The Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was established in 1978 by Congress. This Office was designed to ensure minority businesses and minority serving institutions could utilize DOE money, while also researching the effects of the energy system on Black and Brown communities. Prior to the Biden Administration, this Office was “underfunded, under-resourced, and structurally excluded from every policy conversation in the building for the last 50 years.” The Honorable Shalanda Baker, the Director of Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at DOE and Secretarial Advisor on Equity, spoke with Rev Yearwood about energy insecurity, developing energy justice frameworks for industry scale projects, and how the fossil fuel industry has impacted her lineage.
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