Coastal Justice Lab, Public Launch, 3-9-2023

Event: Coastal Justice Lab, Public Launch

Date: 3-9-2023

Location: UCI Law School

Executive Summary: It was really interesting to see how these seemingly mundane agencies are really tackling EJ issues and see themselves as agents of change on this front. This being an event at a law school it was nice to see these problems focused on through this lens, which was done through Gregg Macey’s opening remarks and questions throughout the event. It was clear however that these agencies mostly rely on their internal EJ policies to guide their work on EJ. It was also clear that CCC was far more energetic when it came to EJ topics compared to the SLC. This might come from the agency's founding which is briefly described below. It was also clear that CCC was more active with EJ in general and SLC also hasn't had any major EJ training in some years. I didn't realize how big of an issue EJ was for these agencies that are mostly dealing with land management.

Speakers: 

Emma Cervantes, California Sea Grant Law and Policy Fellow, California State Lands Commission

Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš, Founder and Executive Director, Azul (Follow up)

[email protected] / [email protected] 

Gregg Macey, Associate Director for Environmental Justice, Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources, UCI Law (Follow up, seems like a smart guy)

Yessica Ramirez, Environmental Justice Liaison, California State Lands Commission

[email protected], 916-574-1888

Javier Padilla Reyes, Environmental Justice Analyst (Follow up)

[email protected] 

Sumi Selvaraj, Environmental Justice Manager, California Coastal Commission (Follow up)

[email protected] 

Noaki Schwartz, Deputy Director of Communications, Environmental Justice, and Tribal Affairs, California Coastal Commission (Follow up)

[email protected] 

Gregg Macey:

• State Lands Commision (SLC) and the California Coastal Commission (CCC) are guided by the common law of public trust. (See this definition: public trust doctrine | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu))

• The goal is the deterrence and elimination of pollution to avoid letting it be unnecessarily borne by disadvantaged populations.

• In order to understand the coast in an EJ lens you have to rethink who is connected to the coast and who it’s culturally significant to.

• The Biden administration set up coastal justice goals in Executive Order 14001 (not sure how exactly).

• Since we are a law school we will draft legislation and policy. We will also do legal analysis. (Shows the role of a law school)

Azul Director:

• “We went from making public comments to making change.”

California Coastal Commission (CCC): 

• Started as a grassroots movement that eventually became a government agency. They were officially created through Prop 20.

• They have one EJ coordinator that is appointed by the Governor and the rest are selected by the commission.

• Have an overarching EJ plan + a tribal consultation plan.

• They look at homelessness in coastal communities but lost a lot of their regulatory powers over housing in the 1980’s. 

• “Our culture and connection to the community defines us.”

• “The legal citations in the feedback letters we receive form community organizations is powerful.” Draws on the law school's skills and shows how they can be helpful to community organizations.

• CCC EJ analyst said that affordable housing is the root of the homelessness problem. (Shows his perception of the issue)

• CCC is focusing on climate change and says that it's already here, their primary focus is on sea level rise. Some of the factors they look at in order to combat the unequal harm form climate change are:

• Who does or doesn't have flood insurance.

• They recognize that marginalized communities are generally positioned near industry that is in an area that could potentially flood. Which would in turn pull up pollution from the soil and redistribute it amongst marginalized communities.

California State Lands Commission (CSLC)/Tribal and EJ liaison, Yessica Ramirez:

• Jurisdiction: primarily public trust lands and school lands.

• They mainly issue leases which they said made it initially difficult for them to integrate EJ policies into their work. “We just issue land leases” (Common dilemma amongst all agencies)

• The leases used to be mostly offshore oil drilling sites but they are now phasing that out and are trying to close the last two remaining operational sites.

• Another large focus of their work is CEQA reviews.

• They are also guided by the Public Trust Doctrine which is a piece of the common law and was intended to change overtime.

• Their EJ policy, adopted in 2018, largely guides their EJ work of today. It helped them do the following:

• Help disadvantaged communities.

• Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team.

• “Past  EJ will not determine our future.”

• Regional community meetings and the creation of an EJ advisory board.

• In 2019 they had agency wide EJ training + CalEnviroScreen training. (Been a while)

• Helped them learn the difference between outreach and engagement. Learning that engagement is what they want to be striving for rather than outreach.

• “You need to be able to see yourself in the State leadership.” (A statement in line with mainstream State politics at the moment)

• “Early, often, and meaningful engagement.” (A nice line, just need to make good on it)

Question from the audience: How do you overcome the resistance within your agencies when it comes to the implementation of EJ policies?

CCC: Have not had as much internal resistance to EJ policies ever since they had upper management really get on board with EJ issues and after they had extensive EJ training within the commission.

CSLC: It was initially hard to get staff to view their work through the EJ lens since they ‘do leases’.

Both agencies agreed that you have to analyze and ask questions in consultation with the local community or tribe where you are working.

Natural Resources Agency: Noaki is the first person to fill the ner EJ role at the agency and was appointed by the governor.

All the agencies are careful to vet people who claim to be representing a community since they have had run-ins with opportunistic individuals that use EJ language to try and further their own unrelated goals.