Justice40 White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council Support

The Bullard Center was awarded a grant to assist with staff support and engagement work on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC).

HBCU Climate Environmental Justice Screening Tool (HCEJST)

The Bullard Center received a $4 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund to assist disadvantaged communities with developing “roadmaps” and model platforms for accessing federal Justice40 “covered programs” and “covered investments” that many communities historically have been left out of in the past. The Project helps identify and direct much needed funding and infrastructure investments to disadvantaged communities and to positively impact funding equity advocacy for years to come.  In addition, the funding was used to develop the HBCU Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool (HCJEST) that supplements the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CJEST) by adding race and other pertinent environmental justice measures.

The HCJEST was developed in 2021 by the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team (HEJTT) as a collaborative of HBCU-affiliated economics, data science, geoscience, and geographic information systems (GIS) experts.   The HEJTT is led by Dr. David Padgett with support of Dr. Reginald Archer, both of Tennessee State University, Dr. Tony Graham, retired from North Carolina A&T University, and Ms. Pamela Bingham. Team members from Morgan State University include economists Dr. Linda Loubert and Ms. Cari Harris. Leading the development and GIS efforts is Dr. Paul Robinson from Charles Drew School of Medicine and Science. The HEJTT’s primary goal is to empower environmental justice (EJ) stakeholders’ research efforts via the HCEJST, ArcGIS Online, the Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJ SCREEN), Enviromapper, and others. The HEJTT provides technical assistance for EJ communities on-the-ground in the form of in-person, hybrid, and virtual workshops on the HCEJST and a Justice40 Funding Data Tracking Tool.

‍