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BlackPR.com Press Release Email This Article To A Friend Joint Center Forms Partnership to Bring More African American Voices Into Climate Change Debate Washington, DC (BlackNews.com) - The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (Joint Center) is launching an effort to engage the African American community on the issue of climate change. The move is being funded by the Bipartisan Policy Center which is providing the Joint Center with a $500,000 grant to expand its capacity to conduct climate change research and outreach. Energy and climate change policies are vitally important to African Americans. Black communities are likely to be disproportionately affected by the health effects of climate change -- particularly those related to extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina and further degradation of air quality. They are also more likely to be harmed by rising energy prices. "The nation's leaders are formulating policies for a transition to a new energy economy. Those policies will have varying impacts on different socioeconomic and racial groups, and African Americans need to have a seat at the table in their formulation and implementation," said Ralph Everett, president and CEO of the Joint Center. The Joint Center has a long history of tackling issues of concern to African Americans and other communities of color. This grant will allow the Joint Center to build on the work it is already conducting in the environmental, health, education, and governance arenas. The funds will enable the Joint Center to hire a senior research associate, as well as to form a distinguished national advisory committee to provide policy direction and point the way to opportunities to build a broader coalition. "African Americans are not as involved in climate change policy as they should be," Everett said. "We need to take assertive action to beef up our research in this area. We need to jump-start the kinds of civic and political processes that are going to help the black community get ahead of the curve on climate change. "This grant will help the Joint Center get to the next step, which is to build a framework for involving the black community more deeply in the process of determining just how our communities will be impacted by future climate change-related events -- and how to prevent the awful things that happened in New Orleans after Katrina," Everett added. The Joint Center is one of the nation's premier research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses primarily on issues of particular concern to African Americans and other people of color. The Joint Center's activities are focused on improving the socioeconomic status of black Americans and other minorities, expanding their effective participation in the political and public policy arenas, and promoting communications and relationships across racial and ethnic lines to strengthen the nation's pluralistic society. The BPC -- led by four former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders (Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell) -- was formed to develop and promote solutions that would attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. In addition to advancing specific proposals, the BPC also is broadcasting a different type of policy discourse that seeks to unite the constructive center in the pursuit of common goals. Working with its National Commission on Energy Policy, the BPC is working to engage new voices in the climate change policy debate. CONTACT: Betty Anne Williams Director of Communications (202) 789-3505 bawilliams@jointcenter.org

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