CHARLIE RANGEL ON ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, addressed the WE ACT conference today. His visit comes as the House just passed their $819 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In his address he expressed no bias on the question of cap-and-trade versus carbon tax, saying no matter which is used “we will have to monitor what happens on Wall St. to make sure that what they did to us today they won’t also do to us with emissions control.” He also raised the question of whether the revenue accumulated from either (or both) would be best spent on tax relief for the working poor or on a “massive health program.”

When taking questions from the crowd he was asked if money from whatever congressional stimulus bill is signed into law would be assured for communities of color. Rangel emphasized that the House bill includes “billions for community organizations to go out and educate their people on energy efficiency.” But another questioner noted that government grants tend to disproportionally go to mainstream environmental organizations rather than smaller EJ groups.

Rangel responded by rambling off in a separate direction, discussing the upcoming Census. He similarly dodged a question about whether the green workforce development funds will benefit minority communities that need jobs most, instead riffing on the need to re-educate public school teachers.

His response to a question on how immigrant workers would figure into the new green workforce, posed by Antonio Diaz of People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER), did eek an honest answer out of Rangel: “I wonder too.”

“It seems to me that our religious organizations need to organize,” around this issue and answer the question of “what role do they see themselves playing in society besides giving people hope and to pray? … Where is the voice of church synagogues and mosques on this moral question?”

This was, needless to say, a disappointing answer. But to be fair, it’s a question few people have the answer to. Unfair, however, to cast responsibility off on the faith community, especially when few are represented at this conference.

--Brentin Mock

(Photo courtesy Kamau Ware)