Big Chance to Cut Climate Pollution from Big

Trucks

The interstates built in the 1950s and 1960s killed the vitality of the communities where people of color and the poor lived, from Overtown in Miami to the Hill District in Pittsburgh to the South and West Sides of Chicago. The disruption and segregation of those communities happened by design.

The harm continues to this day for the residents who remain in those neighborhoods. Because the highways run through their backyards, those people are at point blank range for the pollution from the millions of vehicles driving the interstates burning fossil fuels.

Transportation accounts for more than a quarter of the climate damaging gases this country makes, more than any other sector. An estimated 72 million Americans live in close proximity to trucking routes and they are

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disproportionately people of color or living with low incomes.

We have an unprecedented chance to change this longstanding disregard for so many Americans’ health and well-being, and we must grab that chance if we want to reduce vehicle pollution enough to reach our goal of cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030.

While heavy duty vehicles — think delivery trucks, garbage trucks, buses, and tractor trailer trucks — are only 6 percent of the

Julianne Malveaux

From Juneteenth to Reparations

Just two years ago, in 2021, The Senate unanimously passed legislation to make Juneteenth (June 19) a federal holiday. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the legislation with just fourteen holdouts, mostly among Southern Republicans. It is unlikely that this legislation would get such overwhelming support today, as so many oppose teach- ing truth, opposing "critical race theory," and even simple teaching about race and enslavement. Indeed, many might oppose teaching about Juneteenth, which commemorates the day that enslaved Black Texans learned that they were free.

President Biden described signing the Juneteenth holiday legislation as "one of the greatest honors" of his presidency. He said, "Great nations don't ignore their most painful moments, they embrace them." In embracing our

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painful moments, however, the celebration of Juneteenth is hollow unless it is accompanied by some action. The president has had the opportunity to embrace HR 40, legislation that would have authorized a Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans. First introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) in 1989 and introduced in every congressional session thereafter, the legislation was later championed by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson

A. Peter Bailey

vehicles in the United States, they produce a third of the climate pollution from transportation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed new rules that would sharply reduce the carbon dioxide that heavy duty vehicles will be allowed to belch in their exhaust and pave the way for more trucks and buses that have no emissions.

The comment period for these new rules ended Friday, so the EPA needs to finalize them quickly. As we saw last year with other com- mon sense air pollution standards for trucks that the EPA adopted, special interests and the politicians they support will oppose any regulations that have a chance to avert climate disaster. The EPA must stand up for communities most damaged by truck and bus pollution.

The stricter rules should add momentum to changes already happening in that part of the economy. Manufacturers like Daimler,

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Lee (D-Texas) and supported by more than 210 members of Congress. With a Republican-dominated Congress, HR 40 is unlikely to pass during this legislative session, but the president can still sign an executive order establishing a Commission on Reparations. Granted, this might be divisive as we move toward election 2024 with a nation acutely divided on matters of race. Still, Biden must practice what he preaches. In embracing the history of enslavement, and commemorating Juneteenth, our president must ask how we get past the history to compensate the descendants of enslaved people who still experience generational trauma from enslavement.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom established a reparations commission that has now released its report, with recommendation. San Francisco has also issued a report, suggesting both monetary and non-monetary benefits for San Franciscans. Critics have

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For Black Folks, Reparations by the Federal Government is Not a Gift

It's time for serious Black folks in this country to make it clear that when we advocate for reparations, it is not requesting some kind of gift from the federal government. Reparations to us means that as descendants of enslaved Africans, we are due payment for the 250 years for which our ancestors were forced to work for absolutely no payment. The only thing provided by the enslavers was enough food and clothing that would enable our African ancestors to continue working so that the enslavers could fill their pockets with money.

That's why reparations, which is defined as "broadly understood compensation given for an abuse or injury." Our enslaved ancestors were not paid for either abuse or injury.

Columnist Courtland Milloy, in a Washington Post column titled, "Fight for reparations widens understanding of history," provided solid comments on reparations from Roslyn Mickens and Kelly Matthews, leaders of the organization DMV Freedmen. According to Ms. Mickens, "We have reached the conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court will never honor a reparations claim that is rooted in racial terms. … Reparations is not a cure for racism. This is not about reparations for 'Black' people. Anybody can say that they are 'Black' these days. This is about reparations for the descendants of America's emancipated people. The past is not the past….Racism endures, the legacy of slavery lives on. But a new generation of freedmen will always be there demanding that the nation makes amends."

Ms. Matthews noted, "When America was being built, we were being excluded from economic development. What we got were massacres, were burned, lynched, bombed, drowned, water-logged. Anytime we tried to make it our Black excellence was met with White violence, Black Codes, convict leasing, school desegregation."

The analysis put forth by Ms. Mickens and Ms. Matthews, based on how this country has treated people of African descendant, its right on target. However, when it comes to reparations, I have a slight dif -