0:03

We know we need to do this transition at scale

0:06

and with the speed we've never

0:08

seen before. And so we need

0:10

all the keys to unlock that

0:13

speed, whether that be permitting, whether

0:15

it be community consent and community

0:17

alignment. But I do

0:19

fundamentally believe that we need different ways

0:21

of doing business if we

0:23

are going to achieve our climate goals. Within

0:26

days of taking office, President Joe

0:28

Biden signed an executive order to

0:30

create the Justice40 Initiative, a

0:32

whole-of-government policy that aims to allocate 40 percent

0:34

of the benefits of

0:36

federal clean energy and climate investments

0:38

to frontline communities. For

0:41

the energy sector, this is just one of

0:43

many factors that has put a growing spotlight

0:45

on energy justice, with historically

0:47

disadvantaged communities often being most negatively

0:49

impacted by the current energy system,

0:52

lacking access to affordable energy, suffering

0:55

the harms of climate change, or

0:57

being excluded from the potential benefits of

0:59

a clean energy economy. These

1:02

are among the many challenges being addressed

1:04

by the Energy Opportunity Lab we've created

1:06

right here at Columbia Center on Global

1:08

Energy Policy. So what

1:10

progress has been made in ensuring energy

1:12

justice for frontline communities? Where

1:15

do policies around addressing climate change

1:17

and racial inequality intersect? And

1:19

with the energy transition continuing to accelerate

1:22

in size and scale, how do we

1:24

make sure disadvantaged communities are not left

1:26

behind? This

1:31

is Columbia Energy Exchange, a weekly podcast

1:33

from the Center on Global Energy Policy

1:36

at Columbia University. I'm Jason

1:38

Bordoff. Today

1:46

on the show, Shalanda Baker. Shalanda's

1:48

the director of the Office of Energy Justice

1:51

and Equity in the U.S. Department of Energy

1:54

and the secretarial advisor on equity. She

1:57

Also serves as Chief diversity officer for the

1:59

agency. Prior. To her

2:01

Senate confirmation and twenty twenty two cylinder

2:04

served as the nation's first ever Deputy

2:06

Director for Energy Justice. Before

2:08

joining the Biden Administration's he cofounded and

2:10

co directed the Initiative for Energy Justice,

2:12

which provides technical law and policy supports

2:14

to communities on the front lines of

2:17

climate change. Cylinder. Was

2:19

also professor of law, Public Policy, and

2:21

Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. I

2:24

talked with Slide about her work of

2:26

the Department of Energy implementing the By

2:28

Administration's agenda on energy equity and Climate

2:31

Justice, including to Justice for the Initiative.

2:33

We also discuss be historical inequities of

2:35

energy systems and the complexities of guiding

2:37

communities through the energy transition. I.

2:40

Hope you enjoy our conversation. Signed.

2:42

A bigger welcome to the Center

2:44

on Global Energy Policy here in

2:46

person in New York Great have

2:48

you can be university and thanks

2:50

for making time to be with

2:52

us. Thank you so much Say

2:54

said. it's great Severe these podcast

2:56

usually runs just a little under

2:58

an hour. That will not be

3:00

enough time to talk about your

3:03

work and your am really quite

3:05

extraordinary. Ah, career in the ass

3:07

in academia Ah. Air Force Academy

3:09

graduates Senate confirmed government official on

3:11

and on. I want to

3:13

start for our listeners by asking

3:15

what the salon debates are sealed

3:17

Is. Such

3:20

a surprise! I'm so

3:22

I went to the Air Force

3:24

Academy as human cents an hour

3:27

while I was at the academy

3:29

and within. My first months at the

3:31

academy I discovered that I was pre

3:33

that it read B I and so

3:35

and I was is for your all

3:38

American at read the player. And

3:40

I played on the one asocial team

3:42

and my my senior year I was

3:44

also on the women's U S Am.

3:46

under twenty three teams so

3:49

i play with other college

3:51

kids am at the highest

3:53

level in there and the

3:55

country and so aggressive fish

3:57

holes in colorado decided same

3:59

name an award after me and

4:01

they called it the Shalonna Baker Shield for the

4:03

best high school female rugby player

4:06

coming out of Colorado every year. So

4:08

that's been in place since 1998, which is kinda crazy. So

4:12

that alone would make for a fascinating podcast

4:15

conversation. And you played in the Women's Rugby

4:17

World Cup? I did, I played in the

4:19

1998 World Cup. I

4:22

missed my last month of school my senior year.

4:24

So I had to compress all

4:26

of my courses into like three and a half

4:28

months. At the Air Force Academy. So

4:31

I trained and it was

4:34

a great experience. I grew up

4:36

in Austin, Texas and was kind of, didn't

4:38

have a lot of exposure to

4:40

international anything, but always had dreams of.

4:42

Where was that World Cup? That was

4:44

in the Netherlands. So it was in Holland and

4:48

Amsterdam. So it was a

4:50

lot of fun. And you're still following rugby and is

4:52

that gonna become more popular in the US at some

4:54

point than it is? Well,

4:56

in the early 2000s, it was one of the fastest growing

4:59

sports in the US. So I'm not

5:01

sure, I'm actually not following it as

5:03

closely as I used to, but it was

5:05

an Olympic sport. I

5:09

think it became an

5:11

Olympic sport about 15 years ago and

5:15

mainly in the form of seven. So

5:18

I don't know how much you know about rugby. Not enough,

5:20

not enough. It's a great sport. You will

5:22

teach me. It's the ideal sport. So

5:25

normally there are 15 players on the field and

5:28

there's a scrum, which is

5:30

eight players and a

5:32

person who transitions the ball

5:34

from the scrum, usually big burly folks

5:36

to the backs, which are the faster people that are

5:39

kind of the running backs of the rugby field. And

5:42

there are 15 people in total, but there's

5:44

also a more condensed version of rugby called

5:46

sevens and it's seven

5:48

minute half. So it's very fast. It's

5:50

still the same size pitch or field.

5:53

And that's the format that made it to

5:55

the Olympics initially. So

5:58

you were in the, you were doing this at the Air Force Academy. Me

6:00

and the intention was to become

6:02

a military. Officer. That was kind

6:04

of the career goal Yeah, the time is.

6:07

it was. So I. Played. Rugby

6:09

in the to that like everyone

6:11

else and am everyone who graduates

6:13

from the academy becomes commissioned as

6:15

the second with senate and after.

6:17

Graduating had a five year of service

6:19

minute. You. Did not serve for

6:21

five years. Tell our listeners. My

6:24

manners, Sir. So I'm back

6:26

when I was any academy and

6:28

there was a policy that. Is.

6:31

So funny. A lot of younger people know you know

6:33

about this called. Don't ask, don't tell.

6:35

And it was a policy that

6:37

I was established in the Clinton

6:39

Administration. That

6:41

allowed. Lgbt military

6:44

service members to serve so

6:46

long as they never told

6:48

anyone about their and orient

6:50

he sense. And so I came

6:52

out to myself in a small group

6:54

of friends. My

6:57

junior year, in my junior year, beginning

6:59

of my senior year and you know

7:01

at the academy there is always a

7:04

lot of joking about the policy the

7:06

I lived in in and fear of

7:08

being discovered for about a year and

7:10

a half. While I was the cadets

7:13

I was commissioned and I did in

7:15

a relationship with someone who was abuses

7:17

and the woman. And

7:20

well as in that relationship. She

7:22

essentially blackmail me and and said you

7:24

know if you leave this relationship I

7:26

will out you to your superiors and

7:28

and you'll lose. Your career. And so

7:30

rather than have her whole that oh

7:32

really. I did a

7:35

lot soul searching because I did expect that

7:37

I would serve and of a mighty. Career:

7:39

Twenty year career in the military

7:41

or rather than have her hold

7:44

that over me am I came

7:46

out And I came out. and

7:48

my third year as service and

7:50

I was discharged honorably. but

7:53

i was ordered to

7:55

pay back for my

7:57

college an extensive so

7:59

that bill stayed with me

8:01

until the policy

8:03

was eventually undone by the Obama administration

8:06

in 2012. And

8:08

so for about 11 years,

8:11

every time I told the story, I would still have

8:14

this chill down my spine thinking, okay, they're going to

8:16

come after me for this, you know, money. And

8:18

it was a shadow. You had to pay back. I

8:20

never had to pay back, but it was something

8:22

that stayed on my record. I sent it through the

8:24

appeals process. And there's a sort

8:26

of patchwork of different

8:29

decisions from the 90s and

8:31

the early 2000s from a

8:34

lot of LGBTQ service members who

8:38

were forced to come out or witch

8:40

hunted in various things during that period.

8:42

But I came out. Knowing that it would

8:45

mean you would be asked to leave the military. I

8:47

knew that was a high probability. And

8:50

you know, I was 23 years old or something like that.

8:52

I mean, it was a baby. But

8:55

I knew that I didn't want to live in danger.

8:58

And also I had sworn to

9:00

uphold and defend the constitution of the United

9:02

States. And I said, you

9:04

know, it's kind of ironic to

9:07

have sworn to defend the country, but I

9:09

don't feel safe in my own life. So

9:12

I left. And I came out and knowing

9:14

that it was likely that I would be discharged. I

9:17

didn't know if I would be discharged honorably or

9:19

dishonorably. So it was really a roll of the

9:21

dice at that stage.

9:23

And it was honorable. Honorable. Honorable

9:26

distraction. And that,

9:29

I presume, had a formative impact on

9:31

how you think about all the work

9:33

you've done since then. You wrote, when

9:35

this policy was still in place, I

9:38

think about five years before the Obama

9:40

administration did it, a

9:43

law review article where you said

9:45

you were going to speak out on

9:47

how unjust this policy was. And

9:50

I was struck by something you wrote in that article. You said, if

9:52

that doesn't work, let's say it again. And

9:55

if that doesn't work, say it again and again and again. I'm

9:59

wondering if that is... still how you think about

10:01

the work you're doing today on justice and

10:03

the equity transition. Yeah, thank

10:05

you so much for pulling

10:08

that out. I mean, I

10:11

started the work of energy

10:13

justice back in

10:16

the like 2012 or so. I

10:20

was a corporate lawyer and I've been

10:22

living and working in Japan for

10:24

about a year and it was during the financial

10:26

crisis. And I knew I didn't go

10:28

to law school to be a corporate lawyer.

10:30

I knew I went to law school to fight for social

10:33

justice. I mean, that was always at my core. And

10:35

that was after you're discharged so people know the journey.

10:37

You then got a law degree. Right, right. So absolutely,

10:40

I mean, so this experience coming

10:43

out under Don't Ask Don't Tell was absolutely

10:45

formative and there was no

10:48

turning back, which is to say in any

10:51

space I would occupy from

10:54

that point forward, I would always

10:56

be myself. And I would

10:58

kind of hold the convictions

11:01

of justice within me and

11:04

never be afraid to make

11:06

a choice of power, essentially. So, you

11:09

know, at 24 years old or so,

11:11

I made that choice. And, you know,

11:13

it's been 20 plus years since that

11:15

happened. But that experience

11:17

shaped every decision I made and

11:21

put me often in

11:23

the crosshairs of folks who weren't as

11:25

forward leaning or didn't share

11:27

my views or thought maybe I was

11:29

a little bit ahead, you know, of my

11:32

time or ahead of the issues. And

11:35

that definitely applied to the climate and energy space

11:37

when I entered it. And when

11:39

was that just remind people that law

11:42

degree and then practice and then law

11:44

professor? Yes, sure. So I

11:46

was discharged in 2001 right before 9-11. So

11:49

officially got my paperwork and was out

11:52

of the military right before 9-11, which

11:54

is kind of ironic because

11:56

actually footnote, a lot of folks ended up

11:58

being retained. After 9-11, a lot

12:01

of LGBT folks were not allowed to or were

12:04

not discharged and were retained because they

12:06

needed those skills. So

12:08

I was discharged and I moved

12:10

to San Francisco and kind of had my

12:13

own awakening as a human and read

12:15

a lot of books and, you know, was very

12:17

much a part of the LGBT community in San

12:19

Francisco. I worked at

12:21

a nonprofit that was focused on providing

12:25

support to teachers who were

12:27

in underserved, underrepresented, or underserved

12:32

schools in communities

12:34

that were pretty overburdened

12:36

and just distressed in

12:38

many ways, economically distressed. And

12:41

so that was my first real

12:44

view of educational

12:46

disparities. And even though my

12:48

activism at that point had been around LGBT issues, and I

12:50

wouldn't say I was an activist, I just had my own

12:52

story, but I started to sort

12:55

of put together different ideas around structural

12:57

inequality. I mean, obviously, my

12:59

own experience in the military pointed to a

13:02

policy that was sanctioned by

13:04

the government that had created

13:06

these impacts on vulnerable population,

13:08

being the LGBTQ population.

13:11

And when I worked at this nonprofit, I saw how

13:15

the school system, you know, the system of education

13:17

in this country was so unequal. I

13:20

mean, it sounds so naive now to say that,

13:22

but it was really eye-opening for me. I was

13:24

in the Bay Area, as I mentioned, and

13:27

there were certain schools where kids didn't have books

13:29

or they would have to leave the books there,

13:31

and, you know, every day or they were

13:33

paid as missing from those books. And

13:35

so that experience, coupled with my own

13:37

experience regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell, inspired me

13:39

to go to law school. And so I

13:41

went to law school and I graduated

13:43

in 2005. I

13:46

went to Northeastern University, which was very

13:49

progressive and continues to be a very progressive

13:51

law school. So civil rights

13:53

leaders come from that place. Lots of social justice

13:55

leaders come from that place. And

13:57

I was really supported as a. young

14:00

student, you know, to stretch

14:03

and explore different ideas. I was

14:05

encouraged by people there. It

14:07

turns out I also had a proclivity

14:11

to teach and I was really

14:13

interested in being in front of the classroom

14:15

and, you know, reading and

14:17

doing research and writing.

14:19

And so my professors there said, okay, if

14:21

teaching is something you want to do, you

14:24

know, let us know. But it

14:26

was still a very daunting endeavor,

14:29

you know, to sort of think I could become

14:31

a law professor. So I went to

14:33

law school. I clerked for a year. I clerked

14:37

for the first black Supreme Court Justice in

14:39

the Mass Supreme Judicial

14:41

Court. He was great. Rick

14:44

Ireland, such a mentor and great

14:46

supporter. And then I did go

14:48

to a law firm. I mean, I left law school

14:50

with the same types of bills that many law

14:53

school graduates leave with. And so I worked

14:55

at a big law firm called

14:57

Bingham McCutcheon, which is now

15:00

Morgan Lewis. And I

15:02

was a project finance lawyer. So I

15:04

helped to put together deals and

15:07

I did so on the East Coast,

15:09

but then I had an opportunity

15:11

to go into Japan. And I

15:13

went to Japan in 2008. I

15:16

landed there a week after Lehman

15:18

Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. And

15:21

so I spent a year in

15:23

Japan really doing a lot of soul searching,

15:25

loving the experience, but the world is falling

15:27

apart. I don't know if you remember 2008,

15:29

it was kind of crazy. You

15:32

know, I was living in some of the best real estate

15:35

in the city. I had a view of the Tokyo

15:37

Tower. I was making more money

15:39

than I'd ever made and that I ever imagined I would

15:41

make. My mom, who had been

15:43

a single parent, was underemployed. And

15:45

Texas, you grew up. I grew

15:47

in Texas, right. And she was

15:49

at that time living in Minneapolis. My

15:52

sister also was living in Minneapolis. My sister had just

15:54

graduated from law school. She couldn't find a job. All

15:57

around me, there were people who were getting laid off. And

16:00

it was also the hottest

16:03

year on record. And it

16:05

was the year that President Obama was

16:07

elected. And so I thought, if I'm

16:10

going to leave and actually do work

16:13

in service of social justice, it will

16:15

be now. And so I spent that

16:17

year, you know, hand-wringing and sort of thinking,

16:19

if I leave,

16:22

there's no coming back, right, to

16:24

this kind of life. And so

16:26

I did leave after a year. And that

16:28

was when I really entered the energy and

16:30

climate world in a real way. The economy

16:32

is collapsing. The urgency of climate crisis is

16:35

becoming more and more evident. And then Obama,

16:37

you know, a million people come out on

16:39

the mall for his inauguration. Oh my

16:41

gosh. Yeah, unbelievable. So inspirational. I

16:44

actually remember being in Japan during

16:47

the acceptance speech in

16:49

Grant Park. And it was

16:51

live streamed. And I

16:54

was in my office, which

16:56

was a totally transparent office

16:58

with a door, but everyone could see in. And

17:00

one of my colleagues came by, one of my Japanese

17:02

colleagues came by, and I was

17:05

crying. I mean, just tears streaming down

17:07

my face listening to that speech and

17:09

seeing a black president, a future

17:11

president before his inauguration, of course, and

17:14

then his wife and kids on that stage. And

17:17

I thought, this is

17:19

a different moment for our country. And

17:22

my very formal Japanese colleague came

17:24

by and he said, Baker, son, are

17:26

you OK? And he was like, what's wrong

17:28

with you? And I looked at him and I said, using

17:32

Sam Cooke's words, a change has come. You know

17:34

what I mean? But it was just

17:36

this moment of reckoning with ourselves

17:38

as a country and realizing

17:40

that there was a different moment

17:42

and there was a different opportunity to do something.

17:46

But I want to talk about what that something was. I

17:48

remember the moment and I was a

17:50

great privilege to be able to serve in that

17:53

administration for a period of time and

17:55

the urgency to do something about climate,

17:57

which manifested itself initially as cap and

17:59

trade. And then there were these tragedies

18:01

like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill at

18:04

the time. And so

18:06

the sense that I have to do something because

18:08

I see a climate crisis. But

18:10

for you, that manifested as justice and

18:12

energy justice. And you founded institutes at

18:15

universities working on energy justice at a

18:17

time when, you tell me,

18:19

I don't think that was infused in

18:21

the conversation about the transition the way

18:24

it is increasingly today. So

18:26

why that approach? Why that

18:28

lens on how to

18:31

accelerate decarbonization? One might

18:33

say is a technical challenge or a finance challenge. We got

18:35

to decarbonize the economy. We need more low carbon

18:37

sources of energy. But now you're saying,

18:39

yes, but that we have another big problem to solve,

18:42

too. Yeah, which is energy

18:44

justice. So to answer

18:46

that, I have to kind of go back a

18:50

couple of years before I got

18:52

to Japan. So for whatever

18:54

reason, I decided that I wanted

18:56

to learn Spanish. And so I was working at

18:59

a big law firm. I don't know if you've had that experience. You

19:02

work all hours of the day and night,

19:04

especially as an associate. And

19:06

I somehow was able to

19:08

carve out time two or three times a

19:10

week to go to a Spanish class. So

19:12

I would sneak out of my office around

19:14

six, go to this class, and

19:17

then go back to the office and work until one or two

19:19

in the morning. And my

19:22

teacher, one of my students' teachers was

19:24

from Colombia. And she brought in

19:26

a lot of information about

19:28

Colombia, what's going on there. You know,

19:31

at that time, it was a pretty distraught

19:33

country in terms of a lot of the

19:35

drug trade, etc. But

19:38

she also brought in stories about

19:40

indigenous communities who were fighting against

19:42

oil and gas and coal development,

19:46

development that had completely devastated

19:48

their environments. And

19:51

I thought, okay, after this job, I'm going

19:53

to go and become a human rights lawyer, an

19:55

international human rights lawyer. I'm going to work In Colombia

19:58

or another place in the world. In

20:00

America with communities that we're fighting against

20:02

oil and gas or coal. and so

20:04

assuming you're in Japan, Am

20:07

and I saw held this stream of

20:09

possibly. Go. Into Latin America and

20:11

fast forward. I ended up leaving the

20:13

from and I bought myself a one

20:16

way tickets from Mexico. And

20:18

I lived in this place called the Haka which

20:21

is one of the most extraordinary places I've ever

20:23

been. It

20:25

is. The. Second poorest state

20:27

in Mexico it is. I'm home.

20:29

To fourteen different indigenous groups and

20:32

it's ground Zero for and to

20:34

it was at the time in

20:36

two thousand and ten Ground Zero

20:39

for next as energy transition. So

20:41

and. Tons And

20:43

Tons as as. Renewable

20:45

energy was going into that area

20:47

at a very and in every

20:49

exit as away. So for example

20:51

there are now I think twenty

20:53

seven hundred megawatts of wind is

20:55

there in places that. For. Rural.

20:57

you know folks rely on the land to

21:00

support subsistence way of living spaces but there's

21:02

a place called Levin Sosa which is one

21:04

of the windiest places in the world and

21:06

and I when I was in walk I

21:09

met and desist people who are fighting against

21:11

large scale wind development and my idea as

21:13

had been when I went to Mexico. says.

21:16

Work with indigenous communities fighting against

21:18

coal, oil or that and so

21:20

my whole world kind of got

21:22

turned upside down. Meeting the folks

21:24

who are fighting against clean energy.

21:27

Because what I realized is that

21:29

the same mechanism that. Created.

21:31

This is as sense that created environmental.

21:33

Harm her. Communities that excluded

21:36

communities from process are being

21:38

replicated in the clean Energy

21:40

transition and so am You're

21:42

absolutely right. Which. A song and

21:44

a loss of big fan of case in

21:46

a dispute with the try been to lose

21:48

of the flower movement blown up made him

21:50

famous for for lack of consultation over wind

21:52

farm isn't so another example of what you

21:54

were talking about just in the last few

21:57

days. But in two thousand and ten, no

21:59

one was on email. And I

22:02

thought, oh my gosh, we're going to create a

22:04

more unequal world, a more unjust

22:06

world in our march to avert

22:08

catastrophic climate change. So

22:11

I jumped into that issue and

22:14

immediately began to work on, well, I did a

22:16

lot of research in Oaxaca and Mexico. I ended

22:18

up becoming an academic and

22:20

entering the academy. And I

22:22

spent the first seven years or so of

22:24

my academic career digging into the

22:28

structural dimensions and the equity dimensions

22:30

of our energy transition, mainly

22:33

focused on Mexico, but also looking

22:35

at the global

22:37

South writ large. And

22:39

I argued that if we did

22:41

not infuse equity and justice and,

22:44

you know, indigenous rights at the

22:46

outset, we were

22:48

doomed to or destined to replicate

22:50

injustice in our march to

22:53

avert catastrophic climate change. And

22:55

so, again, that was very unpopular because back

22:57

in the 2010s, we

23:01

were more concerned with having climate change

23:03

be a part of, you

23:05

know, the lexicon and the mainstream

23:08

discourse in the United States.

23:11

Getting people to believe that climate change was a

23:13

thing was the fight to

23:15

suggest that not only did we have to worry

23:17

about climate change, but we had to worry about

23:19

equity and climate change together was just

23:21

too much. It was too much

23:23

for academics. It was too much for many activists

23:25

who were working in the climate space. And

23:29

it took about 10 years, 12 years

23:32

working on those issues

23:34

before the

23:36

idea that justice had to be a part

23:39

of the climate conversation became relevant. Just

23:42

explain for people what that means to you, the energy

23:45

justice. How should people conceive

23:47

of that goal, that objective, that

23:49

phrase? Sure. So,

23:52

energy justice is about

23:54

the social and economic participation in

23:56

the energy system. So

24:01

when I talk about social, I am

24:03

talking about prior consultation.

24:07

I'm talking about communities shaping

24:09

their energy future, doing community energy

24:11

planning, doing regional energy planning. Essentially,

24:14

community is having a seat at the table, which

24:17

is, you know, a

24:20

participatory element. It's

24:22

procedural justice. The

24:24

economic piece is more complicated,

24:27

but it can mean

24:29

getting a royalty from a project. It

24:32

can mean having an equity

24:34

stake in a project. It

24:36

means that true economic benefits are

24:38

derived from the system. And

24:42

it also means that we're not disproportionately

24:46

burdening certain communities. So

24:49

the burdens and benefits of the

24:51

system are equitably distributed, which

24:54

is our distributive justice component.

24:58

And there, I mean, we have a history in this

25:00

country of disproportionately burdening

25:02

certain places like the Gulf

25:04

South, like Appalachia, I mean,

25:06

places that have been sought

25:09

out for their resources, but

25:11

have never really benefited in any

25:13

material way. Many

25:16

of the community members there anyway, from

25:18

the resources that they house. And

25:21

so... That they're

25:23

seeing the impacts of extractive industries,

25:25

pet chem facilities, cancer alley, etc.,

25:28

but not seeing any economic benefits.

25:31

Correct, correct. And we can

25:33

see that play out. I mean, so

25:36

my current role, we

25:38

are doing a lot

25:40

of work to make sure as we

25:42

transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy,

25:47

even as we're asking some of the

25:49

same communities to house clean energy, we're

25:51

doing the project

25:53

development and design in a totally different way so

25:56

that we don't create disproportionate burdens in those

25:58

communities. What's an example in the... clean energy

26:00

economy of the disproportionate burden that you might,

26:02

I get the benefit that you might develop

26:05

clean energy and maybe there's not equity stakes

26:07

in the project or something like that, but

26:10

what are examples of the burdens and what's

26:12

an example of a way to do it right? Sure.

26:15

So the clean energy

26:17

transition will require a lot of building of a

26:19

lot of stuff. And so

26:21

even though the ultimate end product,

26:24

maybe a wind facility or a

26:26

solar farm, that'll

26:29

still require trucks and

26:31

a lot

26:33

of pollution will kind of happen in the interim

26:36

period between

26:38

the initial investment

26:40

and the actual project going

26:42

live. So there's sort of

26:45

externalities that are created even with clean

26:47

energy development. And that's in

26:49

the traditional sense. And I've spent a lot

26:51

of time sort of looking at environmental impacts

26:53

of clean energy development and et cetera, et

26:55

cetera. When we think

26:57

about, so those are more traditional energy projects. When

26:59

people think about clean energy, they think about when

27:02

they think about solar, they think about distributed generation

27:04

as well on rooftops. But

27:07

taking it a little bit deeper, we know

27:09

we have legislation in this country that

27:11

is facilitating our clean energy transition.

27:13

So it's requiring the

27:17

building of battery manufacturing and recycling

27:19

facilities so that we can onshore batteries here. And

27:21

we don't have to worry about the supply chain issue

27:23

that we've seen. And

27:26

building a battery manufacturing and recycling

27:28

facility though is building an industrial

27:31

facility. And so

27:33

again, that will create some

27:35

environmental externalities that will create some

27:37

harms in the community where that's

27:39

housed. Taking us a little

27:41

bit deeper, if we look

27:43

at decarbonizing our existing fossil

27:45

fuel infrastructure, we are

27:48

talking about capturing carbon from

27:50

existing polluting facilities. And

27:52

because of the way that we have cited

27:55

those facilities, a lot of

27:57

that new infrastructure is going to happen on

27:59

top. of communities that have

28:01

already housed petrochemical

28:03

facilities, fossil fuel

28:06

generating facilities, you

28:08

know, oil and gas facilities. And a lot

28:10

of that is happening in the Gulf

28:13

South. And so even

28:15

though we're working to clean up, which is to

28:17

say bring down

28:19

the carbon footprint

28:21

of those facilities, the

28:24

cleanup process also requires industrial

28:26

development. And so that's

28:28

what we don't want to create

28:32

more harm even as we're trying to

28:34

avert climate change. Right. Well just

28:36

on that topic you just brought up, which

28:38

is carbon capture, if I

28:40

mean much of the modeling including from the International

28:42

Energy Agency shows we're using a lot less oil

28:45

and gas in a net zero scenario, but not

28:47

zero and there is a role for carbon capture.

28:49

So if we presume that is the case, and

28:51

obviously the Department of Energy is spending a lot

28:53

of time and resources

28:55

on that. And I

28:57

think we also often see opposition to carbon

29:00

capture and carbon removal technology from those

29:03

local communities and from environmental justice communities. How

29:05

do we square that circle? How do we

29:07

get this technology right in your view? Yeah.

29:10

So I mean that is one of the biggest questions that

29:12

we've been grappling with at the Department

29:14

of Energy. You know, when Congress

29:18

gave the department $62 billion of

29:20

taxpayer money to do

29:23

our energy transition, a large

29:26

portion of that was dedicated

29:28

to carbon capture and removal,

29:33

storage, pipelines, I mean all

29:35

transportation, I mean lots of

29:39

carbon technologies, carbon-based technologies. And

29:41

so the question then became,

29:43

okay, we know that this is

29:45

an element of our energy transition, but how do we

29:47

do it in a way that doesn't create more burdens

29:50

and harms? And so we developed a framework called

29:52

the Community Benefits Plan framework, which

29:55

requires that every

29:58

single applicant for DOE funding

30:01

has to put together a plan for

30:03

community benefit. So with

30:06

respect to procedural justice, they have to have

30:08

a plan for involving communities and putting them

30:10

at the table on day

30:13

one or maybe day zero before, you know,

30:15

a project is even contemplated. So they have

30:17

to do consultation with the community where development

30:20

is proposed. They have to have a

30:22

plan for creating true economic benefit. So

30:24

this is, again, the economic share. So

30:27

job creation in those communities. On

30:30

a footnote here, one of the things that we've seen

30:32

is that in many of these

30:34

distressed communities, because often

30:36

they, their tax base has been eroded,

30:39

ironically, their school systems

30:41

are kind of, you know, in disrepair. They

30:43

don't have a ready workforce to participate in

30:45

these job opportunities that are going to be

30:47

created. So we're creating

30:49

a plan or requiring a plan for

30:52

getting local folks

30:54

hired in these new carbon dioxide

30:56

removal based jobs. So they

30:58

have to have a plan for economic development, including

31:01

job creation, but also supplier

31:03

diversity. They have to have a plan

31:05

for working with local community colleges

31:08

and technical colleges, minority serving

31:10

institutions in the area. And

31:13

they also have to have a real plan

31:16

for creating good, high quality

31:18

jobs and union jobs that be

31:20

obviously the ideal. And

31:23

so all of that is an

31:25

innovation and an intervention that we have

31:27

implemented at the Department

31:30

of Energy for this suite

31:32

of technologies that we know are

31:34

necessary and that we know are going

31:36

to be brought online in the next five to 10

31:38

years. It's 20%

31:41

of every single application score, which

31:43

means that we're not just focusing on

31:45

the technical. You know, of course, we

31:48

have lots of sophisticated applicants

31:51

who are very solid on

31:54

the technology, but they also have

31:56

to have a plan for the social aspects of

31:58

the development. So that's a lot of plans

32:00

and you talked about

32:02

community benefits and consultation

32:04

and engagement and all

32:06

of that sounds incredibly

32:08

important and all of it sounds like it

32:10

takes time. And you also hear about permitting

32:13

reform. Yes. And we have to

32:15

build clean energy so much faster. So are these things

32:17

in tension or do they not need to be? They're

32:19

actually in my view aligned. And so

32:21

in some ways, well,

32:24

this is a social license to operate, right?

32:27

You mentioned in your prior question

32:29

that a lot of communities are not

32:32

happy with these technologies. I mean, the

32:34

argument is, hey, you're giving a

32:36

lifeline to the same industry that polluted

32:38

my community, that killed my uncle, my

32:41

aunt, that gutted my community economically. You're

32:43

giving a lifeline to this industry and

32:47

I don't want it. I want no part of it. And

32:49

so this is helping to

32:52

create more of a social license

32:54

for this next generation technology to

32:56

come into place because we know

32:58

that communities will protest not

33:00

only in the streets, but they're going to

33:02

protest in the courts. And

33:04

so we've already gotten- But if you do

33:07

this consultation up front, you reduce the likelihood

33:09

of those lawsuits and local opposition is what

33:11

you're saying. Absolutely. I mean, I

33:13

think, yes, the development risk arguably goes

33:16

down. Now they have

33:18

to have authentic benefits that are

33:20

trackable and traceable and all of that as

33:23

well. And so as you've sort

33:25

of alluded to, the plan is one thing,

33:27

but actually the rubber hits

33:29

the road when actual projects go

33:32

online and jobs are created. This

33:35

is a dilemma that I think we face in

33:37

the administration right now. I mean, we

33:40

have this historic legislation, both

33:42

in the bipartisan infrastructure law, but

33:45

also in the inflation reduction act that

33:50

requires us to have a little bit of a runway to actually

33:52

get projects in the ground. And

33:55

a lot of the benefits of these projects won't be felt

33:57

for another five. to

34:00

10 years. And so getting folks to

34:02

understand that, hey, these benefits are coming, we need

34:04

you to be patient, we need you to work

34:06

with us is really one of

34:08

the challenges. But in my view,

34:12

this framework that we have created does

34:14

ultimately reduce the development risk. How

34:17

do we think about, or how should we think about trade-offs

34:20

in this transition? I mean, so you

34:22

talked about some things like building a

34:24

battery plant and assessing impacts, what it

34:26

means locally. We know

34:29

we need a lot of mining for a clean

34:31

energy transition, and it's hard to do mining without

34:33

impacts on communities and the environment. You want to

34:35

understand them, you want to minimize them. And

34:38

we need to accelerate a clean energy transition that in

34:40

some cases can lower energy

34:43

bills, but not all, right? Green

34:45

steel, green cement, green aviation

34:47

fuel, even electric vehicles,

34:49

depending on the timeframe you're talking about

34:51

and for lower income people, the time

34:54

value of money matters. And it's harder to say, it'll

34:56

save you money over

34:58

10 years if you're thinking about today.

35:01

There is a cost sometimes to

35:04

the transition, which I

35:06

think is lower than the cost of not having

35:08

a transition. But how do we think about the

35:10

distributional burden of accelerating this

35:12

clean energy transition? Yeah. Well,

35:15

I mean, I start with first principles.

35:17

I mean, this is the

35:20

investment that we're making is

35:23

as a country, and that

35:25

investment is American taxpayer money.

35:28

And so we have to

35:30

do right by the taxpayers who

35:32

expect that their resources will be

35:34

wisely spent. And

35:37

that then requires that we

35:39

grapple with the distribution

35:41

of those economic benefits. I am a

35:43

huge fan of the equity stake I'm

35:45

a huge fan of royalty payments. There

35:48

are certain geographies that require

35:51

us to make investments

35:54

in certain places, right? Critical

35:56

minerals can't be found everywhere in the country. We know

35:58

there are going to be certain places. that require

36:00

that. So

36:02

in those places, we have to make

36:04

sure the communities that are going

36:07

to be in the shadows of

36:10

huge mining operations truly

36:13

feel like they have a stake

36:15

in it, truly feel that that

36:18

project is going to benefit their communities.

36:20

I mean, regardless of whether they see this

36:23

as helping to fight the climate crisis, as

36:26

you mentioned, the time value of money is about, OK,

36:28

this is helping me put food on the table. Is this

36:30

actually bringing a benefit? Is my son going to get a

36:32

job? Is my daughter going to get a job in this

36:35

facility? I mean, we've got to grapple

36:37

with those things. And we have to understand that the

36:40

American taxpayers require us to do so. And

36:43

that is, again, I think the promise of

36:45

this energy transition, that we're sort of upending

36:48

different ways of doing

36:50

things. We're requiring new things of the

36:52

industries that we need. And the

36:56

captains of industry to do things

36:58

differently. And so that's the work

37:00

that we're tackling head

37:02

on. It's uncomfortable because

37:06

it does sometimes mean that

37:08

the industry needs to

37:10

take a little bit of a haircut in terms

37:12

of some of the profit. But again, overall, this

37:14

is going to help accelerate our transition. It's going

37:17

to bring everyone with us. And it goes

37:19

in alignment with this idea that fundamentally

37:21

these are taxpayer dollars that are helping

37:23

to facilitate the transition. Can you talk

37:26

about how, well, what the Biden administration

37:28

is doing, what Justice 40 is, and

37:30

what tools exist to

37:32

do the work you're talking about? A lot of

37:34

the development you're talking about is on private lands,

37:37

not public lands. Does this require new legislation? What

37:40

is being done? What can be done to achieve

37:42

what you just described? Sure. Well,

37:45

so I

37:47

entered the administration because of Justice

37:49

40. Just remind

37:51

everyone. Sure, yes. So

37:55

when candidate Biden was on the campaign trail,

37:58

he talked about something called EJ Fox. which

38:00

was that 40% of

38:04

our spending related to climate and clean energy would

38:06

go to frontline communities.

38:09

And by frontline, I mean communities on

38:11

the frontline of climate change, but also

38:14

communities who have borne the burdens

38:16

of development historically. So

38:18

environmental justice communities. So

38:21

he talked about EJ40 and then once,

38:23

and I was super interested in that

38:25

as a scholar, as a researcher, as someone who

38:28

was running an organization focused on energy

38:30

policy and community engagement and energy

38:32

policy, I thought, okay, I

38:34

hope he gets the right person to run

38:36

that. This is an exciting historical moment, historic

38:38

moment. So he was

38:41

elected, and I was

38:44

asked to join the administration to lead

38:46

what became Justice40 for the

38:48

administration and the Department of

38:51

Energy, which is to

38:54

help lead a just and equitable energy transition. And

38:56

on day seven, after he was inaugurated, on

38:59

day seven, he signed an order tackling

39:01

the climate crisis at

39:03

home and abroad, which established Justice40. And

39:05

so when is Justice40? So

39:09

tucked into section 223 of that executive

39:11

order tackling the climate crisis at home

39:13

and abroad was the Justice40

39:15

initiative. Justice40 sets

39:18

the goal that

39:20

40% of the

39:22

benefits of our spending

39:24

on climate and clean energy are going to

39:26

go to frontline disadvantaged communities.

39:29

And so immediately the question was,

39:32

what's 40% of a benefit? Right?

39:35

Yeah, what's the answer to that? Well, I mean,

39:37

it's a hard one. So we had

39:39

to then define benefits. Well, first of

39:41

all, we had to break Justice40 down

39:43

into three components. First

39:46

was, okay, what federal programs count as

39:48

climate or clean energy? On day

39:50

seven of the administration, day eight, we

39:53

had no bill money, we had no Ira money,

39:55

we had nothing to

39:57

sort of hook into at the Department of Energy, though.

40:00

Many of our programs were defined as climate and

40:02

clean energy. So I did a lot of organizing

40:05

within the Department of Energy to

40:07

convince my colleagues, scientists,

40:10

engineers that what they

40:12

were doing was relevant to the

40:14

president's promise. So we

40:16

were able to gather programs

40:18

that were considered climate and clean energy.

40:21

The second thing, which we were doing in

40:23

parallel, was to figure out who were disadvantaged

40:25

communities. What does that mean? And

40:28

so I built a team that helped to develop

40:30

a map that now is still used at

40:33

the Department of Energy. We now have a White House map as

40:35

well that helped us to understand,

40:37

okay, these are communities that have faced

40:39

certain types of burdens. They

40:41

lack access to energy, or

40:43

they have energy insecurity, which

40:46

is not being able to pay for

40:48

energy. They face historic

40:50

burdens in the environmental realm. And

40:53

so we created a map. So we had the programs. We

40:55

had the map. But the hardest question was,

40:57

okay, well, what are the benefits? Because

40:59

at the Department of Energy, each program

41:02

collects its own data regarding the

41:04

impact of the program. And

41:06

so having been

41:08

a scholar of energy justice and

41:11

read a lot of the literature related to energy issues,

41:14

I developed a framework of

41:16

eight different benefits that we

41:19

would be tracking. And there

41:21

was one universe in which we would have

41:24

40 different metrics that we were tracking. And

41:27

I kept saying, guys, we need eight. I

41:30

mean, if we could do five, we would do

41:32

five. But we needed very simple, tractable metrics that

41:34

then could be broken

41:36

into 40 percent increments.

41:38

So job creation is

41:41

one thing. Business creation. We

41:44

also want to track access to

41:46

capital, which is a hard one.

41:50

Lowering environmental hazards and

41:52

harms and burdens, resilience,

41:54

energy democracy, and all

41:56

of those things we broke into metrics that

41:58

could be trackable across. programs

42:01

in an apples to apples way. Now

42:04

with bipartisan infrastructure law we have a whole

42:06

system of metric

42:08

collection that imports our

42:11

framework of eight Justice 40

42:13

benefits within it.

42:15

So all of that has taken a lot of

42:17

time to do. The jury is still

42:19

out. I mean we still

42:21

don't have true benefits that are being generated

42:24

from our bill programs and we won't

42:26

until I think we actually break

42:28

ground in many ways. I'm

42:31

going to ask you because we have we

42:33

can talk for hours but not enough time. Oh my

42:35

gosh we don't have a lot of time. Think about

42:37

this concept in the global setting

42:39

you started with. So when you have

42:41

conversations like the one we're having with

42:44

friends, with colleagues, scholars

42:47

in the developing world a

42:50

response I feel like one hears

42:52

often is this is all important

42:54

but this is a high-class problem we don't have

42:56

any energy at all. Right. And you're telling us

42:58

we can't have natural gas and you're telling us

43:00

we can't produce our oil even though US production

43:03

is at a record level. What

43:05

is energy justice? How should we think about that

43:07

concept in the international realm?

43:10

Yeah oh my gosh it's such a

43:12

great question and you know

43:15

I just came from Mexico. I

43:17

was there all week as a

43:19

diplomat which was kind of interesting because my first time

43:21

there was as a lawyer escaping

43:24

legal practice. Second time was as

43:26

a Fulbright scholar looking at

43:28

issues in the Yucatan Peninsula after

43:30

the huge energy reform that opened up

43:32

markets there and so that was 2016-17

43:34

it's 2024 so about eight years later you know I went

43:36

back and I got

43:43

to talk to academics. I talked to colleagues

43:45

I had worked with as a Fulbright

43:47

scholar. I talked to government officials,

43:49

the Senators, I got to meet

43:52

with the Commission on Human Rights. I

43:55

met with state officials, the state of

43:58

Yucatan. Secretary

44:00

of Energy, Secretary of Sustainable

44:03

Development, Secretary

44:05

of Women's Issues, and

44:07

in every case I

44:09

shared what we were doing in

44:12

the US to break

44:14

down these large-scale infrastructure projects

44:16

in a way that could

44:18

create more equitable benefits and

44:20

more equitable burden sharing and

44:23

it did resonate with them. The

44:26

idea that communities should be at

44:28

the center of debates regarding project

44:31

design, project location resonated

44:34

and in fact I've learned a lot

44:36

from my research in Mexico about what

44:39

I wanted to import into our system

44:42

and I think what you're talking

44:44

about though is okay there's the project

44:46

level and community level work but

44:49

there's also sort of this global discourse

44:51

regarding our energy transition where does energy

44:53

justice really fit there. I didn't

44:56

hear a lot of pushback of like oh we're

44:59

gonna ignore that but

45:01

what I heard was that hey yes

45:03

we do still need fundamental access and

45:05

if we are going to get

45:07

access to energy resources we want to make sure

45:10

that access is equitably distributed in our society

45:12

because that's going to lift up all

45:15

of our community members right

45:17

so access is one thing and as

45:20

that access is making its

45:22

way here let's determine that that's

45:24

distributed in an equitable way. I

45:27

guess the question was sort

45:29

of trying to get at the idea that

45:31

you described how energy justice would mean that

45:33

in the course of this complete overhaul of

45:35

the economy called the energy transition let's

45:37

make sure the benefits are distributed equally and I

45:40

think you were talking about the domestic context and

45:43

should we think about that in global

45:45

context as well let's make sure the

45:47

benefits of this clean energy economy are

45:49

more distributed in lower-income parts of the

45:51

world emerging markets and is that idea

45:54

infused in the international

45:57

climate policy international economic policy

46:00

policy, development policy of government

46:02

the way that you're

46:04

describing in the domestic context. Right.

46:07

Well, it depends on how meta you want to get, Jason. A

46:12

million years ago, I taught international environmental law.

46:14

I've taught courses on international development. And there's

46:16

sort of a... I

46:19

mean, there's obviously a very active discourse

46:21

around what is owed to the global

46:23

south, for example, from the global north.

46:26

We know that we're going to be

46:28

asking our neighbors in Africa, in Latin

46:30

America to be sources

46:33

of critical materials for

46:35

this energy transition. That

46:37

is absolutely a space for

46:40

this discourse on energy justice to take

46:42

hold for us to bring the principles

46:45

of distributive justice

46:48

to the table where,

46:50

you know, subsistence communities

46:52

and Chile, for example, are

46:55

providing lithium for,

46:57

you know, batteries. Right.

47:00

What does it look like to ask them to do that

47:03

in a way that doesn't totally disturb their

47:06

ecological and environmental... their

47:10

environment, but also

47:12

lifts them up? Right. Like, those

47:14

are the questions that we have to grapple with

47:16

as a global community and particularly in the

47:18

global north. I think I've

47:22

always had this view that we

47:25

can leapfrog some of the issues that

47:27

we confronted here in the United States

47:29

around the total centralization of energy.

47:32

It may not be of energy resources.

47:34

So it may not be economically feasible

47:36

for some of the most rural

47:39

places in the sub-Saharan to have

47:41

huge generation of facilities that require lots

47:44

of transmission to go into, you know,

47:46

cities. There,

47:48

there's sort of a need to distribute

47:50

that energy in a way that's affordable.

47:53

Maybe it's purely distributed energy. It's,

47:55

you know, cell phones and small batteries that

47:57

become the source of power or some other

48:00

system that is put

48:02

in place versus a main sort

48:05

of very centralized facility

48:07

that is owned by a multinational

48:09

corporation. So I think we

48:13

can learn a lot from what we're trying to do here,

48:15

but we can also avoid a

48:18

lot of the challenges that we've

48:20

faced here by thinking about

48:22

justice at the outset, by thinking about, you

48:25

know, logics of development as well as we're

48:27

doing our work. So I think

48:29

at a very meta level in terms of climate

48:31

policy globally, we have

48:33

to confront those issues of distribution. And

48:35

we have to understand that we're

48:37

going to be asking more of our neighbors in

48:39

the global South as we're doing a transition here.

48:42

I think

48:44

at a project level, we

48:47

can also think creatively about how we do energy

48:49

access. Again, avoiding many

48:51

of the issues we've faced here. And just so

48:54

listeners understand the sort of context in which you're

48:56

doing the work you're doing here in the US,

48:58

energy poverty, which for much of the global South

49:00

means no energy access at all and extreme

49:03

poverty. Energy poverty, not to

49:05

compare the two in a different sense, but it

49:07

is an issue in the United States as

49:10

well. Correct? It is. And so,

49:12

you know, we talk a lot about energy

49:14

and security in the US. And we know that one

49:17

in three Americans faces

49:20

the tough choice of whether to

49:22

heat or cool their home or eat on

49:24

a regular basis. One in three. Of course,

49:27

you know, that goes up and down. But this

49:29

is data that comes straight from the Energy Information

49:32

Administration. When we disaggregate that

49:34

data, though, and look at households

49:36

headed by people of color, 47% or so

49:38

of Latinx households and 52% of Black households

49:44

experiences energy insecurity. And

49:46

so... Define those as that choice.

49:49

The choice of whether to heat or cool your

49:51

home, keeping your home in an unsafe or unhealthy

49:53

temperature, not being able

49:55

to buy other things necessary

49:57

for life because of the cost of energy.

50:00

So medicine, food, struggling

50:02

with that. And there's a survey that

50:04

gets conducted every five

50:06

years or so that tells us that. There's also

50:08

a poll survey that gets done every three months

50:10

or so by census. Half

50:12

of African American households. Half.

50:15

That's pretty devastating. Energy

50:18

poverty, though, is not something that we

50:21

track as well as we should. But

50:24

that's, if you want to talk

50:26

about zero energy access, we know that

50:28

there are communities that are unincorporated that

50:31

lack access to power. We

50:33

also know that many native communities, my

50:36

dear colleague, Wahayla Johns, who heads up our

50:38

office of Indian Energy,

50:41

often talks about the lack

50:43

of access to

50:45

electricity in Navajo nations where

50:47

she grew up. And

50:50

so, I mean, it is still a

50:52

pervasive issue, but we know it's more

50:54

pervasive internationally, but it's also

50:56

right here in our back,

50:59

in our backyards. And that concept

51:01

of energy justice, for

51:04

you, does it include as well, you talked

51:06

about the benefits, the communities that may be disrupted,

51:09

dislocated in this transition, coal communities, oil

51:12

and gas communities, and how do we

51:14

address the concerns which

51:17

are political as well as economic

51:19

and a matter of equity in the transition

51:21

to help communities adjust over time? Yeah.

51:24

So, I think what you're mentioning

51:26

here is just transition. Sometimes

51:28

it gets folded into the broader energy

51:30

justice conversation as well. I

51:33

think of it a little bit separately, conceptually.

51:37

You know, the same order that established Justice

51:39

40 also established an interagency

51:41

working group on coal communities. And

51:44

a lot of that work, you know, was accelerated to really

51:47

think about how we were going to bring

51:49

more resources into those communities. So

51:52

just again, not again, but just to put a

51:54

fine point on it, when we're talking

51:56

about Coal facilities,

51:58

Fossil fuel facilities.. That are being set

52:01

down. It's sad just the jobs in the

52:03

plant right that are the problem and that

52:05

are lost. His seat entire

52:07

ecosystem. The economic ecosystem around

52:10

that facility that gets impacted

52:12

so. The mom and pop grocery stores,

52:15

The the guy who sells the breakfast

52:17

sandwiches and the cause he you know

52:19

all of that, the dry cleaners. all

52:21

of that things are impacted. and so

52:23

in the by percent versus the law

52:25

we actually has an. In.

52:27

Congress. Provided. Some

52:29

hook for us to support

52:31

this communities to advance energy

52:34

manufacturing so advanced we have

52:36

an certainly. Exact amount of funds

52:38

we have that it's it's center the

52:40

a seven hundred fifty million but that's

52:42

this is a pot of money is.

52:45

For those communities and transition to

52:47

do advance energy manufacturing in those

52:49

communities we also have some provisions

52:51

for in the in place reduction

52:53

act that require us to reinvest

52:55

in this communities the clean energy

52:58

as well And so tigers. As

53:00

you know, thinking about it, we're

53:02

thinking about it. At the Department

53:04

of Energy, we know that Austin,

53:06

those are communities that again are

53:08

distressed economically. They

53:10

have. They see some environmental challenges as well

53:12

because we've asked them to shoulder our energy

53:14

system for the last you know, hundred years

53:16

or so. So we're focused on them and

53:19

from an energy just the same point. I'm

53:21

making sure. We equitably shared.

53:23

Them said if it's and burdens of her

53:25

transition for. Also, focus on them from incest

53:28

transition. Same point to make sure they're

53:30

not left behind either as are transitioning

53:32

to a clean energy future. I

53:34

imagine move along people as me who. Are

53:36

inspired by what you're saying and and

53:38

wanna help do some of this work

53:40

with our to at your career path

53:42

earlier. nonlinear one it might be hard

53:44

to replicate and practically women's World Cup

53:46

I'm coming up with changing to Trent

53:48

Bridge arteries but but talked about device

53:50

that you give young people who were

53:52

who wanna wanna pursue this this work.

53:55

Yeah me. Now it's time.

53:58

To the involved in these issues. I

54:00

mean, we've never seen anything

54:02

like this moment. We've never seen this type

54:04

of investment in climate and clean energy. We

54:06

need more. We need more investment and

54:08

hopefully more and more investment will come over the

54:10

years to follow. But

54:14

there absolutely is something happening in

54:16

every single community on climate, every single

54:18

community on energy because

54:21

of the sort of pervasiveness

54:23

of this transition. It's happening everywhere.

54:26

I would say for students who are in

54:28

school, take

54:30

the courses that light you up, seek

54:33

out the internships with

54:36

nonprofits, with international NGOs

54:38

that are doing work, kind

54:41

of merging the technical and the

54:43

social. I mean, that's where

54:45

we need a lot of the work to happen. Folks

54:47

who can talk to engineers and finance

54:50

people, but also can talk to communities.

54:52

I mean, to me, that intersection is

54:54

the one that needs to just be

54:56

exploited and where we need more expertise

54:59

and translators to actually be

55:01

able to move between both

55:03

worlds. We know

55:06

we need to do the transition at scale

55:09

and with a speed we've never seen

55:11

before. So we need all

55:14

the keys to unlock that speed,

55:16

whether that be permitting, whether it

55:18

be community consent and community alignment.

55:20

But I do fundamentally believe

55:22

that we need different ways of doing

55:25

business if we are going to

55:27

achieve our climate goals. Shalanda Baker,

55:29

thank you for the work that you're doing for your

55:31

service in the military and in government. And thanks for

55:33

making so much time to be with us today and

55:35

explain it to all of us. I appreciate it very

55:38

much. It's a pleasure of you. You've been here to

55:40

come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

55:45

you again, Shalanda Baker. And thank you for

55:47

listening to this week's episode of Columbia Energy

55:50

Exchange. The show is brought to you by

55:52

the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia

55:54

School of International and Public Affairs. The

55:56

show is hosted by me, Jason Bordoff, and by Bill

55:59

Loveless. produced by Aaron Hardick

56:01

from Latitude Studios. Additional support

56:03

from Diana Hernandez, Vivek Shastri, Lily

56:05

Lee, Caroline Pittman, and Q. Lee.

56:08

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56:11

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56:13

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56:16

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56:18

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56:21

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56:25

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56:28

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