BOSTON – State Senator Adam Gomez (D-Springfield) joined State Representative Fluker Oakley (D-Boston) and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today to celebrate Governor Maura Healey’s inclusion of language for the Environmental Justice Trust Fund in her FY2025 state budget released Wednesday.
The language was initially filed by the three lawmakers as HD.4585/SD.2767, An Act establishing the Environmental Justice Trust Fund, will fund environmental projects and initiatives in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental harms. The outside language included will be expected to pass with the budget and be signed into law this summer.
“Environmental justice communities in Hampden County and throughout the Commonwealth will no longer continue to bear the burden of environmental harms without the resources they deserve,” said Senator Adam Gomez.
“Securing the creation of an Environmental Justice Trust Fund is a top priority for me this session so I am thankful to Representative Fluker Oakley for her continued advocacy on this issue and Governor Healey for including this vital piece of legislation in her FY2025 budget.”
An Act establishing the Environmental Justice Trust Fund proposes the creation of a trust that will be administered by the AG’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) to provide much-needed resources directly to disadvantaged communities across Massachusetts. Working with community-led organizations, EPD will use the fund to support environmental restoration and other projects to benefit community well-being—projects like air monitoring networks, asthma prevention programs, rooftop, and community gardens, and depaving heat-absorbing black tops–to empower communities to manage environmental harms and improve environmental conditions that affect people’s daily lives. The Trust will be funded by payments, including penalties and fines, from settlements and judgments filed by EPD in state court.
Currently, the Attorney General’s Office does not have the ability to provide EPD penalties to those disadvantaged communities directly impacted by the violations of the state environmental laws EPD enforces.
The Environmental Justice Trust Fund will provide a mechanism for some of the settlement and judgment money to be used to benefit communities disproportionately impacted by economic, health, and environmental burdens.
Everyone has a right to be protected from environmental hazards and to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment, but disadvantaged communities continue to bear an inequitable burden of cumulative climate and other environmental harms.
For example, nationwide, such communities are at higher risk of adverse health impacts because they are more likely to live in risk-prone areas like urban heat islands, resource-isolated rural areas, or coastal and other flood-prone areas, as well as areas with older or poorly maintained infrastructure, or areas with higher levels of air pollution. These effects can lead to further compounding issues like food insecurity, infectious diseases, and psychological stressors.
In Massachusetts, which already has one of the nation’s highest incidences of pediatric asthma, degraded air quality is expected to disproportionately affect already disadvantaged communities, which are more susceptible to incidences of childhood asthma and elder mortality.
Heavy rains and flooding are expected to increase mold, overburden sewer systems, and cause contamination of private and public water supplies. And droughts will deplete water supplies, with disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged communities across Massachusetts.
The Environmental Justice Trust Fund will give the Attorney General’s Office, in partnership with community organizations, the ability to address these environmental harms in disadvantaged communities in Massachusetts.
For more information on Governor Healey’s FY2025 budget, please visit https://budget.digital.mass.gov/govbudget/fy25/outside-section-all/ contact Senator Gomez’s office at Adam.Gomez@MASenate.gov.
