For too long, big polluters have set up shop in the backyards of historically marginalized communities, all while our government has left those communities without the tools to fight back.

We all have the right to clean air and water, and an environment that enriches life regardless of where we live – which is why I signing on as a citizen co-sponsor of the Environmental Justice for All Act and calling on Congress to pass this landmark legislation.

The Environmental Justice for All Act will restore power to local communities to protect their environmental quality, increase funding for waste cleanup and economic transition, and restore balance to natural resource extraction laws in communities that have been used for decades as pollution dumping grounds.

It will strengthen the 1964 Civil Rights Act and National Environmental Policy Act and make enforceable a long-standing executive order on environmental justice to allow citizens and organizations to sue over discrimination in environmental programs.

Now is the time to center our economy on human well-being instead of polluter profits and to stop sacrificing whole generations and entire swaths of the country. That starts by putting justice and equity at the center of environmental and conservation policy.

We cannot miss this opportunity to save lives and advance environmental justice. Congress must pass the Environmental Justice for All Act.