“The EPA seems to have changed their mission. Maybe not formally, but when Administrator Zeldin talks about the mission of the agency, he certainly speaks in ways that I don’t think any prior administrator has,” says environmental social scientist David Konisky.
David’s work at Indiana University—he’s a School of Public and Environmental Affairs professor and co-director of Energy Justice Lab—straddles the intersection of energy and environment, climate change, and social justice. He found himself face-to-face with Lee Zeldin’s new mission earlier this year, when a research project abruptly lost considerable EPA funding.
“We went from an administration that for the first time was sincerely and systematically interested in and pursuing environmental justice in all of its manifestations throughout the government. That obviously has changed,” he says.
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David chose to focus on these populations in his most recent book, Power Lines: The Human Costs of American Energy in Transition, written with Sanya Carley, his long-time collaborator at the University of Pennsylvania. Research is data-heavy, quantitative, full of statistics. The co-authors chose to shift their typical research lens in this book to center people and communities, especially those who struggle to pay for energy or who might be adversely affected by the clean energy transition. “Not to suggest that we should not take on climate change, but to try to remind everyone to do that in a smart, effective, just way requires thinking about those who might find themselves on the downsides of the transition,” he notes.
This is central to the work of Energy Justice Lab, which, now without federal support, David feels is more important than ever. “The issues we are working on, the intersection of energy transition and social justice, do not become less important because of changes at the federal level. They become more important,” he insists.
Things will eventually change again at the federal level, he contends, and there will be opportunities for policy and programs to come back. “We need to be positioned with evidence-based recommendations so that when that opportunity next arises, we’re well positioned to make those changes. That’s how I look at it and how I try to remain optimistic and motivated to continue the work.”