Coronavirus pandemic and Environmental Impact on lowincome communities. Recognized mr. Ali, recognizer five minutes. Recognized for five minutes, sir. [inaudible] you might have to unmute. Can you hear me now . Weaken your you know. You have five minutes please. You missed the best part. Chairman tocco, Ranking Member shimkus and members of the committee on behalf of the National Wildlife federation are 52 state and territorial affiliates in more than six main members, and a thank for the honor of testifying before you today. I was thinking about this testimony, and i was raised and family about this and pentecostal ministers, and my grandmother came to my might and she stepped a favorite verse, and it said do you know what it want . I want justice, oceans of it. I want fairness, rivers of it. Thats what it i want. Thats all i want. My grandmother used to say when you know better, do better. Todays hearing comes at a critical moment in the history of our country. Outline communities are under attack from multiple emergencies happen at the same time. Black communities are dating with the systemic racism that has infected the police in our community that is literally choking us to death. Were rolling back environmental rules and regulations has as gasping for air due to the cumulative Public Health impacts with the burning of fossil fuels in our communities. Covid19 continues to devastate black and brown and indigenous communities. Both infections and deaths. So when we say i cant breathe, we literally cant breathe. Over 2 million americans have been infected with the coronavirus, and over 113,000 have died. Communities of color across our Nations Health and wealth are being impacted by the burning of fossil fuels that a significant drive in the Climate Crisis in the impact from the coronavirus. And we find ourselves dealing with. We have over 500,000 homeless citizens in our country, in and many of them are at risk both from air pollution and the lack of clean, accessible water which is critical to both personal hygiene and the ability to protect oneself from covid19 infections. The last time i joined you i shared a disproportionate located in community of color, lower wealth communities and on indigenous land. 2. 4 million miles of pipeline is crisscrossing our country traveling through indigenous land, through farm country and ends up on the gold coast in vulnerable communities who often have to bear the burdens of this toxic exposure. Assess been mentioned earlier, in a country with over 100,000 people who are losing their lives each year prematurely to air pollution. Thats more folks that are dying from toxic air that are dying from gun violence. We have 25 million with asthma, seven kids in many african news of color and low income and or wealth communities are dying for a breath of fresh air. We know that many of our communities are closely located to toxic facilities and their suffering from chronic medical conditions. Heart disease, liver disease, Kidney Disease and lung disease as well as the counter clusters we find across our country. We also know these chronic medical conditions make people more susceptible to the coronavirus. Unfortunately, there are communities were also in medically underserved areas which compound the impacts by making it difficult to accept proper medical advice and treatment. To add additional insult to injury, the Trump Administration decide to stop enforcing environmental law due to the pandemic. The administration is diligently been weakening yes environment of protections even amid the Coronavirus Crisis by rolling back the clean car role as a tooting executive order rollback that we saw that was weakening environmental policy act. Each of these current actions and a list of previous actions make overburdened communities more vulnerable today and in the future here i just want to add a couple of quick facts i want to make sure folks are aware of because before close of 20 tvpa own National Center for a little assessment shared a a sy focusing on particular matter that highly the fact people of color are much more likely to live near pollution and breathe polluted air. The study went on to share that people in poverty are exposed to more fine particulate matter than People Living above poverty. The International Agency for research on cancer name particular matter as a no definite carcinogen and has been named by the epa as a contributor to a number of Significant Health conditions come along with heart disease, lung conditions god blood pressure, low birth weight babies and asthma. I know im about to run out of time i just want to highlight a couple of quick things that we have to Pay Attention to. We have 80 Million People intercut your uninsured and underinsured which is creating an additional set of challenges. We talked about the medically underserved areas which are often also located in what we call Frontline Community for our most vulnerable committee. We know we have wealth gap that exists inside of our country. Im thankful to this committee that you are thinking critically about addressing the environmental and Public Health impact that continues to happen, and how we also take sure we are emerging economic opportunities, and im going to believe we have incredible amount in the clean energy space. So im looking forward to our conversation today and unpacking many of these challenges the still exist and a pathway forward. Thank you, thank you, mr. Alk you for your presentation. We look forward to the conversation. And now mr. Hawkins, welcome again. Thank you for joining us. You are now recognized for five minutes, and please im cute if you havent. All right. Well, chairman tocco, Ranking Member shimkus, members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be with you today. I am the president of the Opportunity Funds Association, a trade association whose members are entrepreneurs, investors, developers and Fund Managers operating in Opportunity Zones. The Opportunity Funds Association is an advocacy, education and Communications Organization established to enable our members to participate in public policy, share best practices, and communicate the industries contributions to distressed rural and urban communities across the country. So through our members we connect capital to overlook areas, improving lives, creating opportunities, and ensuring the longterm Economic Growth and americas most vulnerable communities. So prior to cofounding the Opportunity Funds Association i was tax counsel for senator tim scott, are represented in the south golani. Working for senator scott i was helping him to champion the investing and opportunity act South Carolina. Investing and opportunity act was a bipartisan piece of legislation that was authored on the senate side by senator cory booker and senator tim scott, and the house side version was authored by ryan kind and hat pt teether. This legislation allows individuals or corporations with the capital gain to defer payment of taxes on the catholic and provided that they reinvest that capital gain in one of 8700 distressed communities across the 50 states, five territories and the District Of Columbia. The areas that are eligible for this benefit were selected by governors every governor was able to designate 25 of the economically distressed in their state or territory as Opportunity Zones. And so that Selection Process happened shortly after the Opportunity Zone provision which was based on the investigate opportunity act was passed in the tax cuts and jobs act. And so we were looking at the residence of these designated Opportunity Zones, we are looking at areas that have a higher than normal population of african americans, i higher than average population of nonwhites over all. Looking at areas with a higher poverty rate obviously, and were looking at areas that also have lower meeting in, and higher rates of brownfields. So of the Opportunity Zones that were selected, about 10 of those, those represented by 10 of use census tracks over all, but they represent over 30 of americas brownfields are found in these areas and in these census tracks. And so the Opportunity Zone provision provides a special, a special chance that we have to help create jobs in areas for folks who are disproportionately affected by covid19. So as of april 30, 2020, 10 billion has been attracted into opportunity finds which is the vehicles that invest in these zones. And secretary mnuchin makes it over 100 billion becoming Opportunity Zones over the next decade. So its a great tool, of the 65,000, 65 million, that of gone into brownfield remediation programs in those grants. Of the 150 designated areas and designated grant projects, 118 of those are in areas that overlap with Opportunity Zones. Though that the folks were dealing with those remediation dollars will be able to also take advantage of the Opportunity Zone provision as well. So again, Great Potential here to help alleviate the conditions for folks who are living in Opportunity Zones that directly overlap with economic committees and a look forward to talking to the committee about it. Thank you very much, mr. Hawkins. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for your input. That concludes our witnesses statements. Statement. We will now move to member questions. I will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes. Again, let me thank our witnesses for their testimony. I believe it is critically important that we measure our response to the covid pandemic by how we respond to the needs of her most vulnerable and most impacted citizens. So, ms. Patterson, from your perspective why should Environmental Justice be an important component of addressing covid19 . Thank you thank you so much. Yes, both from the direct connections that we see in terms of the places with high levels of pollution being the places where we see more covid19 impacts, thats a direct correlation that calls on us to address, air quality as well as mitigating the impact of covid19, but then also as i was saying before the systemic underpinning that makes community much more vulnerable to covid19 added by mitchell and justices is something that we have to very explicitly address or we will see ourselves in the same position the time of the gentleman has expired again going forward. Thank you. Thank you so much. And mr. Ali, why do you think it is necessary that our Covid Response and Recovery Efforts be centered around writing what had been historic injustices . Well, you know, there are a number of reasons why we have to do that. One, these injustices cause our country future of a lot of money in relationship to the Health Impacts that are going on. It also affects a number of other things that go on in peoples lives and communities that have been this invested in, everything from education to housing turnover of the other components that stop committees from being able to move from surviving to thriving, if you will. So we have a huge amount of opportunity right now to redirect and reinvest in these communities. The reality of the situation is that this is that the only pandemic that we are going to face if we are not willing to help these communities to become resilient and to build the foundations that are going to be necessary to deal with future pandemics, to deal with what were going to have today and tomorrow in relationship to the climate emergency, then its going to end up costing us much more. So just make sense to invest today and not wait until tomorrow. Many members and stakeholders including businesses are talking about Building Back better. So mr. Ali and ms. Patterson, do you think we can truly claim to be Building Back better if we dont address historic and disproportionate solution burdens . Thank you for the question. Yes, i think its impossible. We have to address the pollution or we wont be able in the building what work to such compromised existences in health that we wont be able to build, and better is not possible when you have a whole swath of society that suffering under the impacts of solution. And the very fact, without addressing pollution, the whole climate suffers to how is that possible . Thank you. Mr. Ali . My father was an engineer and a builder, and you know, he often used to talk about foundations, and if you leave a foundation that is not properly billed and that is not dealing with all of the aspects of the weight that it has to hold, then it will crumble. We have an opportunity to actually build strong foundations insider country. We have the resources here we have the ingenuity. We have the information thats necessary. What we need to have is the will to prioritize. Addressing a path and states. Sometimes get anchored to the past, and the egregious things havent happened. Well, yes, we should understand the history but we should also be focused on the moment now and in the future, so we can actually make real change happen. Well, im certain we will hear many good specific solutions this afternoon. On how to instill a criminal justice in Covid Response and economic recovery packages. So can you provide some perspective on how we should think about Environmental Justice more broadly . How is it connected to Racial Justice and Economic Justice . Mr. Ali . Im sorry. I thought that was for no no, no. Thats for you. First, lets make sure were setting the table quickly. Environmental justice is environment is but it is also a transportation issue. It is a housing justice issue. It is a Public Health issue and it is an Economic Justice issue, and a few other elements. So when we understand that it would take a holistic approach to making positive change happen, then we find the intersection points for numbers of different people with expertise and resources coming from different directions. That is where i think we should be starting. Lots of times we will silo these issues. And, of course, committees that have responsibility for certain items, but i will raise up the fact that at the Environmental Protection agency there, i ran the working group that it 17 agencies and a couple White House Offices that we could be utilizing at this time to actually make sure that one, we better understand the impact we had it on covid i get our most vulnerable community, but also how do we begin to marshall both the actions you all have been moving forward on and the additional things that Frontline Community is another seven asking for to holistically make our communities stronger and more resilient. Thank you so much. The chair recognizes mr. Shimkus, our subcommittee Ranking Member for five minutes, please come to ask questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And its great to be with all of my colleagues and friends again. Its important to talk about our past mistakes but it but i alsk its important talk about past successes, and thats what im glad that mr. Hawkins is joining us today. Mr. Hawkins, you were a senate tax and trade council for senator scott and helped draft the Opportunity Zone privations in the 2017 taxcut law. My disdain is that these provisions had wide bipartisan support. Can you talk about that bipartisanship briefly . Sure, sure, absolutely. So the original investigative opportunity act which the Opportunity Zones provision and tax reform was based off of, that had 44 has democrats, 44 house republicans, you know, by design, folks are brought into the bill to buy two. It also had 16 senators, eight republicans, democrats. And again it was led on the senate side by senator booker and senator scott, and on the house side represented t berry and kind. We saw that bipartisanship there. What has been the reaction local communities and governments to these provisions of the law . We saw great reaction. One huge difference between this policy and pretty much every other community Diploma Program thats developed to this point is that we put so much in the hands of local governors to select the zones come to select the areas that would benefit from this policy. And so the governors across the country rose to the challenge and they chose zones based on nine binding criteria. We asked them to look for areas that had a great need, areas where there is great opportunity and areas where they were mutually reinforcing federal, state and local policy. And so to large extent on the local level you see local municipalities and state governments stepping up to produce elementary legislation to support the Opportunity Zones policy and really sort of put it on steroids, as it were. And so theres been great excitement on the state and local level. This included minority communities, tribal communities and economically distressed communities, didnt it . Absolutely. So the Opportunity Zones that were chosen, the basic criteria come to it have a poverty rate above 20 , and an average income, average family meet income, less than 80 of the state average or if youre near a large cities in 80 of the matter average. So just in the basic criteria of what can be selected, you are looking at distressed areas. But in what was ultimately selected, youre looking at areas that are more heavily minority than normal. You are looking at areas that are lower Median Income than normal, and youre looking at areas, you know, from an environmental standpoint, you know, encapsulates 38 of the nations brown fields. Right. Thats the convergence of what the committee of jurisdiction has done, that brown fields reauthorization so when you marry the two, and in my Opening Statement i did mention the Opportunity Zones in the state of illinois. We have 326. Some of them in my congressional district. They are world poor but again that 326, 180 are found in cook county. Obviously illinois is a big state where we have cook county and everything north of i 80 and then all the rest of us. So we look forward to that and trying to address the debate about how you rise people of the best would do that is jobs, empowering them, then they can pay taxes to local community and economic development, and thats been our approach. As much as we want to take time about our failures of the past, i do think we should take a timeout and say the Opportunity Zones, legislation in h. R. One married with brown fields redevelopment is doing about two of these committees, would you agree . Absolutely. There are a lot of problems that could be solved with a good job. Problems that affect all of us. And so the goal of the policy is that everyone who has the ability to work, have the opportunity to work. Thank thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. The gentleman yield back. The chair recognizes chairman pallone of the energy and Commerce Committee for five minutes, questions, please. Thank you, chairman. I am so excited and incredible optimism coming from these witnesses. I cant ask mr. Hawkins a question because i have so many questions to ask of my other two witnesses, but i do want to say, mr. Hawkins, first of all, i like the fact that you seem to have a picture of Teddy Roosevelt on the wall there who is one of my favorite republicans. Yes. And final you mention the Brown Fields Program which truly is as mr. Shimkus knows, bipartisan, and i was very fortunate to start the program with the bill when republican governor of new jersey was epa administrator i worked on it with paul gilmore and then we reauthorized it with john shimkus, so thank you for all that what imovie on to my other two witnesses for the questions. I wanted to say, mr. Mr. Ali, n you talked about, you did that biblical reference to the oceans and rivers and associate with justice and fairness, that was wonderful from amos i think. I live on the jews ensure adequate into the ocean sometimes at the end of the day, and i think of the ocean as great equalizer i i really do. But its same time theres a lot of people particularly minorities that live near toxic waste sites, dont have the opportunity may be to look at the ocean and enjoyed the way i do. I also wanted to say Joe Jacqueline patterson, thank you so much for stressing the need for legislation that we have to concentrate on what we can do legislative because we are legislative. So my questions are about legislation and also input from the community. As i think you know, ill ask both mr. Ali and ms. Patterson, we introduced in the heroes act, we had provisions to ensure access to affordable Drinking Water and to find and buy middle justice grants. We also and by mental justice grants. Been putting these grants which i mentioned before in the heroes act for and buy middle justice communities. I wanted to ask you, is this a good idea what we have done . Are the other legislative initiatives that we should try to initiate . And then secondly, impact from the communities, im critical of President Trump since he justil these things to circumvent nepa and cut funding for impacted communities and not enforce environmental regulations, some of that is going to make it more difficult to those communities have input into decisionmaking. We have the right to know, we have had grants. So my question is, legislation, what should we be doing and have more input in the community and how some of these trump actions are circumventing nepa and making it more difficult for the community is to be heard, if you will . I know i took up a lot of time but if you could just answer those two questions about legislation and eating input from the community that might be limited with trump actions. Ill start with ms. Patterson. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yes, certainly there are a number of actions legislatively that were putting forward. Reducing the Energy Burden and ensuring affordability and what does that look like and also making sure we are moving away from subsidizing fossil fuel energy that is causing some of the pollution and harming the health and wellbeing of communities as well as the planet and also causes harm as well and then i would just say because i want to yield the other folks as we need to be focusing on the Hurricane Season started last monday, we need to be focusing on Disaster Mitigation because of this combined disaster we are dealing with now with covid19, we need to be making sure we have human rights at the center of emergency management. We seem past failures in that sense and weve seen them come along way and we need to go further in terms of making sure we have a new standard that goes beyond predisaster states that are so challenging whether its from Indoor Air Quality and otherwise so we actually build that better as we said earlier so those are just a few examples. Thank you. Ms. Patterson, its a major unit we focused on, i would share one of the other things that we need to also continue to expand upon his natural infrastructure. There are nearly billions of jobs among ppc type of paradigms that we could institute to actually help other countries get back to work. Thats one of the areas, the other one is around Food Insecurity that we find in many of our unities of color and White Communities so we need to also be focused there because we have to have a population, we talked a lot about if somebodys not healthy theyre not going to be able to work efficiently and effectively so weve got to do that but then theres one that sometimes probably makespeople nervous but i have to share it anyway. We need to have stronger enforcement where needed and heres an interesting dynamic. Were going to have to, i think were done with the five minutes there area. Im sorry to cut you off, maybe we will catch you in the next round of questions. Next we recognize mister walden, Ranking Member of the full committee of energy and commerce for five minutes for questions. Thank you chairman and thank you to all of our witnesses for your presentations, your answers to these questions are really helpful, especially for those of us out here in the west whereby the way its pouring rain today and so anyway, were glad youre here. I want to see a couple of things before i get into the questions on the need for reform. Somebody that represents the district for over 55 percent of the landmasses controlled by the federal government, ive got a tiny little rural Impoverished Community literally with probably two dozen people and it took more than three years to go through the need process to plan for power poles so they could finally get three phase power into this low income rural part of my district and put those power poles on blm land and it took them three years to go through the process. Need was never intended have that kind of delay so im glad theyre making true reforms and i also want to say thatthe administration frankly and Economic Policy they put in place , prior to covid the strongest economy and lowest unemployment for every sector of the American Economy weve seen so i think a good paying job, lowcost energy put america back on its feet and unfortunately we have to shut everything down withcovid. As did everybody across the country. I want to ask Mister Hawkins about the Opportunity Zones program. You done a lot of work in the space and i think its got a lot of good. There has been criticism in the press however that the program just benefits will the real estate investors. It doesnt really help those in need. Id love to get your take on that. Sure. So the policy primarily supports two different kinds of projects. You have realestate projects and then you have operating businesses. And so what we found is we passed, once we passed the Opportunity Zone provision , from a implementation standpoint , the rules that govern real estate were produced much more quickly than the rules that govern operating businesses. Thats a little bit simpler, right, real estate is all located within the track and all the aid comes from within the census tract etc. No because those regulations were out first, the real estate projects were the first to take off. There again low hanging fruit. And again, all these are beneficial. The real sort of meat of the program where the real longterm job creation comes is with those operating businesses gulping down the line. And so we dont have a transparency and reporting bill that gives us a very clear look into the types of businesses that are created and the direct job creation within the zone. And so that kind of hinders us. You have a lot of folks in the mediawho were speculating. They know that you know, you can use the policy to turn a dollar into 10 and they know rich people at capital gain a just sort of speculate that its only benefited rich people but thats not the case. Please tell me what youre seeing happen on the ground and in these Real Estate Opportunities agreements. Get us an example. Absolutely. We have members that specialize in things like luxury hotels. But they had a heart for impact even before Opportunity Zones were passed into law so one of our charter members in fact has a policy where they do one luxury hotel, Affordable Housing facility, and so they had that balanced portfolio and in order to get the past out of the policy while at the same time doing insured and while that same charter member has been partnering with organizations like the urban league and others to sort of reproduce this model from the country. In areas that have less sort of on the ground mileage so that makes sure that the development that occurs is developing in line and in a way thats going to have a positive impact on the local community. I see my time is expired and i want to bang off again all of our witnesses for your energy, your presentations today and mister chairman ideal back. And ennifer o senator peters for five minutes. Can you unmute please . Thank you mister chairman thank you to the witnessesfor coming out today. Joining us. I want to thank mister ali for coming back. Last time we met before this committee we were discussing challenges facing communities on the frontline of Climate Change so we talked about environmental and health risks which disproportionately harm unities of color and low income communities. We talk about coastal floods or sing planned relocations in louisiana and alaska and other exposure to air pollution, increasing the risk of asthma attacks in unities of color and today were talking about the same disparity following the same line communities and this time in the context of Infectious Disease and ask. A growing data shows the extent to which covid19 is disproportionately affecting minority communities. Poor air qualitys in these communities is strongly associated with a high risk of death from covid19 and a recent harvard study goes a long term exposure to air pollution such as particulate matter and ozone and other air pollutions leads to a large increase in covid19 cases and related deaths. So we can clear clean air protections and rolling back regulatory projections again cost more lives. The most vulnerable americans are the hardest hit by Climate Change and to write these environmental injustices we have to prepare our states local and Territorial Agency to adapt to an already changed climate and we also talked often about what we spend on adapting to Climate Change we know is going to happen but i think we also need to recognize that anything we can do to mitigate Climate Change because Climate Change has the biggest negative effect on these disadvantaged communities, anything we can do to mitigate Climate Change will have the greatest effect on and most benefit to those same communities and i wanted to ask a couple of questions for Mister Hawkins about some of the job losses in the context of clean energy. According to the latest announcements of the Clean Energy Job losses we lost 600,000 Clean Energy Jobs in april and in your testimony you described the report and the role that clean energy plays an Opportunity Zones, what do we see for Clean Energy Investments in the economic opportunity. I appreciate that. While the designated Opportunity Zones are, how disproportionately high number of poverty and things along those lines, it actually stems from real leadership on clean energy side of things. And so when we look at particularly solar, the Opportunity Zones have 475 i believe, just double checking my testimony but i believe by 475 and. 475 solar installation producing more than one megawatt of activity and hundred 27windfarms and 15 battery plants. Absolutely and so weve seen that because the entire policy draws in innovation. And so weve seen a lot around clean energy. Weve seen a lot around solar. We havent seen as much on the wind side. But again, we are looking at 100 billion coming to these communities over the next 10 years and whats important is that every business doesnt have to be necessarily organic to an Opportunity Zone. It can be business that was placed anywhere they can build a subsidiary in an Opportunity Zone so what does is it rolls across the capital for those Clean Energy Projects and when you put that an overlay that with some of the other work that you guys did, done around clean energy and around the various Clean Energy Tax credits, those are mutually reinforcing what you see an Opportunity Zones. Im going to run out of time but i hope our committee thinks about as we recover from this pandemic investing in things that both create jobs and reduce Carbon Emissions and i think there are opportunities around to and i want to say to mister walden who told youthat it was raining in the west , at least in areas in san diego represented by democrats its a sunny dayhere and i yield back. Were getting updated weather reports from the west coast. The gentleman yields back. The chair now rep recognizes representative roberts for five minutes and ill remind our representatives to unmute and the five minutes is yours. Good morning everyone, continuing from the west coast. Its partly cloudy. Anyways, good to be with all of you. I want to thank our panelists for your presentations and appreciate the focus on this important topic today. Certainly our communities have borne the disproportionate share of the Current Health and economic crisis and im glad we have an opportunity to discuss steps to what we cando to improve peoples lives and to continue towards a more perfect union. I appreciated what congressman shimkis had to say on reflecting on past failures but also successor to live up to our american ideals and as for the revitalizing revitalization program to have a specific impact on areas of the countrys that are experiencing economic stagnation especially in formerindustrial areas. Ive seen it in washington and spoke and these areas can have a particular negative impact on both Communities Health and economic potential so cleaning up these areas have a positive impact of improving the Environmental Health of the community along with amazing potential of creating more jobs and a job is so foundational to those addressing Environmental Issues in this case but also improving peoples health, providing housing and creating foundation for a better life. In spokane weve had an incredible amount of success in Economic Growth in the last decade and part of it is due to some former industrial types that have had tremendous economic development. The epas ground Field Program has been an essential tool that spokane has used to recognize the economic benefits of these former industrial zones. So last congress to authorize a Groundswell Program led by Mister Finley and im proud of the bipartisan support of this program. Opportunity zones that have been discussed this morning including the tax cuts and jobs ask another tool that is being used to encourage these distressed communities and encourage the investment that we need so that we can transform these areas into more prosperous and more healthy areas area so Mister Hawkins first i want to thank you for your work developing the Opportunity Zones program. During our time with senator scott and you know that members on this panel are proud of what the epa Groundswell Program and related assistance can do to prepare communities for economic development. I just wanted you to describe again how many of the Opportunity Zones also overlap with brownfield sites and just talk to the significance of this overlap. Sure. So of the hundred 51 communities that have been designated for those remediation funds, that 65 million, 118 of those are also overlapping Opportunity Zones. And so folks will be able to leverage both and we look at that focus, thats actually part of an initiative, the white house opportunity and revitalization counsel which structured to bid every resource of the federal government from a Community Development perspective to sort of, you can look at it as a bird Opportunity Zones so when youre looking at living, when youre looking at anything you go to the top of the stack and if youre in an Opportunity Zone and the point is to leverage the policy as much as possible area and you know, we see it, with brown remediation, we see it with other areas, fcc and Rural Broadband and its just very exciting. How does that press with what your initial assistance was . Again, we are on track to get the funds in area the real focus, the focus for you all on capitol hill and the focus for state and local governments is not so much making sure the capital goes in, the leverage of the policy guarantees that. We just have to make sure that the capital benefits the existing residents of distressed communities and so far it seems to be. The gentle lady yields back,i believe. And the chair now recognizes representative got for five minutes. Thank you chair tomko, this is a timely hearing given the protest calling attention to systematic racism in our country and the systematic racism is widespread and includes housing and Environmental Policies that have disproportionately impacted our black and brown committees and in an important part of achieving Racial Justice is addressing Environmental Justice. Black and brown communities in my district have suffered greatly from the current pandemic. Air pollution levels are among the worst in the country which has caused high rates of asthma and respiratory diseases. Those elements have been shown to make covid19 layer to those who have them because of how the infection attacks the lungs and respiratory system. This makes communities in my district more vulnerable to the coronavirus area its a preexisting health and Environmental Crisis made worse by the coronavirus so we need action. Theres been a lot of talk about Opportunity Zones. I supported Opportunity Zones to help create jobs. But thats not going to help our black and brown communities who have to live in these communities right next to air pollution. So mister ali, one of the legacies of redlining the government sanctioned denial of home loans and insurance to communities of color is that our housing is disproportionately located near polluting industries for example Oil Refineries in my district. Can you talk about how the systematic racism from our housing policy is part of the reason our communities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution and solutions we can implement to overcome it. Definitely. Historically we have Housing Stock moves people into certain locations and into our sacrifice zones and then many of the negative things were brought in or extracted to these places because of the disinvestment that were actually going on. In those spaces so as yousaid , we can travel across the country and you can find when there are certain actions in and relationships of the bad housing practices that put peoples lives in danger whether were talking about cancer alley there in louisiana, in new orleans and baton rouge. If you look at folksin North Carolina , founded by three slaves they moved into certain areas and then the disinvestment so there you have folks who been hit by major hurricanes that they cant rebuild and if you go down to South Carolina to near the little pd river, you actually have seniors of color and lower communities who because of the Housing Stock that they been in our in greater danger and unfortunately, also now we have these processes in place where they cant even rebuild their homes, they have to look them up a certain distance but there is no resources to help the seniors to actuallybe able to do that. We can literally travel around the country and see how redlining and a number of things have pushed people of color and sometimes lower communities but primarily folks of color into these areas and then all of the negatives that come with it. Thank you, ms. Patterson you all the work combating environmental racism in our country many years ago as a College Student i was an intern at the Washington Bureau with Hillary Shelton fighting Health Disparities so i appreciate all the work your organization does from that issue on civil rights issues across the country. Weve seen newly published studies linking the exposure to particulate matter , pollution to an increase in debt from coronavirus. Ms. Patterson what investments can we be making in our black and brown communities to reduce pollutants and the you believe that includes addressing the pollution that comes from vehicles . Thank you so much and i appreciate your service for the Washington Bureau. Yes, absolutely in terms of reducing pollution from vehicles and one of the priorities were working on is our transit equity clean air Healthy Communities initiative which looks to do just that by working on passing ordinances to transition to electrification to remove that habit from communities and we need much stronger again, from the and also we are working on advancing clean air ordinances at the local level whether its refineries or coalfired power plants or other types of production plants out there committing those pollutants and we also need to be thinking not just about what were stopping but what we are advancing so in addition to advancing electrification we need to be thinking about building electrification and clean energy and how do we invest in that transition as an alternative to the hostile ways that we are Generating Energy now as well as giving to zero weight because we know that incinerators are burning waste and putting other pollutants into the air so thank you. Thank you for your response with respect to the investment in transportation and i want to quickly mention ive introduced a Climate Smart course with billions of dollars in reducing emissions in communities of color and that suffer from airpollution and with that mister chairman thank you and i yelled back. We now recognize representative finley for five minutes, senator mckinley just unmute and your have yourfive minutes. Thank you mister chairman. Last november this subcommittee held a similar hearing on challenges facing frontline communities to be transitioned away from fossil fuels. We highlighted towns like West Virginia, wyoming, kentucky and st. Petersburg indiana, all of which have been fossil fuels for their livelihood. Now , eight months later can we revisit wealth in Mcdowell County . It is unique and the largest in West Virginia at 35 percent minority. Its now experiencing a poverty rate of 27 percent and unemployment has grown to 15 percent and this lack of jobs has delayed down county having the highest growth overdose rate among all of the counties in america. Its a conversation with the mayor last week, the repercussions of covid create shortterm obligations with an antifossil fuel agenda from the left is a longterm threat for communities like welsh and we completely destroy the economy of the city of welsh and the entire region. Mister chairman, describing air pollution to covid19 . Seriously . Its a simplistic answer to a a question. Once again, you are taking advantage of a Public Health crisis to testify your parties agenda against fossil fuels. We shouldnt jump to conclusions. Some have advocated that preexisting conditions such as hypertension and diabetes are linked to covid19 but a recent study from hofstra concluded otherwise. People have been studying this issue for five months i agree that this is a complicated situation but we need more data. For example , welsh in Mcdowell County with all these problems has only experienced six cases of covid and no deaths. In the meantime, in lou of building fossil fuels why are we researching developing technologies to capture Carbon Emissions and provide a lifeline to distressed communities like welsh, farland and petersburg . Those communities are all hearing the same stories you and i are hearing. The fight is already set. Fossil fuels will have no part inthis administration. Therefore, our frontline communities like welsh are expendable or are the people of welch among the 12 to 15 percent of americans that are not very good people . Are they deplorables . Frontline communities with a heavy minority population should not be Collateral Damage in your war on fossil fuels. We have a moral obligation to not write them off and help them. And misterhawkins , if i could do you another question. Some will call fossil fuels pollution but in West Virginia, we call them jobs. You helped author the legislation on our previous zones to benefit frontline communities like welsh. But for whatever reason its not included and an Opportunity Zone in West Virginia. My question is how do we modify Opportunity Zones if they are locked in for 10 years . How can we modify those zones so towns like welsh can prosper and diversify their economy . What we would love is for congress to first pass the transparency reporting bill because the initial legislation has provisions that would allow us to record the types of businesses, the amount of jobs created and the locations of those jobs. That reporting will give us the data that we need to say look, Opportunity Zones are working. Theres certain people we dont want to serve and now its time to expand them because we would love to give the governor of West Virginia the ability to designate an additional 10 percent of zones lets say so going from 25 percent designations to 35 percent. And in my state of ohio that would be an additional 120 zones i think we designated so if we can allow, if we can get the data first of all to see if the problems are working and use that tool to enable legislation to expand the policy and allow additional zones to be designated, then we can pull those areas of West Virginia in that can benefit from the policy and can benefit from the jobsthat are being created. Thank you mister chairman and i yelled back. The chair recognizes senator the kitchen for five minutes and unmute please. Thank you mister chairman. As our nation continues to navigate the crisis caused by some cases exacerbated by covid19 i cannot think of a more important time to be working together to ensure Environmental Justice communities are centered in our work. I want to thank our witnesses for their time and expertise and ive worked with both of them over the past few years and im gratified by their leadership and commitment to equity and justice. The covid19 pandemic is harming communities of color disproportionately. Pollution is a big part of the reason the pandemic is another burden of accumulating on top of pollution anticarcinogens in our soil. Our environmental laws call for the potential of highrisk populations that no one can look at a disproportionate burden of disease in our country including covid19 and say that we are protecting those communities. Now, this is a little bit off of what i intended to ask in the first instance but given the previous members remarks, ms. Patterson, do you care to comment on the assertions made by Mister Mckinley about their view of the leftist war on fossil fuels . Thank you, i appreciate that. I would more frame that as frontline communities quest for health and survival and we have seen just how our reports talked about the extreme negative impacts of the oil and gas industry and refineries out on our communities where we talked about how the department of labors own statistics have a 76,000 coalminers have died of black lung disease since 1968 as they toiled to create energy for our nation so for us , we dont frame it as a, as anything but really looking out for the health and the wellbeing of our communities and our planet and for us, weve put together this bluecollar black Labor Initiative on transition which includes groups like the United Mine Workers of america, us deal workers and so forth so we can come together and say given the necessity of this transition away from fossil fuels that are harming our communities, how can we do this in a way where your livelihoods are made plain and where you are not in the fossil fuel industries but in an industry which maintains your pensions, your healthcare and the income that you need to move forward . Thats the kind of conversation that we would like to be having so that we can, so we have it all. We haveenergy, we have the income and livelihood people need and we have health and wellbeing for communitiesand we have the survival of the planet , thank you. Let me just follow up again with one more question. Are you essentially saying that clean air and clean water and greening of our economyactually equals good paying jobs . That is exactly what im saying. We know from past statistics that the top 10 growing industries in our country, wind turbine technicians has been number one Fastest Growing profession in our country and we also know that weve seen where economic wellbeing can flourish in a new Energy Economy and we can actually have concentration of wealth building and ownership at the Community Level so that we all can thrive as opposed to a wealthy few. Thank you. I just have a minute left and i apologize to you for that but can you help us understand how we can assure that communities of color are actually at the table when were dealing withstandards being set and permits being issued . There are a number of opportunities whether there are Public Comment period and looking me sure that the rules are transparent and handled in a way that is actually inviting peoples participation and knowledge that they bring. You can also make sure that on the federal level and state level that we are really truly engaging in a transparent way with folks as we are framing out really what will either be a positive or negative in their lives. We have a number of opportunities to engage with frontline communities to make real change happen. Thank you and i appreciate it. Mister chairman, i yelled back. The gentleman yieldsback and the chair recognizes miss johnson for five minutes. Thank you mister chairman and before i get into my questions let me give another warm welcome to my fellow buckeye, shea hawkins from cleveland. Shea, we appreciate you being here and offering yourvery important perspective on these issues. You are most welcome. Bringing new investments economically distressed communities is key to improving the quality of life for local residents and weathering economic this options like weve seen with the shuttering of much of our economy as a result of the covid19 pandemic and in my district in eastern and Southeastern Ohio weve been blessed with the oil and gas boom which has provided a variety of good paying jobs or thousands of bluecollar workers. The American Energy renaissance has benefited millions of families across the country and across all social economic levels. In fact according to the American Petroleum institute by the year 2030 over 32 percent of the oil and gas workforceacross the country , over 400,000 workers will be from members of minority communities but today, i want to focus on another promising development, helping underserved communities and Mister Hawkins is an expert on this. Youve already heard him speak on it a little bit and im talking about returningto Opportunity Zones which i was pleased to support as part of the tax cuts and jobs act. Utilizing Opportunity Zones can be an effective way to address financial and social challenges in urban areas like cleveland but they can also improve Economic Conditions in historically distressed rural areas like appalachia where i live area Mister Hawkins, i understand there was over 10 billion raised into Opportunity Funds as of march 2020. What role do you see Opportunity Zones playing in the economic recovery from the covid19 lockdown . I think theyre going to play a Critical Role, and absolutely Critical Role and the reason is because these communities whether they be urban Opportunity Zones or whetherthey be rural Opportunity Zones , these areas were are always the first to get hit when you go into a recession and there hit the hardest andthere always the last to recover. So the difference between past recessions and the economic disruption were seeing from covid19 is that in previous recessions we did not have Opportunity Zones. Opportunity zones arent a panacea but they are a very sharp tool in the Community Development toolbox. Im glad you said that. Let me change the direction for just a second cause weve got 18 Opportunity Zones in my district alone in ohio. How large do you expect the investment potential to be in these Opportunity Zones because we need them where i live. Absolutely and like i said weve got 10. 8 billion i believe raised as of april 30 and secretary mnuchin estimates 100 billion will come into these zones over the next 10 years so we are excited. The rural zones provide great opportunity for things like role broadband, things like Clean Technology and weve been seeing it in areas that are as rural as northern alaska so we are very excited to see what develops. Are there any outstanding as weve seen the implementation of the Opportunity Zones, are there any outstanding regulations that are needed in connection withOpportunity Zones to make them work more effectively . Absolutely. The initial investigation opportunity act included reporting and Transparency Division so because of parliamentary reasons we had to strip those out. We passed it in the tax cuts and jobs act that there is a bill right now on the senate side that senator scott and senator simmons along with chairman grassley introduced to add those reporting and transparency requirements back so we would love to introduce a version of that on the house side and to have you guys get a pass. Thank you, i have other questions but i will submit those for the record and mister chairman, i yelled back. The gentleman yields back and the chair recognizes representative for five minutes for questioning and representative, unmute. Thank you mister chairman and to our witnesses thank you so much for your time. As we are having this hearing , george floyd is being laid to rest in his final ceremony and i think it is only fitting that as we talk about covid19 as a disease that is a respiratory one and to link it to all of the different issues that we talked about here just even the ability to be able to breathe is something thats heavy on my heart. And i have prepared remarks and im a little off script here as well cause im the kind of person as many of you know, i like to celebrate our successes. But i feel that at this moment, part of what each of us individually and collectively have to deal with is hold up a mirror to ourselves and say what can we dodifferently . And i appreciate this hearing because i think it is shining a light. Its like covid19 has magnified inequities that we already knew existed in our society. And so as we move forward, i appreciate it, mister waldens comments as well. I hope that we will hold an individual mirror as well as a collective mirror and maybe put aside some of even the phrases and terms that we use to politicize things because what were experiencing right now is Something Different and like i said, i have remarks here that really just talk about the fact that racism and injustice are built into the foundation as mister ali said. Its not just about the foundation crumbling in the house being destroyed, its about the fact that sometimes you can have ashaky foundation and the house stays the same but you continue to do repairs and upkeep and it becomes a money. And until we start dealing with group issues , until we start really having courageous conversations with each other, we will continue to have a money pit where were just dumping money into programs. Its not that these individual programs are great , but it has to be systemic and we have to have outcomes, we have to see real outcomes so this communitythat we call vulnerable , those community that we call distressed, i call them superhuman if people are even still existing when they are placed next to toxic sites where they dont have food and healthcare and transportation so i am proud to be a member of this committee because we have the ability to do incredible things and im looking forward tothat. Ive got questions here and im going to try to go quickly i want to hold a mirror to myself and all of us to commit, separate and apart from these hearings that were going to Work Together to change the outcomes that we are seeing. To george floyd and his family, my prayers. It shows theres a disproportionate impact that pollution has had on communities of color and as mister ali calls it low wealth communities as well and that were seeing the staggering mortality rates from covid19 on those communities and in the one minute i have left mister ali if you could talk a little bit about how more data and better data would be helpful. You know that there are Monitoring Systems that have either not been updated or are not working. Weve written to the administrator wheeler and i think those who signed on to that letter but if you could talk a little bit about the use of data that would help these communities particularly area. Thank you representative that is one of the critical elements we need. When i first started working on these issues i remember walking down the hallways of the epa and there were two folks in front of me and i said i dont know why were going to this meeting on environmental equity because what these people are sharing cant possibly be true. So if youre dealing with the narrative of the stories that are incredibly important in frontlinecommunities , without being able to lock that down with the data that people can make these types of cases, that was over 25 years ago. Today we have to make sure that the monitors are in the locations, that the information that is coming out is accessible both to regulators, to policymakers also to frontline communities. We also have to as we shared earlier make sure that we are getting the data that needs to exist in relationship to covid19. That is closely aligned with these hotspots we bind across the country and when we do dont do that easy for folks to say that sounds like a story that youre telling instead of something that is rooted in fact and as the agency has kind of moved away from factoring the relevant data we have to move back in that direction so we can anchor everything in fact. Miss patterson i have a question for you that we will ask afterwards and we would like to submit that letter to administrator wheeler or the record and again to my colleagues, together , lets do this together id yield back. Great message congresswoman and the gentle lady yields back. The chair recognizes senator florence for five minutes of questions and please unmute. Thank you mister chairman and i appreciate thewitnesses for joining us today. I would encourage us to reassess having these online hearings. I think congress is an essential service and the americanpeople would be better served by us doing this in person. Mister hawkins i have a couple of questions for you. Id like to expand the opportunities own discussion and talk a little bit about rural communities. Weve all heard today that Stronger EconomicEmployment Opportunities and lead to numerous other benefits. Such as environmental productions, healthcare, emergency services, greater tax base and on and on. Opportunity zones were created by the 2070 tax cuts and jobs act and the predecessor of that was the work that you and senator scott had done. They were done to stimulate economic elements, job creation by incentivizing longterm investments in low income often overlooked neighborhoods and communities. The zones also overlaps often with what we call, what some callEnvironmental Justice communities. Today there are more than 8760 of these qualified Opportunity Zones located in the District Of Columbia and United States territory so question one is this. And tell me roughly how many or what percentage of these Opportunity Zones are in rural areas and can you provide examples ofsuccessful active projects that are underway today . Sure. So about 23 percent of the zones that were designated would fall into the category of rural areas. And then the remainder are in urban areas or what we call suburban areas. Suburban areas being 10 percent and the remainder being inurban areas. And so theres a significant potential impact there. When we look at concrete examples of him of the things that weve seen in urban areas, in rural areas , we can look to Rural Broadband and i can look to one of my members and operating to expand Rural Broadband in rural alaska. And so as you can imagine, because of the terrain in alaska, its very difficult to get fiber penetrated into theinterior of the state. But Opportunity Zones have lowered the cost of capital to the point where its made it feasible so one of our members along with their existing investors, along with an Opportunity Fund that focuses on broadband and along with an Additional Support from one of the tribal corporations has been expanding Rural Broadband in alaska and laying that fiber. So if you could lay the fiber oftheir , and expand Rural Broadband in alaska and you can expand itanywhere. Im glad you brought up Rural Broadband. Are there any other specific obstacles to Broadband Internet access that are being addressed today by statute or by the opportunities own legislation that we passedearlier . One of the things that weve seen again with white house revitalization and opportunity council, some of those resources that have been that favor Opportunity Zones as included 26 billion fund to support Rural Broadband at the fcc so weve seen that and weve also seen some sort of interesting legislation out there to possibly create gigabit Opportunity Zones. That are focused on building out Rural Broadband infrastructure along the same concept of traditional Opportunity Zones. Okay and lastly back to rural Opportunity Zones. Writ large, are there any other particular obstacles to robust investment those rural zones and if so what are they . So we havent identified any particular obstacles. One thing from a regulatory standpoint, the regulation for treasury was governed operating businesses took longer to come out and those that would cover real estate. So operating businesses are what youre really going to see developing in the rural areas and so we have those final regulations completed as of december 2019. Out of those regulations, thats the primary obstacle that we saw two operating Business Development in rural areas and so were just looking forward to seeing the money flow. Thank you Mister Hawkins, i yield back. The chair now recognizes representative desoto representative desoto, please unmute. Thank you mister chairman. Climate change due to air and water social injustice and covid19, they are all interrelated. As covid19swept across our nation , President Trump hid the truth from theamerican people. When politicized the issue and worst of all did nothing for weeks. January through february and early march as thecoronavirus swept across our nation. President trump failed in the response greatly contributed to the death of 113,000 americans over 2 million americans contracting the virus as well. President trump failed covid19 response also allowed 40 million americans seeking unemployment in the worst economic recession since the great depression. Without having abysmal failure to protect clean air and water hes created a perfect disaster for the americanpeople. This especially affects online communities of color and low income communities and as my own State Offlorida faces another dangerous Hurricane Season , even on miami seawall 13 feet high, we know that we have to do something and my home areas noncongressional district, weve seen higher cases because there are many essential workers in Osceola County is widely heroes to help provide hazard pay for these essential workers. Africanamerican communities in cook county and artistic he saw higher levels of depths and cases among hispanic and also similar trends in poor rural row communities in the district. My question to ms. Patterson and mister ali, some folks want us to study more, to delay more before enacting Environmental Justice reforms. Do we have enough data on the effects of air pollution on covid19 already . If so, what would they be . Ill let mister ali go first. We have more than enough data. Let me give a historical mark for folks who dont know. In 1992 john lewis, a state member with your family there actually introduced the first piece of Environmental Justice legislation introduced in 1993 and i believe also in 1994 and at that time he was trying to put a spotlight on the hotspot that exist around the country so that we could then make the investments that were necessary and also make sure that not only the investments that we also have a legislation that would help to make sure that didnt happen in the future. So now we are 20 years later and in during that time there have been a number of institutions that have done all kinds of critical research, both help Public Health organizations, environmental organizations and a number of others that have pinpointed the fact of the impact they are having from this pollution and disproportionate impact on wealth communities. So its not a matter of being able to have to prove any of this anymore. The question is are we willing to prioritize these communities to address both the past impacts and also as many of you have been sharing , think critically about how we help these communities to rebuild. I appreciate the conversation going on aboutthe Opportunity Zones. I have my own set of questions that im always curious about about how we are uplifting people are other causing gentrification and a number of other things and if those can be answered in that fantastic that we should also be focused on the fact that frontline communities have been doing their own revitalization and i hope this committee when the time is right that we go out and visit firsthand these communities to see how they been able to transform their communities to be able to create Job Opportunities and create healthy housing, to be able to create new transportation. My time is limited so i want to turn to ms. Patterson. Can you confirm fossil fuel is in the longterm interest of thosecommunities . If you boot these fossil fuel industries, is that in the best interest of low incomecommunities of color . Thank you, sorry, didnt catch that one word. I did not. Studies experiences have shown out in communities that are exposed to fossil fuel solutions from coal or oil and gas and so forth has shown that myriad Public Health challenges that those communities face so it definitely isnt in their longterm interest as well as when we turn on the other side and see the connections between fossil fuel emissions and Climate Change that we know that Climate Change disproportionately affects those communities so you talked about the displacement of the disaster impacts that we saw in Hurricane Katrina and bishops in agricultural communities are already insecure suffered many Health Challenges as a result so in every way , not to mention the actual workers industries , the 76,000 coal miners that have died and accounting that have died of black lung disease since 1968 and we know that the many accidents and fatalities that happen that are tied to the fossil fuel industry so no, in no way is in the best interests of the frontline communities. Thank you, i yield back chair recognizes representative for five minutes. And representative, unmute please. If we are really going to have a hearing that will move the ball forward and try to advance opportunities for all constituents then we dragon politics like our colleague from florida adjusted, its absurd. For blaming the president s for everything, if i am not mistaken it was not too long ago that our colleague from florida was trying to limit innovation and pharmaceuticals before covid obviously and now we will walk down this path and you will blame him for everything and as a committee we are better than this. Our committee has had a long history of trying to do bipartisanship and there is no way we can have bipartisanship if we continue to blame everybody for it. It doesnt make any difference. We are in a pandemic. Lets find a way to move the ball forward. I dont think any of us are intentionally trying to hurt anybody but we have unique challenges in our district with in my district is no different but one thing that has been exposed is broadband and i have a rural district and just recently im only able to be on the syrian is because i got internet at my house and until just recently that did not exist. When you say or when i say i live in the middle of nowhere, i truly do. When he talked about Opportunity Zones we need to Pay Attention to that. Mr. Hawkins, thats what it wanted to talk to you about. I know you had experience working inside Indian Country to some degree but im all of my district is in Indian Country. Im in oklahoma student gas, when we look at Opportunity Zones in particular how can broadband be a part of that conversation . Yeah, absolutely. This goes to the flexibility that is built into the policy themselves. The way the policy works is every dollar doesnt necessarily have to be derived from within the Opportunity Zone in order for the company and the Opportunity Zone to derive the tax benefit. This is to say that as long as the nucleus of the operation, you know, the employees, the leaders of the company, the Management Team et cetera, as long as they are located in the zone and the jobs are created in the zone the actual infrastructure can spread out outside the zone because its expected that the records will come from outside the distressed area. It is particularly set up to lay fiber over a broad geography and still be able to benefit from that lower cost of capital. Opportunity zones we talk about jobs to because with technology also calms Job Opportunities and in rural parts of the area which is where offers two new zones exist it would help them to spur along those jobs. Being in Rural America for a lot of young people the only opportunity for them to have a really good paying job is to move and we dont want that to happen. I want my kids to live out on the ranch and to live around us but i have six of them so one of these days ill have a handful of grandkids to. [inaudible conversations] we want to keep that family unit close but Opportunity Zones and i am assuming in your opinion, can help create those jobs that are good, extendable long pain jobs to. They not only create jobs from comedies that calm but as you look at things like role broadband being billed out that that provides the technological connection with the rest of the world that allows people to remain to stay put and still do what they need to do and also helps in terms of things like telehealth so telehealth is something that is compromised if you dont have a robust broadband infrastructure and Opportunity Zones can be a key part of building that infrastructure out. Thank you. With that i will yield back. The gentleman yields back in the chair now recognizes the representative [inaudible] for five minutes. Hit on mute. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. Some of you on this subcommittee have heard me talk about the refinery which is adjacent to the Denver Community of [inaudible] which has a longstanding pattern of airquality violations and frankly putting the surrounding community at health risk. For example, anna the company violated key emissions limiting nearly 3000 times and sometimes for more than a week in a row and significantly they have a predominantly latino population we are even before the covid crisis, some of my colleagues represent and were talking about issues like this but a third of the residents below Poverty Level and they also have Food Insecurity. I dont think anybody would be surprised given the testimony we heard today that these communities have also been one of the areas hardest hit by the coronavirus. Ms. Patterson, i want to ask you, could you elaborate about how social and environmental injustices are compounded by covid19 and Environmental Justice communities like [inaudible] . Certainly, thank you so much for the question. Unfortunately when we have a situation where communities are facing Food Insecurity and therefore that contributes to the Health Conditions that we are already facing, the level of pollution we talked about before Health Conditions as well as ties to other challenges around but with kids being out of school and poor air quality days or kids being in school and having a hard time paying attention because of what they are exposed to and then you add a pandemic on top so its a compounded social educational and health factor, not to mention the economic what we see covid19 is affected the economy in general but even before that when people or when kids were out of school or people were staying home with her kids and their wellbeing is suffered i in i hate to stop you but i have a couple more questions and it is why we see the infection rates higher in communities of color and atrisk community. Also, talk about the air quality monitoring stations being down and in some places the Trump Administration is not even enforcing the laws but many of us have been trying to raise maximum fines for airquality violations and we been trying to require robust Community Level air toxins. Mr. Ali, something that i think you could tell us about is how important enforcement of these environmental laws would be towards protecting health in these communities. Yeah, you know, enforcement is interesting, especially the time we are in where we held huge amounts of water into policing black around communities but when it comes to enforcing those same industries that are there for some reason we want to push back against that and have never been real clear but i do have some idea. Go ahead. I would just say theres been less Enforcement Actions happening over the last two years and we also know there are less inspectors going out and that creates a very dangerous scenario, especially for most vulnerable communities. I believe in human nature and the goodness that exists there and i hope that most businesses and industries will do the right thing but we know through history that there have been some who have not and who have been significant, noncompliance, we have to make sure that there is [inaudible] on the job and if you want to label it that way. Thank you. I want to say to you i really appreciate your work over many years on issues like opportunity and housing so way back [inaudible] here is the thing, i thank you will agree with this. Without robust inventor mile laws you will not cleanup the air in these Communities Just with Opportunity Zones in brownfield. It could help but you have to have enforcement of the law, wouldnt you agree with that . That sounds reasonable. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. Great hearing. I yield back. The gentle lady yields back. You are most welcome. We now recognize the representative carter for five minutes for questioning and please unmute. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank all our speakers for being here. We appreciate your participation. I think its been misrepresented about their actions during the covid19 pandemic and the apa has continued to enforce our nations environmental laws with the federal state and tribal communities. There are temporary policy is responded to inquiries from the state and many with stayathome orders trying to regulate the community in the states and trying to protect its employees from viruses but the policy lets the agent speak for our resources responding to [inaudible] versus threats. Under the temporary policy no one is excused from pollution limitations and the only nature of change is the epa is not seeking penalties for noncompliance for routine monitoring and reporting requirements. Over 40 states have adopted covid19 related Enforcement Discretion including agencies in new york and in new jersey and that is and i say all that because the epa and environmental regulations continue to be enforced and the epas work continues so i just want to set the record straight on that before going further. I really do appreciate you being here and i appreciate the work that you have done, particularly in these Opportunity Zones. One thing we discovered during this pandemic is that we are too dependent on foreign countries, particularly china, for pharmaceutical needs and our pharmaceutical manufacturing and this is similar to what we experienced back in late 70s when we realized that we were too dependent on the middle east for our interviewees and we realize it needed to have independence and we achieve that. We need to realize that we need to have pharmaceutical independence and too much of the ingredients are coming from other countries, particularly china. One of the bills ive introduced is legislation that will incentivize these companies to come back to america and we work with senator scott and utilizing these Opportunity Zones and the tax incentives for these companies to come back and invest in our communities like this. Is this is this the intent of these Opportunity Zones and create jobs like this . Yes, absolutely. There is so much being done abroad that can be done in these distressed communities. Couple quick examples. One, puerto rico is we had Bipartisan Legislation just after the jobs act in the first, in the first spending bill after in february and Bipartisan Legislation that allowed puerto rico to designate 100 of Opportunity Zones and as you know puerto rico is a major hub for pharmaceutical development. We have one of our members there that specifically starting pharmaceutical subsidiary in order to bring back drug manufacturers, currently done in china, to puerto rico. That is one area and we have another area and another member, im sorry, in South Carolina that is actually bringing machines from taiwan to america to build facemasks and you literally put in and put in the front of the machine and it spits out on the other machine up package based mask that can [inaudible] and that is something that can be utilized because right now [inaudible] finally, we have a number who creates small fueling out of shipping equipment. They are an Opportunity Zones, they will these buildings, designed them, right now they are probably smallscale alliance with smallscale buildings in testing and they are imported testing can from south korea and they are imported for 14 a kit were normally the kits are much more [inaudible] thank you for that. The Economic Impact is obvious and very important but it also has an Environmental Impact as well. You touched on that a number of times during this meeting and i appreciate that and im sorry ive run out of time but i want to point out that not only does it have an Economic Impact but have an Environmental Impact as well. Absolutely absolutely