By: Shaina Oliver, Colorado Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: September 20, 2023
About: Colorado's Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Management for Manufacturing Phase 2 (or GEMMII) Rulemaking
To: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Air Quality Control Commission
Thank you for taking my comments. My name is Shaina Oliver. I’m a field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force/EcoMadres Colorado Chapter and an Indigenous Peoples Rights Advocate for all children’s right to a safe and healthy environment. United with over one million moms, dads, and caregivers fighting for climate action now by addressing environmental injustices faced by disproportionately impacted communities.
Importantly, I am a mother of four kids, and we are the descendants of the genocide known as the Indian Removal Act, known to the Dine as the Long Walk of the Navajo. And I stand directly on the ancestral lands of the Arapaho and Cheyenne Nations we call Denver metro. Disproportionate environmental harms of treaties, laws, policies, and regulations continue to be felt by Indigenous, Black, Brown, and low-wealth communities. This has historically placed Black and Chicano families near polluting industries and contaminated lands. Today, we know this to be true here in Colorado, which is why communities have supported Colorado’s climate policies and are looking to leaders to enact within their powers the Environmental Justice Act.
Being a displaced community member in Denver, I am constantly being segregated to live in and/or near polluting industries like the industries listed for the GEMMII rulemaking. I have stayed indoors more often due to myself and my son’s asthma reactions to the poor air quality in Colorado. Parents like me living in poor air quality communities worry about our children’s health and well-being. We listen to our kids’ breathing through the late nights to ensure that they are in fact still breathing.
Disproportionately impacted (DI) community members have a right to these protections, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) is charged with seeing that rulemakings like the GEMMII are prioritizing DI communities and enacting Colorado’s state law to reduce climate pollution. Parents of Colorado are counting on the AQCC to prioritize holding industries accountable and to vote for an alternate proposal put forward by experts and community members supporting Colorado’s climate goals and environmental justice actions.