Every Virginian deserves access to a clean and healthy environment. Environmental Justice, as defined in Virginia code, is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people “regardless of race, color, national origin, income, faith, or disability, regarding the development, implementation, or enforcement of any environmental law, regulation, or policy." Historically, communities of color and low-income areas have disproportionately been affected by pollution from energy, industrial, and agricultural development. The impacts of climate change compound these burdens further for our most vulnerable populations.

The Virginia Council on Environmental Justice (VCEJ) (“the Council") is honored to provide a space for communities across the commonwealth to address these environmental inequities. Further, the Council is honored to present Governor Youngkin and members of the Virginia General Assembly with recommendations that seek to improve the public and environmental health. A few selected recommendations are included below. All recommendations are expanded upon on pages 21-25, of the full report.

1. Keep Virginia a member and active participant of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and continue to allocate revenue generated from the program as written in the Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparedness Act of 2020.

2. Do not repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA).

3. Fill the vacant Environmental Justice Director role at the Department of Environmental Quality urgently.

4. Utilize federal investment funding, building on the VCEA, to advance clean energy, jobs, and justice.

5. Virginia must prioritize and consider cumulative impacts in environmental justice in environmental laws, regulations, and policy decisions per code, and keep the Council as well as the public abreast of the permitting actions.

6. Build a clean and equitable energy system with policies and actions that prioritizes clean energy sources, alleviates the economic burden for energy costs to low-and moderate-income consumers and creates opportunities and incentives for communities across the Commonwealth to take part in the clean energy economy.

7. Prioritize, support and fund public participation measures that create more access for all Virginians across the Commonwealth and take advantage of modern and available communication technologies.

8. Center equity in state agency efforts to address water infrastructure, safety and resilience; capitalizing on federal funds and encouraging locality led efforts prioritize serving low-income and marginalized communities.

9. Create an office of Just and Equitable Clean Energy Transition to steward an equitable and just transition in communities negatively impacted by the downturn in the coal economy, developing incentives and workforce development programs for opportunities in the clean energy economy.

10. Address opportunity to modernize Virginia’s transportation systems and its inequities, by creating a Virginia Clean Active Accessible Transportation Task Force of diverse stakeholders and communities most impacted by transportation inequity to study, design and create mobility management strategies.

11. Centralize and unify state efforts on mapping tools as well as standards for public participation to ensure ample notice time, increase access to public meetings, and developing policies across all agencies with guidance around outreach to under-served communities, and streamlining public notice timelines.

12. Leverage funds from federal funds and initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Justice40 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to empower communities across the Commonwealth to build capacity building for historically and economically disadvantaged communities; and provide strong foundational education in topics relevant to the environment and public health, and how various levels of governmental decisions affect both.

13. Provide staff and resources to support sovereign Tribal Nations and Indigenous populations and allow grant access to state and federally recognized tribes to receive funds from the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation.

Among additional chief concerns discussed by the Council this year were comments to the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) focused on environmental justice stakeholder engagement for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review of transportation projects (Appendix A) and the Virginia Energy Plan. Appendix B details the public comments that were received by the council.