Six Months After Harvey, Environmental Justice & Climate Change Absent from Houston's Recovery Plans

This week marks six months since Hurricane Harvey caused historic flooding in Houston, Texas, the most diverse city in the nation and one of its largest. Houston is also home to the largest refining and petrochemical complex in the country. As federal money for rebuilding trickles in, Houston's chief "recovery czar" is the former president of Shell Oil, Marvin Odum, whose past experience includes rebuilding Shell's oil and gas facilities after Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, immigrants and fenceline communities who suffer from pollution along Houston's industrial corridor are still largely absent from much of the discussion about how the city plans to recover. For more, we host a roundtable discussion with Dr. Robert Bullard, the "father of environmental justice"; Bryan Parras of the Sierra Club; undocumented immigrant activist Cesar Espinosa; and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Hilton Kelley in Port Arthur, Texas.