, as well as the boards of the
National Resource Defense Council and the Climate Reality
Project.
In 2020, I was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in
environmental health, and I authored the book entitled Waste:
One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret. In this book,
I uncovered the extent to which rural America has been denied
access to sustainable and resilient sanitation infrastructure.
I am a proud native of Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural area
located between Selma and Montgomery. Like Montgomery, the
cradle of the modern-day civil rights movement, or Selma, known
for its voting rights history, Lowndes County, too, has a proud
history of fighting for equality.
In addition, in the early 1900's, sharecroppers organized
for jobs and justice. Many of its sons and later its daughters,
including my father, three brothers, and myself, served in the
United States military. We have a deep legacy of holding up
core democratic values even when they failed us. That failure
is exemplified through healthcare disparities, low-wage jobs,
unemployment, unsafe mobile homes, high electric bills,
straight pipe-in of raw sewage, or failing wastewater systems.
I have often taken policymakers and philanthropist to Lowndes
County to see the inequalities that exist and to hear from
local people what is needed to address them. At the height of
the pandemic, Lowndes County had the highest death and
infection rate per capita in the state of Alabama. Sadly, as
one travels through Lowndes County now, the fresh graves of
victims of COVID are a constant reminder of what happens when
poverty, failing or no sanitation infrastructure, and climate
change comes together.
Because I am a country girl, I speak in plain English like
I would if I was home speaking to local people. In the town of
Hayneville, Alabama, for more than 20 years, Ms. Charlie Mae
Holcombe has been telling people about the sewage from a nearby
lagoon that has been backing up into her home. Yet the failing
infrastructure continues to fail, and she continues to cry for
help. She is paying a wastewater treatment fee, yet all the
town can provide is a pump truck to pump sewage out of her yard
from time to time.
And now a similar design of what we know is not working is
playing for the Town of White Hall. This sewage lagoon is
sitting next to an elementary school. A member of their water
board said that the liability for the septic systems is being
transferred to residents where the systems are being placed in
40 homes that will be connected to the lagoon. Yet it begs one
to question, how can Federal money be used to buy equipment
that does not come with any service or performance warranties,
especially when we know they not only fail in Lowndes County,
but throughout Alabama and the Nation? In nearby Montgomery,
Alabama, we learned that numerous older Black neighborhoods are
not connected to the sewer, yet they pay a flat rate for water
and sewer. Many are on failing septic systems that are
deteriorating even more frequently because of rising water
tables. This is indicative of the sanitation inequity that
exists throughout the U.S. I have seen more raw sewage on the
streets of Centreville, Illinois, than I have seen in Alabama.
In Mount Vernon, New York, people are crying for help, and in
Martin County, Kentucky, they are asking for sanitation justice
and good-paying jobs as well.
The American Jobs Plan provides an opportunity to deal with
the forgotten in rural, Black, brown, and indigenous
communities that are experiencing the most severe job losses,
untimely deaths, poor living conditions, health crises, and
climate injustice. It is an opportunity to right some wrongs
and to make America a model of ingenuity where we have clean
air, clean water, resilient infrastructure, and good-paying
jobs for everyone. With this funding should come guardrails
that will ensure that Mrs. Charlie Mae will not get more sewage
in her yard and home, lagoons are not built next to schools,
and each onsite system or any technology sold comes with some
performance and parts warranty we have come to expect from a
car, a hot water heater, or a heating and cooling system. The
guardrails should include stringent enforcement so that people
of Alabama and throughout America would get relief.
I did not set out to be a climate activist, nor did all the
civil rights leaders I grew up around that bent the arc toward
justice. We all have the power to change our communities for
the better and we should, but I also implore our leaders and
policymakers to recognize the areas outside of urban areas,
especially those urban centers that do not have the privilege
to flush and forget. I thank you for this opportunity to speak
with you today. It is an honor, and I look forward to
continuing conversation about environmental justice and
functioning wastewater systems for all Americans. Thank you.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Ms. Flowers. Dr. Hamilton, you are
now recognized for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF DARRICK HAMILTON, PH.D., HENRY COHEN PROFESSOR OF
ECONOMICS AND URBAN POLICY, THE NEW SCHOOL
Mr. Hamilton. Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, Chairman
Khanna, Ranking Member Norman, Chairwoman Maloney, and other
esteemed members of the committee. I am Darrick Hamilton, the
Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and a
university professor at The New School, and the director of the
Institute on Race and Political Economy.
Stimulus plans championed on both sides of the aisle use
tax incentives and deregulation to cajole or bribe a private
sector with already low tax bills and record-breaking profits
to provide more jobs and rebuild the Nation's crumbling
infrastructure. This approach leaves workers vulnerable to the
whimsical nature of trickle-down employment as well as the
instability of contingent work. Moreover, it often transfers
the value of our public infrastructure assets to corporate
interests with no guarantee that the infrastructure will
actually be built in the first place. In contrast, a worker-
focused industrial policy with direct public hiring ensures not
only net new jobs, but net new quality jobs, jobs that build
our public, physical, health, and human infrastructure, green
our economy, and create a care economy for all Americans.
This form of stimulus directly targets American workers and
provides for a more efficient multiplier with fair and balanced
growth that promotes our shared prosperity. An EPI report,
entitled ``The Productivity Pay Gap,'' traces the relationship
between economic growth and worker compensation since the mid-
20th century, and finds that between 1948 and 1979, our
Nation's productivity rose 108 percent, while, at the same
time, worker compensation rose a comparable 93 percent. That is
almost a 1-to-1 lockstep, balanced relationship. In contrast,
from 1979 to 2018, a period of our economy characterized by
supply side economics, productivity rose by 70 percent, while
real worker compensation rose by only 12 percent.
This concept that I'm describing of building our physical
and human infrastructure by way of direct public hiring, it's
not new nor is it radical. It provides a direct source of
employment. It triggers a multiplier stimulus effect across a
panoply of economic activities. It enables workers,
particularly those at the low end of the labor market, to
bargain for better wages and benefits without the fear and
destitution associated with the threat of unemployment. It
structurally changes the U.S. economy away from low-wage work
toward more moderate-and high-wage work. It addresses our 21st
century physical and human infrastructure needs and reduces our
vulnerability to natural disasters resulting from our unnatural
climate change. It reduces the adverse effects of job
discrimination. It provides an automatic stabilizer that
addresses not only cyclical unemployment, but regional
unemployment, areas that have been neglected and that suffer
from de-industrialization. It provides checks for structural
unemployment, recognizing that the private sector has never
been adequate to supply enough good jobs for the American
people. It eliminates the moral hazard problem associated with
the implicit promise of bailout of the too-big-to-fail
financial sector in times of economic crisis.
The jobs could range from construction, education, health
services, supportive housing, libraries, child and elder care,
arts and culture, and projects designed to transform our cities
to green, emission-free municipalities that are more
sustainable and resilient. The Federal Government, states,
Indian nations, local municipalities, community councils would
conduct inventories of their needs and develop a job bank of
tasks to be done. Priority would be given to the most urgent
projects to aid the most distressed communities. The work would
address our 21st-century infrastructure needs. Projects would
produce tangible public benefits.
The New Deal era shows that government can stimulate
economic growth, protect our environment, and build our public
infrastructure in a way that directly serves its people. Only
this time we should ensure that these investments by both
design and implementation are explicitly anti-racist and anti-
sexist, and do not exclude anyone. Access to jobs and social
insurance programs that protect workers, such as universal
childcare, paid leave, elder care, must truly be universal and
ensure racial and gender equity.
So in conclusion, we need a 21st century public
infrastructure that prioritizes our shared prosperity by
centering worker livelihoods as both good labor and industrial
policy. Thank you.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. Now we will hear from
Ms. Martinez. You are now recognized for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE MARTINEZ, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
MICHIGAN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COALITION
Ms. Martinez. Thank you, and I want to thank you for the
opportunity to present today, and specifically Vice Chair
Rashida Tlaib, my Congresswoman where I live in the 13th
District, for her leadership in Washington, DC. Thank you,
Chairman Khanna, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Norman, and
the other congresspeople present today. Thank you,
Representative Gomez, for the invitation.
My name is Michelle Martinez, and I work as the acting
executive director for Michigan Environmental Justice
Coalition. For 10 years, MEJC has been fighting for equal
access to a clean environment and environmental justice with
coalitional partners working from the Jimenez principles of
democratic organizing. Over the last three years, MEJC has
engaged in a powerful campaign with partners, like We Want
Green, Too, the Citizens' Resistance Against Fermi 2,
Solidarity, Michigan Welfare Rights, and more to do three basic
things in Detroit: make energy affordable, healthy, and find
community-owned renewable energy pathways.
We feel that everyone, no matter where you live or what the
color of your skin, deserves to be able to have access to
affordable energy, to breathe clean air, to participate in the
renewable energy economy. And what we have encountered is a
matrix of corporate power and the politicians that they pay
obscuring, obstructing, and denying our pathway to democracy
and climate justice. For this reason, Congress needs to
jumpstart the renewable energy economy with direct community
investments, not just vague and uncertain benefits to areas in
Michigan that are hardest hit by the long history of
environmental contamination and disinvestment of the industrial
sector. Detroit is not special. It's emblematic of the places
all over the United States where racial inequality, pollution,
and a disproportionate weight of all of the risks, with little
to none of the benefits, of the fossil economy reign. A
pollution-free economy is an opportunity to course correct from
corporate greed to community health and wealth.
Just to give a portrait of what people do in the face of
disinvestment and crumbling infrastructure, I turn to testimony
given by resident Kiava Stewart to the Michigan Public Service
Commission, highlighting the plight of power outages. In
Detroit, pre-pandemic, our monopoly utility, DTE Energy,
performed over 200,000 shutoffs every year just in the
southeast Michigan serviced territory. Detroit experienced
death from power outages twice the rate of the suburbs. Ms.
Stewart specifically talked about how during power outages,
mothers in her community would pool food and redistribute to
those who did not have food from refrigeration spoilage, going
to great lengths to feed kids until the next SNAP benefits
came. A recent report by the Georgia Institute of Technology's
School of City and Regional Planning stated that a combined
heat wave and power outage in Detroit could be worse in
fatalities than the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina.
The American Recovery Plan must be ambitious in its push to
invest in the renovation of our energy system with community
health and wealth at the center to solve the climate crisis.
Detroit wants to go to work to fix the climate problem. As
outlined in the THRIVE Act, $1.138 trillion is the estimated
public investment in wind, solar, and geothermal energy that
economic modeling shows is necessary to enable a 50-percent
decrease in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Detroit
wants these investments in our homes and in our schools to
replace water systems and put solar on our roofs. But right
now, fossil fuel proponents are pushing for false solutions
that build out another generation of fracked gas, extend
nuclear, extending their power and profit, threatening the most
precious resource in the United States, the Great Lakes.
While advocates, tribal leaders, municipalities are leading
to shut down the Enbridge Line 5, utilities continue to build
fracked gas pipelines, tethering the Great Lakes for another
three generations to the risk and the threat of climate-causing
methane gas, methane gas 20 times stronger a climate-causing
gas and carbon dioxide. And for that reason, we must reject
false solutions, like capture technology, credit trading as a
solution.
Today we experience such wild inequities in the energy
system. University of Michigan researchers found that in
Detroit, a city of 85 percent Black and Latinx residents, use
energy less. We pay a higher proportion of our income on
energy. We're overexposed to fossil pollution, and, as a
result, we experience hospitalization and the costs from
healthcare bills because of it at a much higher rate. We
experience healthcare costs even from high heat events from
that of our suburban white counterparts, demonstrating clearly
that redlining and white flight that happened over the second
half of the last century is defining the early stages of
climate inequity. White suburban communities are just not
experiencing the impact of energy system the same as Black and
Latinx urban Detroit.
The barriers to access renewable energy are big, and
Congress must level the playing field with bold, direct
community investments to ensure equitable development,
equitable deployment of resources, fairness in the rate
structure, access to capital, adequate education, job training,
work force development, technical assistance, guaranteeing of
minority business contracts to sustained resources that will
combat the low wages, limited access to training, corporate
monopolies, and the racial discrimination baked into the
system.
Of course, Detroit needs an increase in LIHEAP moneys.
Absolutely we need this in an increasingly unaffordable energy
system. But we need fair, affordable funding mechanisms for
ownership and wealth creation that are aligned with climate
justice. First, Congress can employ a national moratorium on
all utilities shutoffs and debt relief, mandate affordable
payment systems and levy heavy penalties for stranded assets,
and enact a halt on the regressive mechanisms that allow
companies to pass the risks of their decision to construct new
fossil infrastructure onto rate payers. Next, the Federal
Government can alleviate access barriers and reject false
solutions with real solutions by offering direct grants,
revolving loans to local entities to implement those community-
owned solar, distributed energy, and access to battery storage,
and offer assistance to residents who are putting their own
dime into the electrification of their homes. Our state----
Mr. Khanna. Ms. Martinez, if you could just wrap up in a
couple of sentences.
Ms. Martinez. I'll close here with the investments that
Congress need to make right now should address these issues. We
need oversight, ensured adoption of the WHEJAC recommendations,
including Justice 40 and EJ Mapping Tools. Thank you so much,
and we look forward. Thank you for your time today.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Ms. Martinez. I now would like to
recognize Mr. Hawkins. You are now recognized for your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF SHAY HAWKINS, PRESIDENT, OPPORTUNITY FUNDS
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Hawkins. Thank you, Chairman Khanna, Ranking Member
Norman, Vice Chair Tlaib, and Representative Gibbs from
Northeast Ohio in my home state, and members of the
subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be with you today. This is my
fourth time testifying before Congress, but my first time
testifying before the Environment Subcommittee here, and so
thank you so much for having me.
I am the co-founder and president of the Opportunity Funds
Association, a trade association whose members are
entrepreneurs, investors, and developers operating in
opportunity zones. And this morning, I would like to discuss
how opportunity zones are targeting private investment in areas
of the country that have been de-industrialized and
historically disadvantaged, and how opportunity zones can be
expanded to help provide cleaner, more affordable, more secure
energy. Further, I want to emphasize the importance of pursuing
an infrastructure plan that makes significant investments in
traditional infrastructure without crippling tax increases on
small businesses and workers that would undermine the historic
progress made prior to the pandemic in minimizing minority
unemployment, and raising minority incomes.
So prior to founding OFA, I served as the majority staff
director for the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural
Resources, and Infrastructure, and as tax counsel to Senator
Tim Scott, where I helped him champion the Investing in
Opportunity Act legislation authored by Senator Scott and
Senator Cory Booker that became opportunity zones. And on this
side of the Capitol, I was pleased to see that you, Chairman
Khanna, as well as Chairwoman Maloney, and as well as
Representative Cooper on this subcommittee were all co-sponsors
of that legislation. That is very much appreciated.
Recent IRS data shows that $24 billion has been raised and
committed to investment in opportunity zones thus far, with
billions being raised in the heart of the pandemic. And a
recent report from the Council of Economic Advisers estimates
that opportunity zones will lift 1 million Americans out of
poverty and reduce poverty in designated zones by 11 percent.
We are also seeing key investments in operating businesses
taking root in opportunity zones in critical industries, such
as clean energy. There are 475 solar installations producing
more than 1 megawatt of activity in opportunity zones, as well
as 127 wind farms, and 15 battery plants producing at least the
same capacity as what we saw on the solar side. Out in Indiana,
Hoosier Solar Holdings is embarking on a large-scale solar
build-out project where they are looking to build six utility-
scale solar projects across four counties there in Indiana. OBE
Power, a Hispanic-led software company based in Miami, recently
raised $300,000 to fund an expansion of electric vehicle
charging infrastructure with the goal of having 2,500 stations
across the United States operational by 2023.
And so Congress should look to encourage cooperation across
opportunity-zone-oriented agencies. They should look to empower
CDFIs to take a more direct role in opportunity-zone investing.
We should look to make opportunity zones more transparent
through legislation, such as the IMPACT Act that was introduced
by Senator Sinema and Senator Scott last Congress, and should
look to expand opportunity zones and extend that policy more
directly. On the infrastructure side, again, we should look to
pursue bipartisan infrastructure plans that do not raise taxes,
and, instead, look to fund the infrastructure plan through
transportation fees and redirecting existing funds to pay for
that infrastructure build out.
I appreciate, again, you allowing me to come to speak to
the subcommittee, and I look forward to delving even more
deeply into ways that we can bring more wealth and jobs to Main
Street. Thank you.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Right on time, as a
former Senate staffer.
Mr. Hawkins. Yes, sir.
Mr. Khanna. The chair now recognizes himself for five
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Bloomingdale, I was struck by your phrasing that we
must create jobs in advance of any reduction in employment, and
that we must bring good jobs first before talking about a
transition. You have really been in these communities, and I
know you are very blunt. How best can we frame a climate agenda
to speak to that concern and build the synergy between the
climate movement and workers in these communities?
Mr. Bloomingdale. Well, and thank you for the question,
Congressman, and I will try to be as brief as I can because it
is a complicated question, right, because you are dealing with
people's livelihoods, and people, you know--change worries
folks, as you well know. And one of our previous testifiers
talked about the coal mining jobs, especially the unionized
ones, were the good jobs in West Virginia. Folks could live a
middle-class lifestyle, and that is the union difference, of
course. But when you talk to people about change, it is
troubling because, first of all, obviously, they may start to
think about, do I have to move and am I going to have to sell a
house in an economy where there are no jobs, because my job at
the power plant, or at the coal mine, or, back in the 80's, at
the steel mill, is going to disappear?
So, you know, it is a conversation that you have got to
allay people's fears, and you have got to talk to them about
the kinds of jobs that will be coming to their region, how they
can train for those jobs because some of the skill sets that
you have as a coal miner are not necessarily transferable to
doing, you know, cable installation, although, you know, they
are pretty talented men, mostly men, some women, and can easily
adapt to those skills, but it will take training. And you have
got to show that the jobs are there, not just train somebody
for a job that may or may not exist, which is why I say it is
important for the jobs to be created first as things start to
change.
And, you know, carbon capture is a technology that is, you
know, still being developed, but being used in some pilot
programs. And, you know, I think if the idea is to reduce
carbon emissions, which it is, and how we do that if we still
use coal-fired power plants, but with zero carbon or very low
carbon, then, you know, that is going to keep those jobs
existing. Now, they may eventually disappear because coal will
disappear. It is a finite resource, but that is 100 years in
the future, but I think that you have to have the conversation.
You have to show them. This isn't Missouri, the Show Me state,
but you have to show people that you are serious about job
creation, and they have to see the jobs exist.
And, as I mentioned in my testimony, you can't go from a
$30-, $35-an-hour job with a pension and healthcare and expect
somebody to go into a warehouse job for $15 an hour. You know,
nobody is going to cut their mortgage in half. Nobody is going
to cut their gas bill or electric bill in half. Of course the
best way to do it is unionize those jobs, but there has got to
be a way to make sure that folks aren't losing their economic
viability through transition.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Bloomingdale. You had very
powerful testimony that I think we should all hear. I have two
minutes left and questions for three of the panelists. I will
ask the three questions and ask that you just spend 30 seconds
or so on it. Mr. Dennison, if you could speak about what would
you want in this infrastructure bill to allow for this new
economy to flourish? What would be your bold ask if you could
ask the President? Ms. Martinez, you have been such a champion
on the THRIVE Act. What would the THRIVE Act and the trillion
dollars mean for Detroit? And, Dr. Hamilton, you spoke
brilliantly about the divergence between productivity and
wages. What would be one or two things that we could do in this
infrastructure bill that would help address that divergence so
that workers actually were being paid for their productivity?
Mr. Dennison, we can start with you.
Mr. Dennison. Direct job creation for people who face
barriers to job creation.
Mr. Khanna. Terrific. That was succinct. Ms. Martinez?
Ms. Martinez. Wealth creation for communities who have been
suffering under the weight of pollution for the last three
generations. Community solar, distributed energy, battery
technology concentrated in those communities.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. And Dr. Hamilton?
Mr. Hamilton. Direct hiring directly benefits workers,
builds up the infrastructure for growth for workers and
society, et al., and it disciplines the private sector in a way
that says if you are going to hire American workers, you have
to pay them at least this and offer them at least these
conditions.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. Well, that was very well done. I now
yield to the ranking member for five minutes of questions.
Mr. Norman. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Hawkins, President
Biden's American Jobs Plan will cost American taxpayers $2.25
trillion, which adds $5.7 trillion that was just spent on the
COVID package. Of that, Biden is demanding hundreds of billions
of taxpayers' dollars to be spent on vague climate priorities,
such as electric vehicles for the Post Office. He has got
dollars for 500,000 EV chargers. He is replacing 20 percent of
the school buses with a fleet of electric buses. This is on top
of some of the figures I have already cited: lumber prices up
400 percent, gas prices that are through the roof. Is this the
best way to boost our economy with the most vulnerable
communities having to bear the brunt of this with lower income?
Mr. Hawkins.[Inaudible.]
Mr. Norman. Do you want to put your microphone on?
Mr. Hawkins. I don't believe that it is, Ranking Member.
The most troubling aspect of the plan is in the pay-for. When
you look at the taxes that are being proposed in association
with the plan, particularly the severe increase in the
corporate tax rate, it is troubling because corporations don't
actually pay taxes. What they do is they pass those taxes
directly on to workers in the form of reduced job
opportunities, consumers in the form of higher prices, and
shareholders in the form of reduced share prices. So what you
are looking at, particularly the impact on consumers is very
troubling because consumers are already dealing with the
current inflation rate increase of 12 percent. You could look
at it as if Congress imposed a 12-percent sales tax on
everything that the American consumer and American families
need right now, and so we don't want to then hit workers and
small businesses with a tax increase on top of that. And so
that aspect is very troubling.
Fortunately, there are bipartisan conversations going on
right now on an infrastructure project that would be worth, you
know, almost $1 trillion and that would fund a lot of what we
look at as traditional infrastructure projects, but would do so
through transportation fees and through redirecting existing
allocated moneys toward infrastructure. You know, this plan,
you know, we look at things, like broadband, you know. We look
at $65 billion for that, $72 billion for water systems, $21
billion for safety efforts, you know, et cetera, et cetera, $56
billion for airports. These are things that can be done without
those crippling tax increases that are going to really hit
folks hard who can't avoid them.
Mr. Norman. And I guess, though, the adage ``you can't tax
your way into prosperity'' is true now, in your opinion?
Mr. Hawkins. Absolutely. You know, what we were doing prior
to the pandemic in trying to minimize counterproductive
regulation and minimize the tax burden, particularly on those
in the lower end of the tax scale through things like the
increase in the earned income tax credit, and you know,
doubling the standard deduction, those types of things created
arguably the strongest economy that we have seen in a
generation. And so we should move back toward that type of
approach and avoid crippling tax increases.
Mr. Norman. Well, as you say, corporations don't pay tax.
The people pay the tax.
Mr. Hawkins. They just pass it through.
Mr. Norman. Right. Well, I applaud you on the opportunity
zones. That is where private investment can go into
disadvantaged areas. They have offered tax incentives where if
you hold the property five years, you get a 50-percent discount
on capital gains. If you hold it 10 years, you get 100 percent.
That is incentivizing the private sector, so thank you for
those type of jobs that you have. I have yet to see one job
created from the Keystone pipeline that was canceled that this
Administration promised would be there. Have you?
Mr. Hawkins. I have not.
Mr. Norman. OK. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. I now yield to our vice chair, who
has been really a great partner in this committee, Rashida
Tlaib.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome to all of our
witnesses here today. I am so incredibly proud to see
Michigan's own, 13 District's own Michelle Martinez, the
executive director of Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
that brings so many amazing organizations together, and she has
been a fierce fighter. The first time I was exposed to Ms.
Martinez was when she was with Sierra Club Detroit. And I was
going door-to-door, and I saw white crosses in front of
people's homes, wanted to know what that was about. And it was
a campaign that the organization was doing to expose the human
impact of doing nothing on climate, and people had white
crosses in front of their homes if someone in their home died
of cancer, survivor of cancer, was experiencing it, and it was
eye opening at that point. I grew up in Southwest Detroit where
the community had no idea what was really happening behind the
polluted clouds, the odor that was coming through our windows,
and now fully understand the really human toll on that.
I really, truly want to talk about the human cost. I know
folks are talking about taxes and all those kinds of things,
but really the true human cost on the American people on doing
nothing about climate crisis. We talk about climate crisis here
in Washington all the time, but I really think we always lack
the understanding of really the cost. If you want to look at
the economy, how the cost to the economy is when we do nothing,
and, really, the human cost, to me, is something that we can't
look away when we talk about forgotten communities like the one
in my district.
And, Mr. Chair, I don't know if you know this. Literally,
in the shadows of a Marathon oil refinery, across the street
from there is a playground and a rec center where we had one of
the committee hearings like this there. And as many of you all
celebrate with your community, you know, cutting the ribbon and
opening parks, and, you know, public spaces, my community in
Boynton in Southwest Detroit, 48217 community, celebrated the
installation of a toxic air monitoring station that they
finally were able to get an air monitor to monitor the toxic
emissions from the residents that were forced to breathe them
in. So you understand the human cost of doing nothing. And so I
really want to ask Ms. Martinez, you know, what does it truly
mean to be forgotten when it comes to policy and when it comes
to when you look at budgets that are coming out of Washington,
DC, and it leaves communities like ours behind? What is the
human toll on the people that we are supposed to be fighting
for here in Congress?
Ms. Martinez. Thank you, Congresswoman Tlaib, and thank you
for your leadership in this. It really is taking every single
one of us in Southwest Detroit and all over Michigan to, you
know, scream from the rooftops that, you know, when you have
kids that are being born with asthma, they don't have a fair
chance. When you have kids who are locked in their homes, not
because of COVID, but because we have been out of attainment,
we have had illegal levels of sulfur dioxide since 2008. You
know, kids are going to their grandparents' funeral at 60 or 65
years old from ailments associated with pollution, cancer, and
heart disease. Families are being robbed of that special
connection and grief and trauma is put in its place. And so we
have seen now more than ever that, you know, healthy households
are the building blocks of a strong and joyful community.
Nothing is more apparent than that during COVID.
And so all of our forgotten communities, you know, it
really means closing your eyes and saying I don't care where
fossil fuels come from, what harm they cause, or where they end
up because they come from Southwest Detroit. They run through
native lands in the Traverse Bay area. They spill in the
Kalamazoo River. And at every point, from fracking to pipeline,
to burning petroleum coke in the coal plant, or ending up in
oceans as plastic, with each dirty intersection of fossil fuel
production, we close our eyes and we try to forget who suffers
most for corporate greed, and it is Black, brown, indigenous,
Latinx communities.
So status quo, Congresswoman, it means more pollution. It
means allowing the rush for gas to be built out in Michigan and
poison our Great Lakes. Every time we invest in these false
solutions, it is an opportunity cost to our future, to equity,
to climate justice. So we really have to understand the scale
of the moral question before us, right? Act now and save
millions of lives or wait, have it cost 10, 20 times more, and
allow those false solutions to take hold, sacrificing humans,
millions of non-human people, non-human lives, right? And it is
not alarmist, right? This is a well-studied scientific
observation from climate scientists. So, you know, urgency of
now, right, and going bold is our charge, is our challenge. So,
you know, that is our plea from Detroit, right, that we really
need this for jobs, for our future, for our kids, and for the
Great Lakes.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much. And, Mr. Chair, I would love
to share with our colleagues some of the fraudulent activity of
opportunity zones by billionaires who have gotten their areas
designated, even though they didn't meet the Census
requirement, Mr. Chair. That is something I would love to be
able to fully investigate when a billionaire can use our
opportunity zone that was supposed to be meant for poor
communities being used in wealthy communities like downtown
Detroit where it isn't helping communities like ours. Thank
you. I yield.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Vice Chair Tlaib. I now recognize
Mr. Gibbs for his five minutes of questions. If panelists could
just mute.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Other than Mr. Hawkins
and my colleague, Mr. Norman, everybody else has seemed to have
forgotten that before the pandemic, we had the lowest
unemployment in years. We had the lowest unemployment in our
minority communities. We had the highest real wages, most
discretionary income in our lifetimes. And since then with the
pandemic, which obviously caused a lockdown and a lot of things
happened, but we did have bipartisan solutions last year that
saved lots of jobs and lots of businesses that was passed on a
bipartisan basis. And now what we have seen happen since then,
when the economy is coming out, the lockdowns are ending, we
have about 9 million jobs in this country that aren't filled.
The thing I hear from businesses all the time is we can't
get workers. We can't get workers. They are paying extra, they
are signing bonuses, they are doing everything they can because
they are all in very a competitive position fighting for
workers. And what has happened now, we have had an
Administration on the other side of the aisle, they have
killed, well, I guess, probably millions of jobs, but at least
thousands of jobs, when they killed the Keystone pipeline. They
are also hurting the environment because that oil field in
Canada is still going to get produced. It is going to be
trucked out or trained out, railroaded out, instead of a
pipeline, killing the border wall that killed a lot of steel
workers' jobs and the impact of that. So right there were
thousands of jobs that were killed in just a matter of months.
And now we have seen inflationary pressure. We have seen a
tax now on our lower-income people because of inflationary
pressures, of higher gas prices, over $3 a gallon, higher food
prices. Their cost of living is going up. And now they are
talking about increasing taxes in an economy that is just
struggling to come out of a very unprecedented episode of the
pandemic. One way, at the 50,000-foot level, we can get out of
this and help people get back to their lives is don't continue
the policies we had to do last year on a bipartisan basis
because the stimulus checks were needed then, but now they are
causing people an incentive not to go to work. The extended
unemployment is killing jobs--not killing jobs--killing people
not to come back to work, and there is suffering in our
business community, and these policies have to change. And I
think we always need to remember what the situation with the
economy was before the pandemic, and, fortunately, since our
economy was so strong before the pandemic, it has actually
helped us, I believe, to get through the pandemic now as we
claw our way out of it.
Mr. Hawkins, opportunity zones, I am really excited about
it. My friend, Senator Tim Scott, you guys worked on that and
got that done. Can you explain a little further, you know, how
that actually works, how it brings capital investment into
certain areas, and what has been the impact since it has been
instituted?
Mr. Hawkins. Sure. Thank you, Representative Gibbs. What we
did there is we gave Governors the ability to designate one-
quarter of the distressed communities in their states as
opportunity zones, as places that were eligible for this
particular type of investment. And every opportunity zone is
going to have a poverty rate that is greater than 20 percent,
and is going to have an average income that is less than 80
percent of the state average. And so, you know, opportunity
zones themselves, you know, have the effect of being
disproportionately minority and disproportionately areas that
were affected by, you know, de-industrialization, part of what
we are looking at in this hearing.
And so we gave Governors, you know, sort of three non-
binding criteria. We asked them to look for areas where there
was significant social disruption and economic disruption. We
asked for them to look for areas where there was significant
opportunity, a chance for a potential investor to turn a dollar
into $10, and, finally, areas where there were mutually
reinforcing state, Federal, and local programs that could
really put the policy on a strong footing. And Governors did a
very good job, whether Democrat or Republican, in selecting
areas according to what the needs of their state were and the
aspects of the----
Mr. Gibbs. But it really did streamline investment capital
coming into those areas, right?
Mr. Hawkins. Absolutely.
Mr. Gibbs. Because you can't grow jobs, you can't grow
businesses if you don't have capital, right?
Mr. Hawkins. Absolutely, and one of the other witnesses
specifically pointed out the importance of place-based
investing, and, you know, opportunity zones is not a panacea,
but it is a great example of very thoughtful place-based
investing.
Mr. Gibbs. I am out of time, but, like I said, we could do
a lot of things, but some of the policies that have been
enacted have been disastrous to the economy in just a few short
months. I yield back.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs. I now want to recognize
Mr. Gomez, who was very helpful in inviting some of the
panelists and conceiving of this hearing. Mr. Gomez?
[No response.]
Mr. Khanna. OK. Do we have Ms. Bush here? I know they are
going to call votes soon. Is Ms. Bush on?
[No response.]
Mr. Khanna. There is Ms. Bush. Ms. Bush, are you ready to
have your five minutes of questioning?
Ms. Bush. Yes, I can go.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. You are recognized.
Ms. Bush. Here we go. OK. Sorry. I couldn't get my mute
off. St. Louis and I thank you, Chairman Khanna, for convening
this timely hearing. The earth has already warmed about 1
degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. If we are going to
stay below the catastrophic level of 1.5 degrees Celsius of
warming, we must immediately decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
This is an issue that hits so close to home for me. In the
past, I have been unable to afford air conditioning in a city
with sweltering summers that are hotter than ever before with
11 more 90-degree days per year than when I was born. We are
already paying for climate change in our community year after
year from extreme heat, high energy bills, and pervasive gun
violence. As a single mother that has lived in my car with two
kids, I know that people, predominantly Black, brown, and
indigenous people, are suffering right now. We need to take
bold action. We need a green new deal.
The greenhouse gas effect is not a switch that we can
simply turn off, and it will take years of sustained
investment--we know this--years to fully decarbonize our
economy. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached
a record high in May at 419-parts-per-million, far more than
what scientists estimate to be the upper limit of a safe level
for carbon dioxide, which is, we know, no more than 350-parts-
per-million in the atmosphere. Every increase represents
additional fossil fuels burned in our communities, elevating
the risk of asthma, cancer, and other illnesses. This is a
racial justice issue. Ms. Flowers, how is climate change
already disproportionately affecting Black communities?
Ms. Flowers. Well, thank you for the question,
Congresswoman Bush. I can just start off by talking about, you
know, what I am seeing firsthand. We are seeing in this area, I
mean, right now there is a tropical depression off the coast
of, you know, of the Gulf, and I am in Alabama. And what
happens in communities of color oftentimes or poor communities
or rural communities, people are living in mobile homes, they
are already dealing with high power bills because of heat. I
mean, it is in the 90's. It has been in the 90's here for a
number of days. I am sitting up here now with air conditioning
on to keep from sweating, you know, but what about those people
that are living in these rural communities, these mobile homes
that don't have access to that? And we are also seeing that
people that have issues with asthma being compounded by the
pollen in the air. I mean, I probably will continue to wear a
mask myself because I have respiratory issues. One of the
things that I have learned during COVID and wearing a mask is
that I have fewer respiratory problems if I wear a mask, but
what does this say about our air?
Ms. Bush. Right.
Ms. Flowers. And what does this say about a lot of people
that don't have access to that? So we are seeing lots of
illnesses that have been exacerbated. In our communities, we
are seeing tropical diseases that you normally don't see in the
United States, like hookworm and other tropical parasites. So I
think that through poor communities, communities of color, we
are going to see a disproportionate amount of healthcare
disparities.
Ms. Bush. Right.
Ms. Flowers. If we look at it through a lens of health, we
will see that it is very devastating in communities that have
already been left behind. But if I could just get a moment of
privilege here to talk about opportunity zones.
Ms. Bush. Yes. Can I come back to you? I have a couple more
questions I need to get----
Ms. Flowers. OK. I am sorry. I am jumping at the bit to----
Ms. Bush. No, I am ready to hear it. Thank you. President
Biden has pledged to slow the climate crisis, and the original
American Jobs Plan offers a great start. However, I am very
concerned that this bipartisan compromise will water down the
plan, especially when its current level is a fraction of the
investment needed to create millions of climate jobs and take
the crisis on, at scale. Dr. Hamilton, does the American Jobs
Plan call for enough investment to dramatically reduce
emissions from fossil fuels?
Mr. Hamilton. The answer is ``no,'' but I like your framing
that it is a good start. And this hearing is about not just
ensuring we have an adequate environment, but how we do it, the
manner in which we do it. And, you know, building on my
colleague, Catherine Flowers, the point is opportunity zones as
a mechanism to bribe capital to come in and develop
underdeveloped communities, it is not the best way to do it. It
siphons off that resource in an indirect way, and a question
is, who benefits? Who benefits from that? Those that already
have existing capital. It hastens gentrification and still
leaves workers vulnerable to the imbalance of power, only this
time the state is facilitating this imbalance of power. So we
juxtapose that against an analysis where the public is directly
investing in these communities and ensuring that the assets
remain in those communities and still protect us against our
inevitable climate change that is a result of our inactions.
Ms. Bush. Thank you for that. Congress must pass a true and
comprehensive climate and infrastructure package that
immediately invests in public renewable energy. I will leave it
there. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Ms. Bush. I now want to recognize
Mr. Fallon for his five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your graciousness.
I appreciate it. Oh, the currency of identity politics. If we
want to talk about creating jobs in this country, we have to
unleash the American capitalistic tiger. We have been paying
people to stay unemployed for far too long, and anytime you
subsidize something and incentivize it, it is not a miracle at
all that you are going to get more of it. The Federal
unemployment payments are continuing until September 6th, and
if some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had
their way, they would extend them even further when what we
need to do is eliminate them forthwith, right now, immediately.
And I have a great idea. Let's stop paying people to be
unemployed and incentivize them to go out and not exist, but
live.
Our country has reached the end of the COVID pandemic. If
anybody wants a vaccine, it is available and it is free, and I
would highly advise anyone, any adult in this country to get
it. I got immunized the old-fashioned way. I had COVID and it
was awful. It damn near killed me. It was terrible. I don't
want anybody to go through an experience like that. Over 52-
and-a-half percent of the country has received at least one
dose of the vaccine, our mask mandates have been rescinded, and
we are finally returning to normal.
Things about the identity politics that have bothered me is
I have seen over the last several months in Texas and here in
D.C. people accusing COVID of being racist. Fossil fuels today
apparently is racist, and now the climate is racist. I was
unaware of these things as a problem ever, but apparently some
people believe they are. So let's look at some data and some
facts. Our African-American brothers and sisters in 1900 had an
average life expectancy of 33 years of age, and then through
the next 120 years of further industrialization and apparently
pollution, that life expectancy pre-COVID-19 was 74 years of
age, a 224-percent increase. And before COVID, Blacks and
Latinos had a very similar life expectancy. For whites, it was
47 years in 1900, so a huge disparity between Blacks for sure,
and it was raised pre-COVID to almost 80 years of age. So we
are doing something right in this country.
Let's not be fooled. The American Jobs Plan is another
massive Biden spending plan that will yield not the results
that we are being promised. And I believe in the American
people, and I believe in entrepreneurialism, and I believe
capitalism is the one economic system that has ripped mankind,
humankind out of poverty. Socialism didn't do it. Communism
didn't do it. Kinship gathering didn't do it. Merkleism didn't
do it. Nothing did it. Capitalism did it, and now we are
splitting hairs because we are not a perfect country.
Mr. Hawkins, how much capital has been raised for
investments through the opportunity zones?
Mr. Hawkins. So far, according to the IRS, $24 billion,
with a ``B,'' has been committed to opportunity funds, the
vehicles for making these investments. It is estimated that
about $75 billion will come into the zones over the next 10
years, and so we are on track for that $75 billion. And, again,
you know, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates that 1
million Americans will be lifted out of poverty as a result of
the policy. One thing that is important to note is that this
policy is not a panacea for eliminating poverty. What it is, is
it is a tool in the toolbox of community development. It is a
particularly sharp tool, and it is a tool that has broad
bipartisan support. So the Biden Administration and the HUD
Secretary, as well as the folks at EPA and other areas have
expressed support for opportunity zones. And the opportunity
zones policy is the only aspect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
that have seen bipartisan amendments after tax reform.
Mr. Fallon. And real quick, Mr. Hawkins, can you explain
how opportunity zones help target investments to historically
disadvantaged communities?
Mr. Fallon. Yes. So what you are looking at is specific
standards that were developed in line with the former new
markets tax credit, basically where areas have high poverty
rates and low income. And so from those areas, Governors were
able to choose the areas within their states, 25 percent of
those designated communities as opportunity zones.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. And I see Mr. Gomez has made it.
Thank you for joining us, Mr. Gomez, and your help in planning
this hearing. You are now recognized.
Mr. Gomez. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for having this
important hearing. I was reading the title, ``Jumpstarting Main
Street: Bringing Jobs and Wealth Back to Forgotten America,''
and I was thinking, I said, this America was never forgotten.
It was the fact that corporations, and politicians, and
decision-makers viewed this part of America as the dumping
ground for their businesses, for their industries, and then
they went out of their way to target these communities. I
represent the East Side of Los Angeles. A battery plant,
operating 30 years called Exide under a conditional-use permit
that bled out lead and contaminated the properties surrounding
Exide, impacting Boyle Heights and impacting East L.A. Decision
makers tried to put an incinerator where? In Boyle Heights and
East L.A. They tried to put a prison where? Boyle Heights and
East L.A. They didn't forget about this part of America. They
saw this part of America as their dumping ground that they
could pollute at will with no repercussions.
So we have to take hard steps to right these wrongs, to
right what has occurred, not for years, but for generations.
And when I say ``policymakers,'' when they were deciding where
to put highways, where did they put them? Not on the rich side
of the city. Not in an affluent part of the city. They put them
where the working class and the poor live and destroyed
communities in the process. So we need to look at this
infrastructure not only as a way to bring back jobs, but to fix
and address the wrongs that have been committed for
generations. But we have to do that in a way that addresses the
economic disparities that exist, but also helps cleanup our air
and our water, and brings things forward. In California, we did
some moving in the right direction on climate change. So much
more to do.
Ms. Martinez, I believe in a disproportionate investment of
resources into these communities. I actually did a bill when I
was in the legislature that said 50 percent of all greenhouse
gas emission funds should go to these communities to address
climate change, poverty, pollution. We only got 35 percent, but
that is the benchmark for Biden's 40-percent mark. What do you
think of this process of focusing on equity and real
investment? Not just fair investment, but equitable investment?
Ms. Martinez. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, you are
absolutely right. One of the seminal documents written by
environmental justice scholars is ``Toxic Race and Waste,''
when they researched where toxic waste sites were located all
over the United States, found disproportionately located in
Black and brown communities across the United States. And when
they revisited that same body of research 25 years later, they
had found that the problem of toxic waste, hazardous materials
had actually gotten worse, not gotten better over one or two
generations. So, indeed, we absolutely need to correct and
course correct for the harms done in the past. Those toxins
live in our body, and we have been paying with them, not only
with our healthcare costs, but also with our housing values and
the depression of our home values in our communities.
So right now, we have scholars, like Nicky Sheats, Ana
Baptista, Paul Mohai, who have followed the road of California
in helping establish cumulative impact assessments that look
not only at race, income, but also where those who are hardest
hit by environmental contamination live. Where is that
concentrated? In our communities, and we can pinpoint with some
certainty exactly where folks are most vulnerable to
environmental contamination and pollution. And once we
understand the geography of that poisoning of communities, we
can indeed utilize tools, like the Justice 40 initiative, to
target direct investment to those communities.
To Ms. Flowers' and others' testimonials, making sure that
elite capture doesn't happen is the key there, so we have
corporations that come in and swoop in, taking advantage of
those funds that are meant to go to create jobs for low-income
households, to rebuild schools, to make sure that we have
adequate housing and education, and they go toward corporate
profits and corporate investments for billionaires. So
developing not only the safeguards for that, but absolutely
directing those straight to our community for community direct
investment with strong oversight to make sure that those jobs
really land in the communities that are hardest hit. So
absolutely, the tools are there. They have been vetted by
states all over the United States, and they are ready for
deployment by the Federal Government. Thank you.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Ms. Martinez. I am passionate about
this issue because people see policy on if it is working or
not, with how it impacts their own personal lives and what they
see on the ground. Not just statistics on a page, but what
occurs in their own living rooms and dining room tables, in
their own communities. So I think this is an important
discussion to have, but we want to make sure that this
investment in infrastructure and combatting climate change gets
to the people that need the most help.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Gomez. In closing, I want to
thank all our panelists for their remarks, and I want to thank
Ranking Member Norman and all my colleagues for participating
in this important conversation.
With that, without objection, all members will have five
legislative days within which to submit additional written
questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response. I ask our
witnesses to please respond as promptly as you are able.
Mr. Khanna. And I appreciate, again, your taking the time
to testify before our subcommittee.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:47 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]