The Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Commission will soon include a board member specifically charged with standing up for communities facing “environmental justice” issues.
On Tuesday, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to convert one “environmental” board member position to an “environmental justice” one. Supervisors said that such a position
is now vacant and seeking applicants. There have been three board seats designated as “environmental,” representing advocacy groups.
Environmental justice, as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. In practice, for example, that could include processes used to determine where a polluting factory or a landfill or waste treatment facility could be located, and not favoring one community over another in such decisions.
Supervisor John Gioia said, “The communities that are impacted can speak for themselves.”
The commission’s 13 members and alternates include representatives of industry, labor, civic groups, environmental organizations, environmental engineers, the public and the Contra Costa Mayors Conference. They serve four-year terms.
This state gets crazier by the minute.
I thought I’d “seen it all” here, but now y’all have gone and given a whole new definition to the word “crazy”. What next? A representative of “Air Breathers” (surely the water breathers will protest)?
Giving the government more money is not going to change the weather
I oppose qualifying the word “justice” with the words ‘environmental’ or ‘social,’ just as I oppose qualifying the word “conservative” with ‘compassionate’ (“compassionate conservatism” is needlessly redundant).
How about we just return to ordinary “justice” where disputes are adjudicated by law? If the laws are inadequate to the likes of some, we do have a system for changing them. Appointing phony representatives to appease or empower those unable to persuade their fellow citizens of what the law should be is no way to resolve differences of opinion.