As a young boy living in north Denver near the Suncor refinery, Ean Tafoya was wracked with asthma attacks. His childhood home is on the Asarco Globe Plant superfund site—an area designated for long-term pollution cleanup by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tafoya knows very well how pollution can present long-term challenges for those who experience health issues from prolonged exposure.
“This is robbing from people's American dream, when you have to miss school, you have to miss work, you can't save up, you have hospital bills," Tafoya said. "It goes on and on and on.”
Tafoya stands up for environmental issues with the GreenLatinos Colorado chapter, and that work brings him to a lot of public meetings. In September, he attended the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Management for Manufacturing Phase 2 rulemaking in Denver—better known as GEMM II. It's where state officials determine just how much air pollution is acceptable for Colorado companies with large environmental footprints like JBS, Molson Coors and Suncor.
At the meeting, one area of particular concern was "greenhouse gas credits." Effectively, when one company outperforms their regulatory goal, they generate a "credit" that represents carbon emissions. They can then sell those credits to other companies on an open market. The companies that buy the credits can use them against their emissions goals if they're out of compliance. The credits reduce net carbon output by incentivizing companies to come into compliance, but the worst polluters can meet regulatory standards without reducing their own local emissions, thus leaving the health impacts on local residents unchanged.
Activists were hopeful that the commission wouldn’t allow corporate polluters to use carbon credits.
But companies represented at the meeting said more environmental regulations could lead to broad economic pain and greater environmental damage, since more environmental regulations in Colorado may compel businesses to leave the state for places where there are fewer pollution regulations.
To help counter arguments like these, Tafoya and GreenLatinos connected with a nonprofit law office for this meeting to make their case on behalf of the most impacted communities. Tafoya said it's important to have legal support at meetings like this one to help groups like his defend their positions against corporate interests.
"You almost can't do it without a lawyer. You almost can't do without technical experts," Tafoya said.
Now, other activists are for the first time receiving similar legal assistance through a new program from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment that links environmental activists with attorneys who might be willing to take up their causes. The program was started to give environmental activists a more even playing field—they simply don't have the resources that heavy industry tends to have to make its case.
GEMM II was the first public meeting where activists have received this kind of help. Experts like Claybourne Clark, the climate change program director for Colorado's public health department, say it's likely the first of its kind in the nation.
“I think what we're doing is sort of first-of-a-kind here, with this specific training of attorneys and then matching them up to address these issues before the air commission on greenhouse gas reduction rulemakings,” Clarke said.
Kirby Wynn, oil and gas liaison for Garfield County, made the case against more regulations during the rulemaking session. He said implementing technologies that reduce emissions would reduce financial viability, potentially closing companies that are already heading in the right direction.
“Under the division's current proposed scheme of rules, we believe that those companies would be looking to suffer significant—albeit unnecessary—harm to their ability to continue producing, and especially their ability to naturally-grow their operations in an environmentally sound and sustainable manner,” Wynn said.
Dawn Angel Diaz with the Greenhouse Connection Center, a community nonprofit that melds arts and environmentalism, is one of the people getting legal help through this new program. Part of Diaz’s environmental work is through advocacy, telling other people’s stories. She gave testimony about the impact of pollution on one child's health during the meeting.
“One boy was telling his story about how his nose bleeds. He talked about how him and his friends have a hard time breathing while playing soccer," Diaz said of a child living near the Suncor refinery. "He started to cry.”
Diaz said partnering with a pro bono attorney through the new state program provided some support in preparing to speak in front of officials and maximize impact.
“He just guided us in the right way, told us what to say, what not to say, and how to clean up what we're saying to get our message across,” Diaz said of the attorney she was paired with through Colorado's new program.
Still, Diaz has her doubts about the program. She’s concerned that providing legal representation is just performative, making the process of deciding on regulations seem fair and equitable without a guarantee it will make a difference in the state’s final decision.
“It's not enough," Diaz said. "I feel like these corporate monsters are over here overpowering us with their foot on our throats, and what we say doesn't matter.”
In this realm, pro bono legal help has some limitations. There aren’t many lawyers who specialize in environmental law, and while there are some nonprofits that compensate lawyers for their time, they don’t have much money to provide sponsorships.
Attorney Mike Foote is one of the new players in this program. He is representing Diaz and Greenhouse Connection Center, along with a few other nonprofits. He said he wasn’t sure how his help would translate into actual regulations.
“There's often a very bright line between listening and acting. And what they're asking for is real change to occur,” Foote said. "They, of course, appreciate people listening to them, but they have day-to-day issues, they have community issues, they have pollution issues. They need change in order for that listening to matter.”
It's also an equity issue. The stark reality is that people of color are disproportionately affected by air pollution. Many communities located near Colorado's largest polluters—like Suncor—have populations that are predominantly made up of people of color . Communities like Greeley—near JBS—and Commerce City— near Suncor—have populations that are about half white, half people of color.
As Tafoya has seen in his day-to-day life, it's not typically the affluent communities that bear the brunt of air pollution in Colorado.
“Zoning laws inherently and historically have been racist in their creation," Tafoya said. "And so over the decades, environmental racism, just racism in general, has resulted in some communities being closer to polluters than not."
Many of these communities are situated in the northern Front Range.
Attorney Mike Foote said what activists really want is for the pollution to decrease near their homes. So far, he said his clients haven't seen the results they're looking for.
"The community group (Family and Community Coalition) that I represented really wanted to focus on on-site reductions, and they just weren't very satisfied by the end result. They're not convinced that there are going to be a lot of on-site reductions as a result of the rule that's enacted."
Tafoya said until there is real change around pollution regulations, communities will continue to demonstrate ongoing resistance to corporate polluters through activism and legal action.
“I suspect that there will be other community groups, and/or local governments, who will sue the State of Colorado and the Air Quality Control Commission to defend the Environmental Justice Act,” Tafoya said.
