In this episode of Mongabay Sessions,
we are having Andrea happy hour with us.

She is the 2024 Goldman Prize winner.

She shook up the scene in 2023
by spearheading

groundbreaking
transportation rules in California.

Her efforts led to the first ever
national standards for train emissions,

a bold plan for all
freight tracks to be zero emission

by 2036.

First of all, thank you.

Andrea.

what an amazing,

amazing achievement do you have by winning
the Goldman Prize this year?

Thank you. it it feels huge.

an amazing, you know, honor

to be recognized and for my organization
to be recognized internationally.

Right.

And sometimes you don’t think about So,
yeah, it feels great.

can you talk about the two transportation
regulations that your collective

helped to pass?

Yes, we helped pass the Advanced
Clean Fleet Rule and the locomotive rule,

which is, in other words,
a truck rule and a train rule.

what the truck rule does

is it’s going to require companies
that have more than 50 trucks.

every single year

will slowly have to transition
their diesel trucks to zero emission.

So they will have to purchase

electric trucks
and start replacing them in their fleet.

the train rule is.

So in the United States
we have four major train companies

and they own 90% of the rail this policy,
what it would do is it would require,

the railroad companies to start
switching out some of their older trains.

So right now, operationally,
there’s trains that are 60, 70,

80 years old,
black plumes coming out of them still.

And this is right behind people’s homes
and in front of schools and parks.

And when did you actually start to feel
that the air that you were breathing

was not okay?

the Inland
Empire is a great place to grow up.

I mean,
I, I’ve always loved growing up there

because you know,
you’re really close to nature.

You’re surrounded by mountains.

the only thing about growing up there,
of course, is that I was like,

as I got older, there was, like,
a lot of changes that started happening

Like parks being destroyed, homes
going down.

Entire neighborhoods
actually disappearing.

And then these, like, warehouses
popping up.

it affects your day to day life, right?

Affects you through the traffic
because the air quality,

yeah, it’s
still a beautiful place to live.

We love it.

But we, we are also living in the place

with the worst
air quality in the nation right now.

when I started seeing the changes,
I started understanding a little bit

more like, oh,
all of this is running on fossil fuels.

All of this is running on diesel.

And what are the health issues
that come from breathing toxic air.

directly targets your lungs
and sometimes your heart.

And it also can affect your mental health.

Right. And your physical health.

But I mean I think the thing
that we run into a lot is people

with asthma, people
being born with respiratory issues

straight out the womb,
and then our elders having to be plugged

into oxygen machines at night
just to be able to breathe.

And then of course, cancers.

can you explain
what environmental racism is

and how it has affected your community
more than others?

Yeah.

So environmental racism
is this idea that the things

that we need in our society,
we need trucking, we need shipping.

But even though everybody benefits
from it,

only certain communities
have to pay the burden for it.

And usually it’s by race
and by income in the United States.

So historically as well,
where they would put trash incinerators,

where they would put
toxic dumps was in communities of color

and then

what kind of initiatives
does your collective do.

we have, a lot of educational events
throughout the years,

around the issues,
climate change and health,

and then get people involved
in, in their local politics.

Right.

So we’ve been fighting
nationally at the EPA

and statewide at Carb,
and even locally in every city.

we have a great, ecosystem of people
we work with, right?

We have lawyers, we have researchers
and community members, we have artists.

We have teachers.

Right. I think it took,

a lot of different experts
in their own field coming together.

And I felt like I was thankful
to be one of those members

and being able to get our community
involved in it.

Yeah.

Know your story is such an inspiration
for so many communities

that want to do something, you know,
and it starts by one person,

a group of five people,
you know, to get together and brainstorm

and yeah, push, push and push.

and then
now that you’ve won the Goldman Prize,

how do you hope to use this platform
I think that hopefully

to use this platform
for to make people more critical

and to also think about,
you know, connecting us.

All right.

Like my store
like story of the Inland Empire there.

There’s a port community in Lima and local

there’s a port community in Texas.

There is a port community
in, you know, in India.

Like it’s this story is actually really
common and international.

So, if I can use this platform

to connect that a little more, you know,
I love to do.

Thank you very much, Andrea,
for joining me today in Mongabay sessions.

And we seriously cannot wait
to see what you what you do next.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

And I’m from Peru.

You’re forbidden.

Yes. I was no, no, wait.

Okay. I didn’t know that at all. Yeah.

my parents were little, and,
Yeah, they migrated to the United States.

Well, for me that I live in Lima, Peru,
you know,

like we don’t usually notice,
that we’re really not Salt Lake.

pollution,

I mean, summer, it’s beautiful because
we have, like, this amazing sunsets.

But of course, we have these
amazing sunsets because of air pollution.

And then when you go to the Andes and you
notice the complete different difference.

one thing that I love that you guys do
or did actually was the toxic tours.

I was wondering if if you can explain
what are they We do, pretty often

actually.

We’re going to have one, this weekend,
for our community members.

But, yeah, it’s a toxic tour is like,
think about, like, oral history.

Right?

And that’s kind of the way some history
has been recorded for a really long time.

And that’s what we do.

We, it’s Sacramento where
a lot of these decisions are made is like,

it’s like a seven hour drive from where
we’re at.

Right?

So people seven hours away are making
decisions about what’s happening here.

And many of them have never maybe
even been here

or stayed here
long enough to know what’s going on.

So what we like to do
is we like to bring people into our own

community, you know, welcome them
in, literally welcome them into people’s

homes, into people’s backyards, sit down
and just, live it for a second, right?

Live, you know, a train passing by

or you have to yell to
be able to be heard, right?

or sit for a second outside of the park

where you’re kind of getting busy
because it’s because the air quality

is really bad, or, hey, come talk to
someone who’s a cancer survivor.

Come talk to someone that has to be
plugged into an oxygen machine at night,

right?

Come here directly from people
that are being impacted.

And so that that I think is the power of,

toxic tours is, you know, bringing people
that might not know about it,

or might not see it
in their neighborhood into it, and

just to live it for a second
to connect to people

you know, it’s kind of a practice
we need to be doing, with public policy

because public policy isn’t supposed to be
just for politicians, like public policy

is supposed to be for the public.

So statistically, they are closer
to the sources of pollution,

which means they have higher risk,

higher health risk
just because of their zip code.

So if you live in a zip code,
more people of color, you’re more likely

to live in a place
with higher levels of air pollution,

water pollution, soil pollution.

So that’s environmental racism.

we see that very clearly

in the Inland Empire
it is, an issue throughout the region.

It is affecting everyone

because air quality just doesn’t
stay where the zip code line ends.

Right? Air quality affects everyone.

these regulations born from Andrea’s
tireless advocacy and community support

promised cleaner air for Californians,
and set the stage for a zero

emission vehicle. Future.

Nationwide Studies
estimate they’ll saved thousands

of lives from respiratory illness
in the coming decades.