Hey John,

For the past couple of years, PSN has been heavily focusing on supporting Bvlbancha / New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast area which are frontline communities of mostly Black and Indigenous folks who have consistently been under attack because of the climate crisis and those that contribute to the crisis itself.

So the latest Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is not a bill we're celebrating when its climate goals are essentially an experimentation being performed on already suffering communities. Black and Indigenous folks in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast are "sacrifice zones" controlled by the fossil fuel industry that is driven by power, not ecological safety— no matter how much they preach the "benefits" of carbon capture.

No solution is a solution if Black and Indigenous nations in the Gulf South have to suffer in order to have bandaid solutions for the wider public. Avoiding complete climate catastrophe means we have to stop ALL fossil fuel production and funding ALL fossil fuel projects.

The foundation of protecting fragile communities is getting their consent and giving them authority over decisions that will have an impact on their personal health and wellbeing and the health and wellbeing of their ecosystem. The fact that Natives were not consulted when creating the IRA goes to show how its goal isn't to truly protect all of us.

Here's a break down of the opposition and you can read the press release with the full statement from the Permian Gulf Coast Coalition at bit.ly/PGC_coalition.

The text reads, "While the bill containes environmental provisions that we support, the overall effect of the bill would be a disaster for the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast and the climate. The bill further declares our communities as sacrifice zones for fossil fuel development and continues to entrench our economy in unsustainable energy."

Nathalie Peña, Communications Coordinator at Power Shift Network