Virtual Press Conference: Environmental Leaders & Lawmakers Spotlight Serious Concerns with the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act

What: Press briefing (virtual)

When:  Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 11:00 AM ET

Where: Join the press call. Register here. 

Who: Community, environmental leaders and elected officials, including: 

• KeShaun Pearson, director of the Memphis Community Against Pollution 

• Daisy Maldonado, Daisy Maldonado, community organizer with Fight Chihuahuan Desert Xtraction in New Mexico

• Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of Western Environmental Law Center

• Jordan Harmon, policy analyst & legislative advocate of Indigenous Environmental Network

• Rashida Tlaib, member of Congress, U.S. House of Representatives

Moderated by Joshua Dedmond, executive director of Labor Network for Sustainability.

About the Speakers:

KeShaun Pearson, Director of the Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP). For years, KeShaun has organized South Memphis residents to stop toxic air pollution and safeguard community health from big business and their often anti-democratic practices. He is a Boxtown resident who has most recently been organizing communities to fight the air pollution spewing from Elon Musk’s xAI facility near Memphis, Tennessee. Before that he mobilized grassroots support to oppose the Byhalia Connection Pipeline, attempting to build through predominantly Black neighborhoods.

Daisy Maldonado, organizer with Fight Chihuahuan Desert Xtraction in New Mexico. Daisy is a trained economist and has been a community organizer in the area for twenty years. She works alongside working-class and colonia communities in southern New Mexico that have long faced environmental neglect, inadequate infrastructure, and barriers to political participation. She is currently focused on stopping the data center campus, Project Jupiter. In 2021, she was appointed by the Governor to the Sustainable Economy Advisory Council (SEAC), advising the state’s Sustainable Economy Task Force on strategies to diversify New Mexico’s economy away from reliance on natural resource extraction.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of Western Environmental Law Center. Erik joined WELC as a staff attorney in 2003 and became executive director in 2012. He has fought in court to safeguard the climate from dirty fossil fuels, promote a transition to a clean energy future, and protect the West’s rivers and wildlands. An expert in issues related to oil and gas development, Erik leads WELC’s campaigns to phase out fossil fuels and build climate resilience. Prior to joining WELC, he worked as a public lands attorney for The Wilderness Society. 

Jordan Harmon, policy analyst and legislative advocate at the Indigenous Environmental Network. Growing up in the oil and gas hub of Tulsa, Oklahoma, once dubbed the “Oil and Gas Capital of the World,” Jordan witnessed firsthand the negative environmental and economic impacts of the fossil fuels industry and currently focuses on influencing public policy that will benefit Indigenous peoples, open spaces, and the environment while ensuring Tribal sovereignty and free, prior and informed consent is upheld.

Rashida Tlaib, member of Congress, U.S. House of Representatives. Democratic Representative Tlaib has served the people of Michigan since 2019 representing the 12th Congressional district. As a lawyer and the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress she has consistently supported environmental and economic policies that prioritize community health and well-being, especially in the face of corporate interests. She sits on the House Environmental Justice Caucus that she founded with Representatives Summer L. Lee (PA-12) and Adelita Grijalva (AZ-07).

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