“This is really great news,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, the executive director of the New York City-based organization UPROSE and one of the members of the working group, during the meeting. The phrase “benefits of investments” had been a major source of frustration and skepticism for environmental justice advocates because it opened the door for the state to employ all kinds of creative accounting to meet the 35 to 40 percent mandate. “This is rockstar stuff,” Yeampierre said.
New York environmental justice leaders propose new definition for ‘disadvantaged communities’