SACRAMENTO, CA – Environmental justice and climate advocates are calling for greater transparency and representation in California’s application to the Department of Energy to become a “hydrogen hub,” saying the process so far has been opaque and prohibitive to meaningful community engagement.
While ARCHES, the entity leading California’s application process, states that stakeholder and community-engagement will be “built-in and ensured at all stages of the process” and that “impacted, disadvantaged, low-income and tribal communities will be prioritized in all decisions,” participating environmental justice organizations’ requests for more transparent processes, robust community engagement, and a focus on community representation within governance structures have all gone unaddressed. Advocates note that a hydrogen hub in California could provide important economic and environmental benefits, but only if executed with transparency, community engagement and safeguards to prevent investments in projects that perpetuate injustice and fossil fuel pollution.
“ARCHES’ proposed draft Governance structure and their community engagement process so far has not prioritized environmental justice or public health and has not met even the most basic standards of transparency and meaningful community engagement,” said Bahram Fazeli, policy director with Communities for a Better Environment. “We hope that in the time that remains before submission of the proposal to the Department of Energy on April 7th, Governor Newsom will direct his staff to engage with the environmental justice community and improve these aspects of the proposal, which can lead to good projects in creating good union jobs and benefiting vulnerable frontline communities.”