2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land - 60

ULI PRIZE FOR VISIONARIES IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Robert Bullard and Shiloh, Alabama residents at a 2024 meeting on highway placement in
that community.
the South had, not too long
ago, vigorously protested and
denied Black people admission
to their institutions. We were
going up against big corporations,
in many cases, corporations
that endowed a lot of
the PWIs and their programs.
If [you're talking] about dealing
with oil and gas, fossil fuel,
dealing with issues around
land permits, et cetera, many
of these universities would not
touch us or our issues. We
had a few professors, a few
legal clinics, a few legal clinics
at law schools, and a few
academic programs at PWIs
offering degrees in environmental
justice.
I am amazed how much we
were able to do during this
early period. The field of environmental
justice was considered
by many as not [being]
a legitimate area of study, [of]
research, or [of] getting tenure
or promoted. When we talk
about who led the way, it was
HBCUs, not predominantly
white institutions-PWIs.
UL: How has that changed
today?
Bullard: We have made lots
of progress since the late
1970s, when environmental
justice was a footnote. Today,
it's a headline. Four decades
ago, EJ had limited resources.
Today, our movement-community
university partnerships,
networks, collaboratives, and
consortia-are powerful allies
in the march toward environmental
justice. Over the
stretch of four decades, I've
witnessed the signing of two
presidential executive orders:
President Bill Clinton signed
Executive Order on Environmental
Justice 12898 and,
29 years later, President Joe
Biden signed Executive Order
14096 . . . . In 1994, there were
no pots of money set aside by
Congress for EJ. In 2023, there
were substantial resources for
EJ, including billions of dollars
in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act or
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
[BIL] and the $369 billion
Inflation Reduction Act [IRA],
the largest climate funding in
the nation's history. President
Biden's Justice40 initiatives
says that 40 percent of the
benefits should go to those
disadvantaged communities.
Again, the IRA has $60 billion
dollars spelled out for environmental
justice and another
$60 billion for clean energy
transition. These are historic
investments in environmental
and climate justice, and in our
most disadvantaged and vulnerable
communities that, too
often in the past, have been
left out and left behind.
UL: Today, environmental
justice has also become a
mainstream course of study in
mainstream universities, correct?
Bullard:
Yes, almost every
major university in this country
has some environmental
justice program, climate justice
program, environmental justice
and climate justice, energy
justice, health justice-all of
that is integrated into the curriculum,
and any institution
that purports to deal with
climate issues that doesn't
have the justice equity lens is
inadequate.
Our framework has . . .
made it all the way to the top
of the federal government,
and all the way up to [the]
United Nations in terms of
climate justice; [it] is basically
the fastest-growing aspect of
dealing with climate change
solutions. [It's not just this]
little community over here,
saying, " We want help. " Climate
change has internationalized
the whole thing.
UL: Your expert testimony
won the case [that brought
Louisiana Energy Services
L.P. before the judges on the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board]. What was
the case about, and why was
it important?
Bullard: President Clinton
signed the executive order on
environmental justice in 1994.
The first test case to come
after that [involved] Citizens
Against Nuclear Trash [CANT]
versus the Louisiana Energy
Service. [In this case, the]
company was a collaboration,
[a] U.S., British, [Dutch], and
German [consortium] that
wanted to build the nation's
60
URBAN LAND FALL 202 4
DR. ROBER T BULL ARD AND THE BULL ARD CENTER F OR ENVIRONMENT AL JUS TICE

2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land