National People's Hearing Summary – Tucson, Arizona Report
In October 2025, the Indigenous Resilience Center participated in the host committee for the Speak Easy, Speak Free National People’s Hearing —a two-day gathering that uplifted the voices of Tribal nations, grassroots organizations, and impacted community members to share testimony on environmental health, land, water, and justice. IRes supported planning and documentation efforts to help preserve and amplify these lived experiences as part of a nationwide movement focused on solutions and accountability. The Hearing aligned closely with IRes’ mission by centering Indigenous knowledge and community leadership while reinforcing our commitment to walking alongside communities—not only listening, but helping ensure their voices inform future policy and action. While the testimonies reflected long histories of environmental harm, they also revealed a strong collective spirit rooted in resilience, responsibility, and a shared vision for healthier lands, waters, and futures.
The National People’s Policy Priorities for Environmental Justice developed a framework and goals of the People’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council by evaluating high-level environmental justice priorities and recommendations to the national stage. Grounded in the lived experiences of frontline communities, the priorities outlined in a form of synthesis of personal testimonies shared by local EJ leaders, organizers, and residents from the two regional People’s Hearings. This summary highlights some priority areas from the Tucson, Arizona, session.
Priority Areas:
Air Quality: Enhance national ambient air quality and air toxics standards to reflect risk and close industrial loopholes; expand and integrate community-led air monitoring for EJ communities; regulate and control air pollution from high-consumption infrastructure such as energy-intensive data centers; and strengthen air permitting processes and standards to address disproportionate harms for EJ communities.
Climate Resilience Adaptation: Funding community-led climate resilience and disaster preparedness, strengthening emergency planning and public accountability, ensuring equitable post-disaster recovery and infrastructure rebuilding, incentivizing state and local climate resilience plans, and establishing extreme heat protections for vulnerable populations and worker safety.
Community Health and Safety: Mandate transparent, proactive public notification of hazardous environmental exposures, expand healthcare access for underserved and overburdened communities, and codify legally enforceable workplace protections against environmental and occupational exposures
Community Power and Civic Engagement: institutionalize community advisory boards in federally funded projects; support participatory budgeting and community control of public funds; enforce moratorium requirements and prior notification for hazardous projects; and advance data justice and community access to environmental information.
Economic Justice and Funding: Protect and expand pathways for community ownership of land, housing, and enterprises, Direct federal investments to community-led economic development and climate solutions, and reform federal property valuation and advocate for protective tax policies and relief tools to support low-wealth communities.
Equitable Infrastructure and Land Use: Tie federal infrastructure funding to inclusive and equitable land use practices. Enforce civil rights and the environment. Ensure justice and compliance in land-use policy, expand support for public and community ownership and cooperative infrastructure models, and increase federal oversight through cumulative impacts siting requirements for all technology infrastructure.
Justice and Renewable Energy Systems: Expand funding for energy conservation, efficiency and literacy programs, public and community-owned decentralized/distributed renewable energy projects, mandate inclusive energy governance in federal clean energy programs, develop federal definitions and guidance for equitable energy transition, invest in renewable energy workforce training in environmental justice communities, establish energy efficiency standards for data center and prevent energy cost shifting to consumers.
Land Stewardship and Self-Determination: Support and institutionalize Indigenous and Black land stewardship practices, investing in youth-led and intergenerational cultural and land-based programs, Return and rematriate land to Indigenous peoples and tribes, and uphold free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and community and self-determination.
Legacy Pollution and Cumulative Impacts: Remediate and contaminated land and water with community leadership, require denials of environmental permits in certain conditions based on cumulative impacts (CI), and enforce accountability for industrial polluters, and lastly, reform mining laws and strengthen environmental safeguards for extractive industries.
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Justice: Eliminate regulatory loopholes for industrial food animal production, fund community-led research on industrial agricultural impacts, strengthen federal labor standards for farmworkers, and support regenerative and Indigenous agriculture through farm bill programs and federal food access and nutrition programs.
Water Quality and Access: Strengthen water quality standards to reflect co-occurring burdens and risks. Expand and integrate community-led water monitoring for environmental justice, fund and reinforce equitable access to safe drinking water and sanitation, close loopholes that exempt polluting facilities from environmental regulation in the Clean Water Act, and regulate and ensure accountability and transparency for the water usage of high-consumption infrastructure.
To learn more - https://www.peopleshearing.com/