Blacks in Green Announce New Website, Community Voices in Energy

Last month, the Environmental Defense Fund and MWEJN partner organization Blacks in Green launched  a new website called Community Voices in Energy to help communities nationwide voice their opinions on energy decisions that affect them. 

Nationally, the average cost of lighting and heating is about 6% of household earnings.  However, some households in low-income and frontline communities pay upwards of 20% of their household earnings in utilities. Many of these same communities are saddled with the environmental cost of current energy infrastructure. Often living closer to power plants and other sources of energy-based pollution, they are both exposed to lower air quality and higher rates of chronic illnesses such as asthma and other lung disease. At the same time, utility companies’ investments are often concentrated in higher income geographies. As a result, the same communities that are burdened with increased pollution from energy utilities often get the fewest benefits, instead facing prolonged waits for service, more frequent power outages, and less service in their areas while paying rising costs for utilities. 

Community Voices in Energy hopes to change this by providing resources to help people learn about important energy decisions and topics in their areas, and assisting them in getting involved. Community testimony and expert testimony training toolkits are now available to the public on the website and have been developed with the intention of incorporating community testimony as evidence in utility rate cases. This will help increase community input into energy regulations and policies.  

 As climate change continues to accelerate, clean energy has become an increasingly pressing priority in the United States. The energy industry continues to be one of the top polluters in the nation and  many communities are now looking to transition to clean energy sources. With increased affordability of clean energy and the investment funding available from the Inflation Reduction Act, the possibility of large-scale change in energy policies across the nation is in sight. The Community Voices in Energy project hopes to get people closer to that horizon.