Good morning and welcome to the House of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Committee. This morning we are going to be taking up. I think it's the right building title that you have here. It says 148. I think it's the right number but the title may not be right so I'm not going to read it. And we are I just want to remind our witnesses I want to thank you for being here with us this morning and then say that we, this is intended to be an introduction. It's intended to be an introduction of this topic to our committee which means we're not going to have a ton of time and you one of you will be taking further testimony in the future. There are seven people on the list here and although I think I will ask the agency how many of you are attending to present to okay. One, two, three, four of you. Sorry, can't go. So six people on the list divided by an hour. Just please keep that in mind when you are sharing your testimony with us. So with that, thank you for being here and we will start with Bindu Panakar, the assistant professor of gunned Institute for the environment. Welcome, Ms. Panakar. Good morning everyone. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really pleased to be talking to this panel or to testify in support of the environmental justice bill as 148 introduced by Senator Keisha Ram Hinstale. My name is Bindu Panakar. I'm an assistant professor at the Rubinstein School of the environment and natural resources. I'm also a fellow at the gunned Institute of the environment and also a member of the rejoice and renews BIPOC Council. We live in trouble times, and each day we get reminders that lack of lack of equity costs lie lives. Be the death of George Floyd, the poor communities overlooked for decades impacted more heavily in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina or Maria, or the innocent civilians in Ukraine or Afghanistan. We have to be inclusive in thinking, especially within policymaking of those ignored and left behind who have been marginalized for decades, if not centuries. Today, so even if I am a South Asian immigrant myself, today I'm here to speak about my EJ work as a scholar. EJ in the state is important to define because Vermont is unlike other states. It is one of the most homogeneous states in the country, it has relatively fewer environmental burdens, compared to other states. But still, my research shows that people in the state do not experience the environment the same way. I started my work by doing spatial analysis work. And we looked at the intersection of those with fewer privileges, including BIPOC people, those living in poverty, mobile home residents, people who have limited English proficiency those who are renters in the state and so on and how they experience environmental and health risks in the state. Together we drew upon about 28 different variables to create a spatial tool called the Vermont Health Disparities Index. Each tract in Vermont was given a score based on these 28 variables. That is how we have identified those most at risk to environmental and health disparities in the state based on these 28 indicators. It is clear from this study that black, indigenous and people of color in the state, especially more exposed to historic environmental risks than the rest in the state. This association was not seen among the poor in the state, interestingly. In particular, the tracts with BIPOC and people with limited English proficiency were significantly more at risk from historic environmental risk, historic sites of pollution, heat vulnerability, and air pollution than the rest of the population. So, interesting set of results from just doing the spatial analysis. We followed the spatial analysis by conducting a statewide survey work. This actually brought to bear the limitations within doing spatial analysis or doing one approach alone. It does not really capture well the population risks and their needs. The survey work actually showed that both BIPOC people and those living under poverty in the state had less access to environmental benefits. The spatial revealed much more historical burden and momental risks to BIPOC population, but here the survey work actually showed less access to benefits and momental benefits among both especially low income population and the BIPOC group. The BIPOC people were twice as likely to report exposure to mold, lack of access to public transportation, not to own a vehicle, have trouble paying for food, not to have a primary care doctor report immune disorders, and three times more likely to rely heavily on public transportation, have trouble paying for electricity, go hungry in a month, and report higher rates of Lyme disease compared to the white population. These were also seen among, you know, the income poor communities. So these are examples of widespread disparities across wide ranging essential services. This is not a luxury we are talking about but simple basic human needs that should be everyone's human right. So while Vermont is taking also bold moves to address climate change by breaking our addiction to fossil fuels, it also needs to happen in a way that supports those communities most vulnerable to climate change. Communities with low socioeconomic status of Vermonters of colors and those living in more rural areas all face burdens of fossil fuel infrastructure and quite unique ways without affordable clean alternatives. Investment in public or electric transportation infrastructure in areas lacking such investment, you know, a clean energy transition is quite a bit hard. Our study published lately in energy policy found that climate initiatives are not often benefiting communities of color communities of color where seven times less likely to have rooftop solar than white respondents. So to have justice, it becomes imperative first to identify injustices that exist in order to then address underlying causes of them. This process of inquiry conducting say spatial analysis in this case or community engaged research, both quantitative and qualitative should be part of any State Department to help explain the root causes of inequities, oppressions and power structures that create vulnerabilities and risks to particular communities. Environmental justice underscores an unequal prep present that certain communities are bearing the brunt of environmental degradation, while also being denied the fruit of solutions or actions. We know that environmental injustice have been built on centuries of unequal social relations through processes of colonization industrialization and capitalism. EJ communities have been trapped into systemic inequities that subject them to higher historic environmental risks lower environmental burdens and premature death deaths. These social and civil rights inequities and the environmental and health crisis we face in the world are totally connected. The environmental and health crisis we face in our nation and the world today cannot be addressed without addressing injustices. Our economic future and environmental future are in extricably linked. While it is easy to reduce environmental justice to questions about particular facts or even distributional justice considerations or norms of economy and instrumental policy means we should not forget that justice is inherently about social values and the social ordering that structure hierarchies. In our in-depth interviews people identified EJ as an intersection of political power, poverty and pollution that it is about components of power and powerlessness that EJ is always already at the crossroads rather than fix a meaning in time and space. The process and politics of meaning making is what makes EJ continually relevant. Hence top down orderings are not likely to be sufficient in addressing inequities. Instead community engagement and organizing has to be incorporated to make meaningful impact. Participation is a key political capability necessary to ensure true democracy. So recognizing the way people function, acknowledging and incorporating the diverse ways of functioning, knowing and practices are also key elements of justice. So we have a unique opportunity here to elevate environmental justice. Environmental protection is not just about protecting wilderness and keeping it beautiful for Vermonters. It is about making our urban and suburban neighborhoods safe, clean places to live, work and raise a family for all. So our environmental solutions must be intersectional. We have to look to solutions that benefit local community, that increases the community capabilities, increases agency and cooperation on local decision making and galvanizes these societies to be self-sufficient and sustainable. And environmental justice is also about yearning for a better future for all and creating a healing path forward for communities that have been left behind and left out. In short, in Vermont, social and environmental concerns are deeply entangled. Environmental and health disparities are prominent in BIPOC and low income population. Some of these disparities are historical and many are related to lack of access to environmental benefits. These inequities are preventable. The EJ definition proposed in the bill has been workshopped in multiple BIPOC communities word for word before including it in the bill, including it in the bill. We have a responsibility to also adopt more traditional ecological approaches within environmental decision making in collaboration with Indigenous communities with expertise. And targeted responses, policies and action are required to address these systemic inequities. Why we need to support state-based EJ policy as soon as possible, proper investments and community-centered programs are required to address these systemic inequities. One of the inequities why we have to commit to a targeted spending of at least 55% of environmental renewable energy and climate mitigation, transportation, climate resilience funds in designated environmental justice community. We will need community-centered grounds-up approach to build a just and sustainable Vermont. One should not be one of the last states to incorporate environmental justice within state policies. We need the state support and resources to carry out this transformative work forward of building back a just and sustainable Vermont. So, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak and thank you also Senator Rahm for introducing this bill again. So, thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Do members have questions? I'm not seeing any. Thank you again for joining us this morning, Ms. Panakar. And for being flexible. I know you had other commitments. So, very much appreciate that. Thanks much. Next up we have Elena Mahaly, Vice President at the Conservation Law Foundation. Welcome Ms. Mahaly. Thank you, Mahaly. Thank you for the invitation to speak for the record. Elena Mahaly, Director of CLF Vermont. And Lizzie has given me screen sharing powers. So what I did is I put together a brief PowerPoint presentation just to walk the committee through this bill. I was present for all of the discussions on the Senate side and so have a lot of context, but we'll try and fly through just an overview today knowing that this is intended to be an introduction, not an in-depth policy discussion. Feel free to stop me if folks have questions or I'm happy to take them at the end. So, why is CLF here? I just did want to flag that we have been working on environmental justice issues throughout New England. Side by side with grassroots partners on everything from issues related to hazardous siting of facilities to the lead in drinking water issue to transportation justice and more. We were very proud to help Massachusetts pass their first environmental justice law last year. We are currently supporting the main governor's office to help them develop their environmental justice protections, and we're partnering with dozens of organizations and stakeholders here in Vermont to help represent their interests here in the State House for a strong environmental justice bill. Just to give the committee a sense of how many organizations I'm talking about, this is a list of over 30 organizations across the state that are supporting S148. I submitted for your review a sign on letter that was sent in on the Senate side to support S148. And as you can see, this is a wide coalition, a diverse coalition of not just environmental organizations but also social justice organizations. Also the Affordable Housing Coalition, the Association of Planning and Development Agencies, and more. So, a very, very well supported bill. The reason why it's critical for Vermont to act this year, as Dr. Panicar noted, there are increasing states across the country that are enacting environmental justice laws and we don't want to be behind the ball on this one. Already 17 states across the country have what are called environmental justice mapping tools that help state decision makers figure out where there are overburdened and underserved communities. Also, a lot of Vermont's agencies lack what are called community engagement plans. These plans serve as critical indicators of whether the state is actually in compliance with Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act. And so this bill gets at setting a date certain for when agencies have to have these community engagement plans. And finally Vermont's Climate Action Plan, which was just, you know, a long labor that was worked on over the past year calls for an environmental justice policy, which is also contained in this bill. So there are seven components listed here that are in the bill and I will just briefly walk through them one by one to give committee members a sense of what can what what S148 contains. The first section is the finding section. It is longer than maybe some bills you will have seen. But as Dr. Panicar noted, a lot of research has actually been done to detail the various disproportionate impacts of environmental burdens in the state of Vermont, as well as the inequitable distribution of environmental benefits. And these findings were actually worked on by the Vermont Law School's Environmental Justice Clinic and clinicians made sure that there are underlying citations and facts to support every single finding. So this this portion of the bill has been worked on for for several years actually. The definitions section also many of these definitions were workshopped through the rejoice collaborative or the course of last several years through stakeholder input to define these terms. The one term that is new when this bill was reintroduced this year is that the environmental justice population. It's critical that this term is defined in statute. It's really best practice across the country as as states are starting to enact environmental justice laws they are wanting to have a definition for this population, the focus population if you will have the benefits in the bill. And the reason why we chose the definition we did is because demographics actually are a very good predictor of which segments of the population are going to disproportionately be impacted by environmental burdens. We say that this is important, as opposed to having something like if you are living within half a mile of a hazardous waste facility, or some other hazard exposure because that puts the onus on the individuals to somehow prove that they are more burdened or at risk and given how predictive these demographic factors are for those folks who are living with more disproportionate burdens. The best practice that is to just use those demographic factors to define these this class of people that we are going to focus our energy on. So S 148 has a definition of environmental justice populations that is based on three demographic criteria, race, low income and limited English proficiency. Essentially what we did is we took statewide averages and we said, hey anywhere in the state where there's a concentration where it's above the state average. That's an area that's going to be highlighted if you will as an environmental justice population. We know this definition isn't going to be perfect. So in the bill, the agency of natural resources has the obligation to review the definition with consultation from the EJ advisory council, at least every five years. But to give you a rough sense of which parts of the population of Vermont highlight, if you will, as an environmental justice population. This is a spatial analysis map showing which census block groups highlight. And it's about 52% of Vermont's population. This is a map that's really just for demonstration purposes this is different than the environmental justice mapping tool that I'll talk about in a moment. So then you get to the environmental justice state policy which is really the meat of this bill. And it does four things. First, it sets a policy that no segment of the population of the state should because of its race, cultural or economic makeup, very disproportionate share of environmental burdens. So have more environmental harms or be denied an equitable share of environmental benefits like energy benefits that Dr. Panicart was talking about. It also ensures that there will be meaningful participation in decision making and this gets to the community engagement plans that I was talking about in terms of Title Six of the Civil Rights Act. It sets a date certain for all agencies to issue these. And then you get down to see here, which is that certain specified state agencies and departments and state bodies have to start considering cumulative environmental burdens, and assessing whether the decisions that they're making around environment, energy, climate, public health, they need to think about how that is having an impact on environmental justice populations. I want to point out here that these first two are really applying statewide, whereas C is applying to the little asterisks of this list of specific agencies and departments and bodies that on the Senate side when we were all talking about this these were the bodies that came out as those who are making the most frequent decisions in the state around environment, energy, climate, public health, infrastructure and funding. Lastly, the environmental justice state policy sets a targeted spending amount in environmental justice populations. Essentially, this is saying it's acknowledging that here in Vermont we have unfortunately an inequitable system of distributing environmental benefits or climate energy related benefits. So as as Dr. Panicar found in her research, you know low income or people of color are so much less likely to be enjoying the benefits of certain investments in renewable energy projects, for example. And this tracks a federal initiative called the Justice 40 Initiative, which is an initiative at the federal executive level to make sure that when the government is investing in climate and energy benefits that 40% of those investments go to disadvantaged communities. Here in Vermont, we've set the goal in this bill of 55% of the overall benefits, because thinking back to where we saw that map of the state and 52% of Vermont falls under the environmental justice population definition. That's where we landed on the 55% goal. So it's about thinking through where those benefits from energy and climate related investments really are flowing. And there's a very thoughtful, long runway for us to start working towards that goal that I included briefly the timeline here which was hammered out in coordination with the agency of natural resources. And it involves that that agency setting guidance to help agencies figure out how exactly they're going to be assessing where their spending is going. It establishes a timeline for those agencies to develop what are called baseline spending reports to analyze where their money has been flowing for the last three years to get a sense of our baseline. And then it sets a timeframe for them to start striving towards that goal of 55%. The next section is a rulemaking section where the agency of natural resources is adopting really one primary rule to define the term cumulative environmental burdens. And also help other agencies implement this requirement and help guide us for how we would be using the environmental justice mapping tool in those decisions. The bill also authorizes other agencies to adopt rules as needed to implement the policy. And key to the bill as well is that there's an environmental justice advisory council, which I'll get to, and there's language in the bill that ensures that that council has a role in reviewing these rules. Number five, the bill sets up two different councils. One is a council one is a committee. Essentially the way to look at this is that the EJ advisory council is mostly made up of community representatives. It's staffed and supported by a and R but it really has an advisory role. Whereas the interagency environmental justice committee is made above state government representatives, and it has a coordination role. So when, when agencies are required to adopt community engagement plans, for example, this committee will make sure that that's not every agency is just doing that in their own in echo chamber but that is coordinated that they're learning from their and that they're, they're able to take advantage of every agency working together towards that goal. Then there's the environmental justice mapping tool which is something that as I noted already. Many states have these as decision makers making tools that helps depict not only where there are, you know, the demographic information but also where they're overlying social and environmental and other health risks, layered on top so that we can get a sense of particularly overburdened and or underserved communities in Vermont. This is just an example of what that map looks like in the state of West Virginia. This map would be created and maintained by an hour. And lastly, there's a section for appropriations. And we think it's really important that in year one funding is appropriated to stand up to operationalize and to support the advisory council. And also in year one and R is really the only agency that has specific obligations so there should be appropriations to help support and our staff to do that early implementation of the role. In outward years, other agencies have obligations but in the inner first year, it's really about standing up the advisory council and supporting and ours it does early stage implementation. To conclude, there's widespread demonstrated support for the passage of S 148. I stand on the shoulders of many who have worked for years to get this bill, including Senator Ram Hinsdale, the members of rejoice and many others to the place that it is today. It is a strong bill but I want to emphasize that it is modest in terms of what environmental justice bills across the country are doing. And briefly, for example, in New Jersey, their environmental justice law, not only requires a cumulative environmental impact assessment for when a permit is being decided upon. But if it's found that there will be a cumulative environmental impact on an environmental justice population, they have to deny that permit Vermont doesn't go that far. In New Jersey, it puts the onus on the permit applicant to put together all of those environmental impact review assessments here in Vermont we're really setting up an initial framework, and just to give us that scaffolding to begin asking those questions and to be considering things like certain populations are getting disproportionately impacted but we have not gone as far as to actually control how that would impact a permit decision. So this is a critical first step for Vermont to take this year. It is modest, it is well supported, and I am happy to entertain any questions today or happy to come back to this committee in the future so thank you. Thank you Ms. Mahaly for your testimony. Do you members have questions? Representative McCullough. I do and recognizing we are on a tight rope here. Your answer could just be welcome back later. And that works. What about Act 250 as a, as a permitting agency. Is it possible for reviewing appropriate projects in the light of that of environmental justice? Was that discussed in the Senate? Has CLF considered pushing for that? And yes and yes and we'll talk about it later works if you like. So that's a great question representative. The Natural Resources Board is a listed body. When I had that slide up that had the asterisks with all of the listed entities that are subject to that cumulative environmental burden analysis, NRB is listed. And we will be required to do that kind of assessment and to meet the very goals of the environmental justice policy that are in this bill. That doesn't necessarily mean we gave discretion to agencies and bodies to change their rules and guidance policies as they see fit to implement this rule. This law isn't setting up a mandatory change to Act 250. That's up to the NRB's discretion for how they're going to actually implement the cumulative impact review. Thank you. I'll just to find that it could be up to the legislator, legislators to require that. But thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Thank you so much for your testimony. You're welcome. And with that, we have Senator Rom Hinsdale joining us, the lead sponsor of the bill. Welcome, Senator. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for the record. Senator Keshia Rom Hinsdale, Chittenden County lead sponsor of S 148. Always great to follow Elena because she can handle a lot of the technical elements of the bill. And of course, I believe that Senate Natural Resources made some clear improvements to the originally sponsored legislation of the National Conservation Law Foundation, Rejoice, V-PURG, VNRC 350.org. I mean, so many others. This has really been a clear grassroots effort with the support of a lot of environmental organizations who are recognizing more and more how to live into their commitment to environmental equity and justice. So just really grateful for everyone's leadership and that you're taking considerable time on this as the bill crosses over. I do have a presentation that I'd like to share more about the why and what does this look like around Vermont and I'm sorry. Elena's presentation. So I hope this isn't duplicative in too many ways, but this is something that has been really helpful in sharing around environmental organizations. I've really been taking this on the road and nod to Professor Bindu Panakar because, you know, some of this was developed in concert with Rejoice when I was actually employed to help lead that project through a high Meadows Fund grant. I just need to interrupt. You weren't here for the beginning, but we're a little time constrained. So we have another block of witnesses coming up after you and also are hoping to be done around 10. Great. Thanks. So there's more people between me and 10. Yeah, another 10 or 15 minute block needs to be kind of reserved. Yeah. Okay, so I'll try to do this in 10 minutes. Okay. First, what I need to do is present slideshow. Okay. Okay, so I will go quickly through some of this, which I think Elena touched on as well. Great. So what, you know, I hope she had mentioned is that we're now one of the last states that doesn't have an environmental justice policy on the boat. This has been in the making of time. Maine is on a parallel track where the last two states in New England not to have an environmental justice bill so you know all of New England I think will be speaking the same language soon if we pass this legislation. It sounds like you talked about substantive procedural and distributive justice, which all can make up a lot of public policy and meaningful participation in public policy, but much of this language was developed around what it looks like to have meaningful environmental justice policy on the books. These are just some of the things I think surprise people but hopefully help tell the story of why environmental justice is such an important policy to get as a framework and a lens in Vermont. And as you may know, around the turn of the millennia so around 1999 2000 or mobile home communities were some of the first to receive environmental justice grants from the EPA. And as you may know, during tropical storm Irene, though mobile home park residents made up 8% of the population they were 40% of who was affected by Irene so environmental justice has a lot to do with habitability, where folks live, whether or not they're vulnerable to flooding or heat, you know, but also how they experience recovery and how equitable resiliency and recovery is in the aftermath of a disaster. And as you also may know, you know migrant farm workers this has been another huge area of looking at what environmental injustice looks like from a, the lens of a workplace environment not just a geographic location, or a neighborhood that's blighted and being able to have access to a washing machine, you know every day to wash your work clothes and have a safe and clean and healthy place to do your work and to sleep, to be able to get out and experience resources in your own languages and access medical care, etc. And I've also seen this because this comes straight from rejoice and the work with with Professor Ponicar. But, you know, we, we know from traveling around in canvassing neighborhoods that by pocket individuals were seven times more likely to have gone without money and sometimes less likely to own a solar panel so I've talked a lot with renewable energy folks about that. And, you know, some of our land access and home ownership disparities are the worst, some of the worst in the country, 76% of Oh, I thought someone might be saying we've seen this before, but 76% of remonters of color identify as living in nature deprived areas. 72% of white remonters on homes compared to 24% of black for monitors and that shows up a lot in renewable energy and how our policies work around accessing benefits related to energy and just home improvement. But in Chittenden County, as well you see this stark disparity and it's just represented in a different way so that it's really clear 83% of black households. Rent in Chittenden County, as you may have heard recently of the thousands of homeowners in Burlington, 18 are black. So, you know, the disparity around who has access to land land stewardship and housing and housing that they control is really vast. So you heard about the bill. I won't go back into it. I think, you know, what I will add is that there is. There was a lot of work that came from frontline and grassroots communities, BIPOC affinity spaces, traveling to talk to most impacted individuals and compensate them for their time. So there's no pride of authorship, but there's pride of process and making sure that as changes are made, we have a system and a way to go back to those most impacted and make sure that those changes work to meet their needs as well on our things they can understand that's a really big part of meaningful public process and meaningful participation. You heard about the resources and governance I think what I would add that Elena may not have said is this tracks really well to start thinking about where benefits and investments should go with efforts underway in Washington. So there's an initiative called justice 40, when we look at infrastructure dollars and other investments and state government and local communities, where the what that the White House is leading that would start to look at ensuring 40% of the benefit of climate and energy and resources goes to historically disadvantaged communities so us being able to map this out and start to find pathways for distributing those resources. In that way is aligned with federal initiatives that are underway by you know that are supported and advanced by this White House as well. One example of the mapping tool on the left is Los Angeles but it's a lead paint use of the EJ screen tool which we have lead paint issues here in Vermont as well so just helping to show that illustrate that you can track you know where lead paint is is predominantly still in housing with where our renters where people of color, you know those kinds of ways of mapping. I just want to, you know, sort of end with a story I told in Senate natural resources because I think it's a really, it's a really nice story just to sort of illustrate the larger construct. This is Brie Newsome Bass Brie Newsome Bass is famous for taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina. And people thought yep, she just got fed up and climbed up there and brought that flag down. Well if you look really closely at this picture. She has really good climbing gear on she has really good she's a great helmet. You know this gear to scale a flagpole.  When she went to go get that flagpole, I mean go up that flagpole get that flag. She had worked with a group of white outdoor recreation folks white climbers for you know the better part of a month to learn how to scale a flagpole to have the right gear on and to bring that flag down and one of the people who taught her how to climb and scale that flagpole. A white gentleman stood at the bottom of the flagpole and spotted her to go up and when the police came. And they were going to taste the pole to get her down, maybe injure her or cause her serious harm. He just held on to the flagpole, so that if they taste the flagpole while she was at the top of it they would also be tasting him.  We're talking about a different way of thinking about how people of color have been able to interact with the environment and access to outdoor recreation. And you know how we work together to change our shared relationship with being in the outdoors and accessing things like climbing. So, you know, I just tell that story because this is a principle this is a lens. This is a framework to really think about who's been left behind efforts to be in outdoor spaces and to access the environment. And so, with that, I just want to thank you all for taking up the bill. I'm happy to answer any questions. All right, thank you for your testimony. Not seeing any questions I think we need to move on to our next and final witnesses. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right. I'd like to welcome the agency of natural resources. Deputy Secretary Maggie gender. This is my first time. Hi, I'm not going to take up too much time because you've heard a lot today and I was for the record my name is Maggie gender and I'm the deputy secretary for the agency of natural resources. I'd like to commit most of the time to commissioner walk to talk about what the agency's commitment is to the environmental protection agency around environmental justice. And I just would like to say happy to come in here and have further conversations with you as you dive into policy. I think just to begin with I, I am not going to go through the presentation I offer today, but it is, I did give it to Lizzie so it should be posted online. The reason why I put this together was the agency of natural resources works off of the EPA's definition of environmental justice. And there are some core components here you're going to hear a lot of definitions and a lot of phrases and so I really think that this work is complex, it takes time. And I really appreciate that this committee is willing to dive into it and talk about definitions. Anything that you might not understand and hoping that we can all bring in the right witnesses for you all to get a sense of what this bill does. What do the definitions mean and how does it apply to the work of state agencies doing better in this space. I just want to ask you actually you said, and our uses the EPA definition or you, what was the word that you used, I think that that might be something. So we follow the definition of the EPA for environmental justice and how it applies to our work at in natural resources and does follow me and use it. So the definition of environmental justice, according to the EPA is the fair treatment and meeting full involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income. With respect to the development implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies to ensure that each person enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental health hazards, equal access to environmental benefits and equal access to decision making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn and work. And so that that particular definition is important and Peter Commissioner walk can get into it in terms of our commitment to the EPA in terms of how we move this forward. And I just wanted to highlight another piece that are that is important to the conversation. There's often reference to title six, which title six is under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And that is a federal requirement for any state agency that touches federal funding has to comply with title six. And title six is requirement of recipients of federal funding to ensure that their programs do not discriminate on the basis of race color or national origin. And why title six, the Non Discrimination Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the non discrimination policies embedded in that federal requirement are very much a cornerstone of environmental justice work. And two pieces that are really important that have been talked about here today is the concept of limited English proficiency and providing language access to all Vermonters in terms of how they're able to engage with decision making. Decision making as a second really huge core component of environmental justice and that goes back to that intentional community engagement and making sure that not only do people have access, but you're being intentional and you're not rushing through the process of inviting Vermonters to the table to be able to participate and how policies are drafted how regulations serve Vermonters and the kinds of permitting that you might move forward with. Environmental justice is both reactive and proactive in regards, and I've, you've heard some of that today in terms of just institutional racism, etc. And again, I feel like you're going to hear a lot of terms of around environmental populations burdens benefits title six non discrimination so I'm rushing through this but completely happy to come back and have more conversations as you dive into this. So, I would like to. Before I turn over to Commissioner walk. There are two things that I just like to highlight one is 10 states around the country have passed environmental justice legislation, it looks a little different in every state, and a lot of states have chosen to address whether it be air quality, water quality, high hazard. Chemical sites, and it depends on if you're in a really urban area like New Jersey, or maybe a place that has more wildfires like Washington state and they're really concerned about air quality so they do have focus 3013 states in the country right now do have pending legislation for where states are considering what does the definitions look like and what kind of tools do you need in order to do better in environmental justice. And so, one of the commitments that we made with the EPA was to work towards a goal of putting an environmental justice policy in place for the agency. And so part of that is we needed to create phases in order to see success because it is an incredibly overwhelming body of work that can apply to everything you work on if you let it. And so we had to really focus on where did the agency of natural resources want to apply our environmental justice work in our regulatory practices and our permitting practices. So, so without further ado we have worked. We have worked with CLF in the first round of conversations in the Senate. I do believe there's still more work to be had on the legislation that will come before your committee, and we do appreciate these conversations because they're really really important but I would like to turn over to you to share what we've committed to the EPA over the next two to three years. Thank you. What could Commissioner walk. Thank you, Madam chair for the record Peter walk commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. This will be the first of many conversations I'm sure so I just want to talk a little bit about where we are as a state where we are as an organization and what we're trying to do over the next few years. We share the goals of the sponsor and of others involved in terms of better incorporating environmental justice into our decision making into the way we do our work and to ensure that for the tenants definition that are met, because we know that while Vermont may not seem like it has the same environmental issues as a place like New Jersey, but our own set of unique circumstances and we need to work to address across our communities in the same way. And I think there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of need that that means there's also a lot of work to do we in in our 2021 performance partnership agreement which is our by annual process with the EPA, where we sit down and we talk about, what are we, what are we as a state agreeing to do in the next two years to get to to accomplish, we, we recognized a shared priority and environmental justice. We have committed to by September of 2023 will operate on their federal fiscal year cycle there. We have agreed to adopt a draft environmental justice policy at the ANR we're going to do that at the agency level with draft procedural guidance for each of the departments. So we are looking at how to do better mapping and overall better and data analysis of communities impacted, and then really looking at then how do we do our, you know, better training for both our staff and for, for those we interact with to be able to better do this work. So one of the key features of our environment justice policies that you heard today is engaging communities. I know we probably all had many conversations about the challenging environmental decision making that we do as a state, and the fact that it's hard for us to engage in that in the way that we're planning, we're working through thinking about how do we engage all our modules in that conversation, particularly environmental justice communities who may have been left out of conversations for lots of reasons, whether it's going to be the time of day of public meetings, the access to childcare and other things that make it possible to show up for those days. We all, we all have heard these, these challenges, fast and want to address them. But we've learned through this process and it's been a growth process for us because we're essentially starting from, from, from square one is that we need to go slow to be able to do this well. We need to engage communities in a meaningful conversation in a way that we that doesn't align with sort of traditional policy development at the state level. And we, we could have several years ago written a written an environmental justice policy that we thought met the needs. But that's not the right approach we heard from rejoice and other partners that we needed to slow down and and ask communities what their perspective are how they need to be communicated with in order to, to hear and participate in here and be heard in those discussions So we have slowed that down and have a process underway now where we've engaged the center for all communities to, to do a pilot community engagement project to in order to understand how we can build that community engagement plan and how we can build better practices and toward the way in which we engage the public. So it's, it's a, it's a really interesting and meaningful process. I think the mapping piece that Dr panic are a fresh panic are talked about is really important. The tools that have traditionally existed at the federal level and in other places have really focused on on on urban areas where it's in some ways easier. And we talked about talked about census tracks. The difference between a census tract in Vermont and a census tract in another part of the country can be pretty large in terms of the size of that in the fidelity of the data so that we can make sure that we have as much information as possible and make better decisions. And so a mapping tool and understanding the data and what data is useful and where the, both the gaps in that data and the sort of the area where where it's coarser than we'd like it to be is really important, and we're really looking forward to getting into that work so we're going to this timeline gives you a sense of what we're going to let you read it at your leisure I'm happy to answer questions you have for but I just wanted to say this is, this is what I see is the baseline of action, setting s 148 aside for a moment this is what we are doing as an agency now, and what we're committed to doing. And so it, you know, s 148 builds in many ways from this work, and we can have discussions on what that looks like but it's, it's a challenging body of work, it's a different way of approaching topics that we have not historically done, and has created environmental injustices around the state and around our blow So, with that I'm happy to answer any questions I know we have limited time, but I just wanted to give you sort of a brief review of where we stand. Thank you I appreciate that overview is what you were looking for just to get our heads warmed up for the conversation. Do members have questions for either that be secretary or the commissioner representative color commissioner so you just mentioned the timeline I just went and picked it up. But quickly, Deputy Commissioner use the verb follows you, you follow that means you've been doing stuff. This timeline. This timeline starts in 22 what what happened in 21 2019, what have, what does follows mean and we may not have time to go into that now, but we will have a need to know. Follows follows to me as me and that's been the sort of guiding principle as we work to develop out a state specific program. We're going to. So that's, that's a sort of North star if you will towards being able to, to work through those challenges, and to build that work with we've not been settling sitting ideally by we've been engaging with partners in this space. Specifically on on ways to move the conversation forward and to understand and learn from Vermont community specifically so that it can inform this discussion so that we're not doing frankly what we've what we've done in the past that has been part of the challenge which is developing top down policy that we think needs people's needs, but may not actually so having those conversations and understanding what those needs are out there has been this room baseline framework work that we've been doing. And the North star com concept, but I, I'm just wondering if there are some concrete things you can consent to us. Yeah, absolutely. For example, like removal of lead paint and homes. That's an example of applying an environmental justice lens so we can provide you some concrete examples of the kind of work that we do and water hazardous materials that you should be applying always an environmental justice lens to when you're addressing the regulatory environment. Excellent, of course, let me retardation. Hold on. Thank you very much. Just we're about to take a break we don't actually, we can't have any more people right this second and we're wrapping up our first agenda sorry Charlie. One second. First time we've had a room capacity. Thank you for joining us this morning for the overview and I'm, yes, I'm sure we will see you again. If you look at the PowerPoint to there's a lot more information in there and I'm happy to go through it later. Thank you.


There's still a good opportunity for independent practices to really do very well if they can focus Not just on the right fits for their patient, but also they got to ask themselves. This is a whole nother topic So we can't But who is benefiting ultimately from the purchases that you as an optician or optometrist are making? If it's a major insurance company or a major optical company that is also Buying your competition and owning your competition and you kind of need to ask yourself You know, how long do I plan on surviving when I'm funding my own competition and that's happening Not just on the managed care side, but also on the lens brand side, too And I have got major corporations who own private practices So you're buying from the competition that might be one mile down the road from you taking your patients Right, right and I think a lot of it is just because offices don't realize that there are other options You know, they've been this narrative is that I guess this narrative painted by the big corporate companies Whether it be the vision plans or or whoever it may be Is is that, you know, you need us we're gonna give you extra kickbacks and we're gonna be extra this and we're gonna be extra that's and That's why I love having you on here to be able to discuss these things because there are many offices that had even no idea You know that there's oh my gosh, there's other independent labs around. It's not just, you know The one guy here in town who was you know, whatever Who was was dealing for everybody? You know


that we have, excuse me, the ability to listen to these brilliant Qadis from all over the world who have, you know, so much beauty and melody in their voices, and we can connect with the Book of Allah's Prophet through them. There's apps, there's just so much YouTube free channels, it's abundant, it's everywhere. So if you're, again, at that place where you don't necessarily know how to read very well, inshallah that should be a goal that may Allah, you know, make it easy for you that you become, you know, that you get a teacher that you eventually do that. But in the interim, don't beat yourself up, rather just say, I'm going to still commit to having my relationship with the Qur'an every day, and that means listening to certain parts or surahs, listening to the English and the Arabic, whatever makes sense for you, that's beautiful. And you're fulfilling this wonderful and most important form of ibadah during this month, which is connecting to the Book of Allah's Prophet. So feel good and positive about that, and feel uplifted that Allah has given you that ability to do that. Now if you can read the Qur'an, and if you have ample time to do so, and by ample time, I mean you have free time, you know, and we're now looking again faster, I think, or 15, maybe 16 hours of the day. But the entire day is really available to us when we look at our ibadah. We can do it either during the day, or like the the prophets and the awliya and the scholars before us who maximized their ibadah at night time. And that's the next thing that I wanted to talk about, which is really the sweet spot. The sweet spot of our ibadah is timing. Timing is so essential, because there are moments during the day that we should, you know, that we know that our our du'as are most the jab, they're accepted, but we have to seek out those moments and then know how to again maximize the potential of those moments. So as far as, you know, Ramadan is concerned again, this is just my assessment after listening to a lot of people and just my own experiences. I feel that there's a few tweaks that we can all make to actually improve our overall experience, and those tweaks are simple practical things. Like I just said, as far as the prayer, number one priority. We've got to get better about praying our prayers on time, inshallah, and being in a state of those things. I just feel like that just should be really the habit of every Muslim, inshallah may a lot increase us to do that. But when it comes to the actual fast, that were, you know, when people have a difficult time with their fast, I think that there's usually a few practical reasons for why that is. And this is kind of, you know, my again, assessment that typically what happens is for most people, whether on a normal, let's say, you know, Ramadan where we're working and where we have a lot of commitments, we end up delaying or pushing that point of suhur to maybe about 30 minutes before fajr, you know, or maybe 45 minutes if people are really elaborate with their meals at that time. But it's still not an adequate amount of time to prepare a meal, eat a meal, pray extra tahajjud prayers, inshallah, we should try to always, again, look at that sweet spot. It's a time of Ibada, right? So if you're sleeping because you got to wake up at eight or nine, and then you set your alarm for, you know, four o'clock in the morning so that you can do certain stuff before five, right? Like practically speaking, right, that is likely going to put you in a bit of a rush, okay? Because what you're trying to do likely, again, this is, again, not maybe it doesn't apply to you, but I feel like a lot of people does apply to, is that they're trying to get everything squeezed in into the small pocket of time.  So in that first scenario, if you're just, again, trying to wake up or take a little bit of a nap so that you can wake up, you are depleted, right?  So your sleep is off, and once our sleep is off, once we are not in a good restful state, it sets the stage, right, for what's to come. Because as I said in the beginning, we have things that affect our mood. Lack of sleep or inadequate sleep is absolutely up there. So a certain foods, dehydration, medication, a lot of variables, right, that can contribute to someone either being in a good positive state or not. So we're in a compounded situation in Ramadan, because we don't have food, and we don't have caffeine and drink to wake us up, and then we're also not getting enough rest. So obviously it's going to impact our experience for the rest of the day if we start off in such shambles, right? So this is why a lot of people get lethargic and they don't have really much motivation. And then, you know, Shaitaan, yes, he's locked up in chains, but people have to keep it real or be honest about, I mean they have to know that despite that, he's still able to whisper and still able to, you know, affect us, inspire us to do wrong. So you see a lot of people because they're so drained and exhausted from the lack of sleep and just really low motivation that they end up, you know, indulging in things because it's just easier to lay in bed and watch a bunch of videos, social media, or Netflix. You see people still, I've seen threads where people are still watching Netflix shows, you know, that are probably not appropriate at all anytime, but especially in Ramadan. But where does that come from? It's because, you know, Shaitaan wants you to really not look at this month as being what it is, which is a jackpot, a lottery of Ibada. You know, there's just so much opportunity there. He doesn't want you to see that. He just kind of wants you to focus on what you're not able to do and all the stuff that your nafs is deprived of, right? So it's kind of like, it's an inconvenient time and that's what Shaitaan makes in Ramadan for a lot of people. A time of inconvenience, you know, I don't get to eat, I don't get to sleep, I don't get to drink what I want, I don't get to do this. I'm inconvenienced, but of course, inshallah, their Iman is still there so they persevere. But that, if that's the experience that you allow for, then that's what you're going to get, right? Because Allah swt tells us abdibi, which is, I'm in the opinion of my servant. So whatever we put forth, we will have confirmed upon us. So if we kind of just look at Ramadan as just this month of, I'm just going to, you know, push through 30 days and, you know, go through this deprivation and maybe I'll lose weight.  You know, so we have alter your motives or intentions, right? But if that's your experience, that's what you're going to get. That's it. That's what's confirmed for you. But if your experience or what you expect is greater and you say, Allah, this is a month of immense barakah and I don't want to squander it. I don't want to lose a month that, you know, the people before would weep the moment it was over and they were weeping the whole year until it came back. You know, this will happen, the great people of the past, because they appreciated what it was. They understood the value of this month and we've, you know, we're kind of, like I said, just biding our time, waiting for the inconvenience to be over so that we can just get back to our lives again. That is all waswasa from shaitan. Those thoughts are inspired by Iblis. He wants to strip the beauty and the glory and all of the just amazingness of this month so that you only focus on the physical deprivation that you're going through. And then you, because you're falling into that trap, that's what unfortunately you experience. So then you look at Ramadan as being, here it goes again. We have to fast. I'm not happy. All of it is mindset, right? It's mindset. So changing your mindset, shifting your mindset and saying, I'm not going to squander this opportunity to gain massive rewards with alas Pranthada, to actually really have those spiritual openings that people are writing about and talking about and lecturing about for hours and hours and hours. And there's books written about this, like, I don't want to squander my, you know, opportunity. So what am I going to do practically to not do that? This is where the tips come in. So my advice is to really look at every individual, all of us, we're all different and we all have different needs. So you have to, this is where self-awareness, self-knowledge is so critical. And if you know me, you know I talk a lot about emotional intelligence and the first part of it is self-awareness, right? Self-awareness knows knowing yourself very well. If you're the type of person that is asleep, like you just love sleep, a glutton for sleep, right? And you may very well be. That's just your reality. You love your sleep. It's like the greatest thing to you. You can't wait for sleep. Admit it. Halas, be open and honest. Say, I love my sleep. Okay. So now if you love your sleep, what are you doing waking up or going to bed at 11 at night, you know, because you're reading blogs or reading a book or doing something for fun or amusement? That is not helping you. If you're sleeping late, you're going to wake up in that frenzy and then you're going to have the day that I just described. So you have to be more realistic and say, because I love sleep, I need to work with my body and train myself to adapt to a maybe less sleep-dependent schedule and I need to start working on that. So what am I going to do?  If normally at 11 I'm still groggy and it's just not enough for me, then let me sleep at 10. See what happens. I make that one adjustment. Now look at what, you know, you might think it's a loss because I know I'm a woman, I'm a mom. I know how amazing the night time is, okay? Like when the kids are in bed and the house is quiet, trust me. Like many of you, I'm sure, I covet that time. However, if it were to impede my spiritual practice, I certainly would abandon it. I would give it up and that's how you have to look at it. Like that one extra hour where, yeah, you could maybe be doing something that you want to do, your nuffs wants to do something, whatever it could be. How about you just give it what it wants, which is the sleep, right?  Like that, you know, four o'clock or four thirty, I think a lot of people are probably, because Fuzzer comes in around five, so maybe four, ten, four, fifteen people are waking up. But what do you think would happen? I present a scenario to you if you slept a little early and then you woke up a little early because you're adjusting, right? You're adjusting the sleep. Now you wake up and you are not rushed. You have an hour or more to prepare your sahur. You have an hour or more to actually pray some tahajjud, read some Qur'an, or listen to Qur'an while you're preparing stuff. You have ample time. Then you have an hour or more, like I said, to get everything in place, either for yourself or your family, and then to slowly wake up the members of your family so that they can join you in the meal. And everything, the tension is, there's no tension. There's no rushing.  You know, sometimes people, because of time and just that anxiousness, they let all of that, they invite all of that in, that negative energy. And then again, because we're rushing and we're not sleeping enough, it just kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day. But the opposite can happen. When you plan and you prepare and you maximize your worship for nighttime, because you're doing it to fulfill the sunnah and to, you know, please Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, you want to be in that easy state, you will see the difference. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala will inshallah facilitate your day for you. Time is a creation, right? We should know that. That time is something Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala creates and he can stretch time and he can decrease time. And that's why a lot of people have that feeling that in Ramadan, time is stretched, right? Or when you go certain places or are you're in the company of certain people, you feel like there's this stretching of time, right? That is a, that's a reality. When time is being stretched, that's basically Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala's barakah in that moment, in that gathering for you.  You don't think he's gonna reward you with ease in your heart, with rest in your body, with strength to endure the fast?  I'm gonna give up these things because I want to have a beautiful, peaceful, calm state, calm heart when I'm in the remembrance of you and I want to ease into my prayers. I want to fulfill the sunnah of doing tahajjud prayers, because this is, again, the Prophet ﷺ every night. I mean, when I think of the Prophet ﷺ who had Jannah, he's guaranteed, he's the beloved of Allah, but yet he felt compelled, he felt compelled to stand up and pray tahajjud every single night, and until the point where his legs were swollen, you know, I mean, it's just really sad that we, and may Allah forgive us, because we don't, we fail, we fail a lot, you know, we fail to see how important it is, but here he's teaching us that he's, you know, what was the answer when Aisha, you know, saw his feet so swollen, and he said, should I not be a grateful servant? Right? I mean, this is the perfect answer for all of us. How are we displaying our gratitude to Allah SWT? Where is the gratitude? Where is the proof and the sincerity of the claim of gratitude to Allah SWT? If we can't prioritize Ibadah to him, and what we're talking about, if you're looking at time, I mean, if we're being honest, prayers in and of themselves five minutes max, because most of us stand and we'll do the shortest surahs we know, because we got something else to do, so we're looking at 25, 30 minutes that you're spending on your prayers, and that, even that, it's not good quality. This is where we also have to come back and question our claims, right, of, of sincerity, because, you know, as there's this, let me pull it up, there's an ayah in the Qur'an, all those parts that it says, in Surah Baqarah verse two, sorry, verse 243, he says, indeed God is the possessor of bounty for all people, but most people do not give thanks. You know, when I contemplated this ayah, I just was like, Sahfirullah, we all assume a lot of good things about ourselves, and I think we all want to assume that we're grateful to Allah, we want to assume that, we want to make that claim, because we are doing what we should be doing, you know, inshallah we're fasting, we believe, we have, you know, certainty of faith, so Alhamdulillah, those are all great signs, but I think when I read this, and I, that last part, most people, you know, for us, probably not to say that, I think it's really a way, a challenge, you know, for, for all of us, or we should see that as a challenge to whether or not, you know, to ask ourselves whether or not we fall into that category or not. You know, that's how I'm looking at that ayah. I'm looking at that ayah, like, yallah, I have, I say I'm grateful to you all the time, Alhamdulillah, I probably, I mean, we all do it, right, inshallah, we all say, inshallah, Alhamdulillah, we're constantly praising Allah, but Alhamdulillah, if it's a big part of your vocabulary, and the way that you speak, and it's like, uttered very frequently, you know, this is the time to question, are you really in a state of gratitude, if you can't wake up when our beloved Salam would wake up to the point where his legs would get swollen, and I'm not saying to stretch and make your tahajjud, you know, a painful process, but I'm saying just the fact that we don't think to do it, or we don't prepare ourselves to do it, we don't, you know, plan around these things, should actually, you know, make us, you know, really question our, our, our, the sincerity of that claim of gratitude, right, so when you wake up with ample time, you will see the ease, I promise you, if you give yourself a little bit more cushion in that time of sahur, and you, even though you're going to be groggy and it's going to be difficult for you, you will see the difference, and also just, I mean, I'm not a medical expert, so I'm going to put this out there, but you can do this, search yourself on the benefits of sleep training, because the idea that we need eight to ten hours of sleep has been questioned, it has been refuted by people, and there are many people who actually, very much like what the prophesies said on this habit was, you know, that sleep, sleep is done in cycles, right, we call them sleep cycles, and you can cycle through your sleep so that you do it in a way where you're waking up at the end of a deep sleep REM cycle, instead of interrupting that, which is what most of us do, we interrupt a REM cycle, and that's why we wake up heavy and not able to push forward, but if we make these adjustments and learn about sleep training, we can actually learn to wake up in a time that it will not, that we will benefit, that we won't be, you know, lethargic and slow and run down, but we can actually wake up, we can, we can be alert, and then what we do is we, whatever sleep is lost, we compensate for that later, which is the practice of the prophesies said, I'm right, he would practice, or he would have Kailula, which was between Doha and Asir, so he would worship through the night and then he would make, you know, whatever he lost, he would make up for it during the day, so these are all very practical things that we can do, adjustments just to again facilitate the fast experience, because if you wake up and you have nutrient dense food, rich foods that are really just, you know, you know, going to nourish your body and have lasting, you know, effect for that, for the day, inshallah, you'll see that your levels aren't spiking all over the place that make you, you know, hungry and just angry and all those things that people experience, so you want to look at being responsible with what you're eating and then also timing yourself so that you're allowing yourself to pray, those sweet, that sweet spotter of tahajjud prayer, and open your heart to Allah SWT, you know, create a space. I actually, I created, here I'm in my office, and right behind my screen we've created a little Mosalah area, and it's just, I love it, I'm thinking honestly of keeping it throughout Ramadan, because I didn't realize how much I needed it, just to have a space that's dedicated for prayer in the house is really special, and then a friend of mine, she gifted me, let me grab it real quickly. She gifted me this prayer outfit, and it's so beautiful, but I never, I mean I've worn them before, but I've never had one quite like this, so it comes in this cute little bag, okay, and it's like this nice, I don't know the material, but it's just really soft and pretty, and it's a huge prayer outfit, but it's very fancy, and masha'Allah, I just love it because it puts me in the right state of mind to worship Allah SWT, and I'm telling you, these things have an effect, the space that you're in, like this whole, you know, Feng Shui or Marie Kondo, all these people, what are they tapping into? They're tapping into this idea that the spaces that we create have an effect on our mood and on our states, right? So when we create beautiful spaces where we can worship, and we take the time to wear something like that just puts us in a state of, I don't know, I can't explain it, but it just makes me feel like I'm doing something special, although I know I'm doing something special, I think the mood that putting this, you know, just wearing it as opposed to standing what I used to do before, I had a shorter like jersey material one, but you know my pajamas were, bottoms were showing because it didn't fully cover the whole body, so you know, kind of, I mean it works, you pray, you do, it's functional, but this is elevating the experience, right? When you actually put all that effort into making your Ibadah beautiful and sweet, you have to believe there's going to be an effect on you, on your heart, and Allah SWT, like I said, is going to reward you, so that your experience throughout the rest of the day is just facilitated, and Alhamdulillah, like this is our fourth fast, I think, I, you know, just my own experience, Alhamdulillah, from the beginning so far, I haven't had any issues at all, like I don't even remember honestly that I'm fasting, because I also try to keep busy, which is another tip, you have to stay busy, a lot of people ask me, like, Allah SWT, you're doing this and doing that, you're doing so much, but that's because I'm aware of myself, I know that if I don't regulate myself and work on projects and teach and try to offer, you know, whatever I can and do more outreach, that I will fall into my own nefcy behavior, and so this is self-awareness, I'm very aware of myself, so I have to keep busy, I have to have to be moving, and like you know, I said, Dawa is in my blood, so doing any form of Dawa to me is, it just re-energizes me, it charges me up, it gives me that motivation, that's me, so all of us though, have our own unique outlets, right? But we have to believe that Allah SWT will facilitate our experience of Ramadan, if we prioritize Him and His pleasure above everything else, including ourselves, so sacrificing our time at night and committing to a serious regimen where we sleep enough so that we're not in this totally demoralized, just unmotivated state when we wake up, rather we wake up with like mission, I have a mission, right?  That's the kind of attitude you have to have, right? But if you don't have that, as I said before, then your experience will be confirmed based on what your attitude is. So you got to be very careful about your mindset. Okay, I'm going to take a quick break and look at the comments here. So Nadia's saying sometimes I feel that because I have so many prayers to make up from the past, I rushed to get that number down before I die. It may not be qualitative prayer because I'm just so anxious from the few thousand prayers. You know, Mashallah, thank you for mentioning that Nadia. First of all, may Allah bless you and reward you for doing for committing to making up your past prayers. That's a beautiful reflection of your Nia and your state. So may Allah increase you in that. But remember, you know, this Dean is a Dean of Yusra, Nia the Prophet, I said, said that the Dean is easy and we're the ones that actually complicated. We humans were the ones that make it harder on ourselves. So you have to dial it down a little bit if your experience of prayer is anxious and you're not really feeling like good, then you need to make some adjustments. And that maybe is, you know, where you look at how many prayers you're making up every day. Is it like, you know, is it too much for you? And because given your other commitments and other things, and inshallah, if you have the Nia and you're working towards that Nia, you have to believe with certainty that just by having the intention and making the effort, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward you whatever your Nia is, whether or not you accomplish it. That is just a promise. Your intentions are driving the reward that you're going to get. So I know we're very sometimes qualitatively wired to think of in numbers. I'm sorry, quantitatively, but we're talking about quality, quality Trump's quantity when it comes to our Ibadah. Okay, it's very clear. We should try to strive for the best of worship, not just, you know, a number.  So I hope that answers your question. So we are past time. I'm sorry. I just noticed that I went over. I apologize for that, but I thank you for sticking around. Are there any questions before we end? And again, we'll be doing these throughout the month of Ramadan possibly if they if the feedback is positive. And I am able to then we'll continue afterwards, but we have a few more sessions. So I'd like to just keep the same flow. And you guys are always welcome, like I said, to come and join the conversation or talk or ask questions or comment. I actually really appreciate the feedback.  But if there are no other questions, then we'll go ahead and end this first session. And I really again, appreciate your spending your afternoon with me. There's so many things that could be happening or that you could be doing. But I do appreciate that. And I hope to see you on the next or next Monday. Also for any moms in the room, if you have children 10 plus, I am going to be doing purification of the heart, inshallah, Tuesdays and Thursdays from the same time five to six, you can find that information on the MCC page on Facebook or their website, MCC East Bay, and sign up, inshallah, we're getting a lot of great, I mean, sign ups already, mashallah. So it's going to be a full class, but I'm really excited. I love to teach children. So I'm looking forward to that. Zora, John, yes, the class will be same time next week five to six. And I'll try to end on time. Forgive me again for going over, but please join us. Let people know it's open to everybody. It's not just the MCC community. Anybody can join. Mashallah. And thank you.  Thank you for being here. Again, I'm very grateful to all of you for spending your time with me. Oh, this is the part of online stuff that is like afterwards when you watch the recording, you're like, Oh, my God, because I have like a bit of OCD. So I'll see like things that are off. And I'm like, Oh, wish I could go through the camera and just fix my hijab. Oh, yeah, it's mashallah. Happy to see you. I miss you. I miss my crew from, you know, where? Mashallah. But it's good to see you, sweetheart. Thank you again, ladies. I will end in Dua. Inshallah. SubhanakAllah. I'll end in Dua. Inshallah. Peace be upon you.


Hi, I'm Marisa Freeman, Chief Brand Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and I am here to talk about brand storytelling. In our business, we sell a lot of technology, and everyone assumes that when you talk to a business person, the only thing they care about are the bits and bytes and performance. When we approach storytelling, we want to make sure that we're conveying the soul of the company. Hewlett and Packard are the founding fathers of Silicon Valley, and we're still very much entrenched in that community. A couple of years ago, we worked with a small agency called Something Different and created a documentary film called Seed. So our documentary film followed three hackathons and three of the teams that won and carried that story through until the very end of the story, which is like a shark tank type event in Silicon Valley. The impact of this movie from a social perspective, as well as a media perspective, was a double win. Technology is news, and the human stories around technology is what makes it so exciting. We told a story with great big story about research that we are doing with a company in Germany to find a cure for Alzheimer's. And through the story, we're able to communicate how the technology and the research and our product called memory-driven computing is changing the way medicine will work. And it's told in such a moving and emotional way. No one is dry-eyed after watching this film.  Oftentimes, we are working with news outlets, The Atlantic. One story we told with The Atlantic was about the ethics of AI. If we're making the machinery, we'd better be sure that we're helping to write the rules about how to use AI safely. Together, we created a short film of experts to support that important message of the ethics of AI. Super intelligent, really thoughtful, very entertaining, and the audience that reads that publication, they're the right people for our storytelling. If I could just implore everyone to stop thinking the old way, stop pushing ads in front of people and expecting them to behave the way you want them to, start pulling them in through their hearts and through their minds, and watch how quickly your business grows.


get this a little bit more and realize I was out of focus here. Sorry about that. Let me bring them down a little bit. All right, so what was his name? Jacob? Tell me you said? I guess she is out of the room. Anyways, we have a little something here by Raza Ezels. I hope I'm saying that right. Raza out of St. Louis, Missouri.  This is not a paid review. This is not a sponsor or anything. They just we were interested and they wanted to know and we said sure. So this came today. Let's take a look at what we got here. Favorite casts? Do you guys say castle or castle or what do you guys say? I didn't say awesome markers. Look at that. They sent us three different colors. These look like one of my favorite YouTubers on street muralists named Kiptoe. Looks like his colors. Pretty cool. All right, so look how awesome this little easel is. Let's try to figure it out here. I guess these are the degrees of your angle. I would assume comes with this one came with two pads here and it is attached to that. I see. I see. So check that out. It's attached to your pad and your easel. So I guess that's kind of cool. Like you don't want to be without it. You'll never forget it. That's for sure. All right, so I think what you do is you lift this up, put this here and whatever angle you put it in this little slot and you lock it in. Move this out of the way and there you have it. Nice little, see, maybe we could get a little different angle here so you can kind of see what I'm looking at. There you go. What fun is that? Like I said, you can like, if you want, you can have it all the way to the top. So I guess if you're trying to sketch somebody across the way, let's see. I got a nice little sharpened pencil right here. You have to check this out. Hold on. I'm going to show you what this pencil sharpener does. I just got this the other day. Sorry, sorry guys. I have to show, I have to show you this pencil sharpener. It's one of those super long. Like it's not just a typical pencil sharpener. Like if you have a pencil and it's just a regular sharpen, you know, check this guy out. Look at that compared to a, and look at this. It didn't, it didn't take, like I thought it was going to take like a whole bunch down like, but it just takes it down to the the lead. Pretty cool. And this is not a paid advertisement. I don't even know what brand this is. I just got it from off Amazon. So if you're watching this brand, I love this sharpener and you plug it in, you have to unplug it and you use it, charge it. All right, so let's check this little sturdy. It feels kind of sturdy, very nice, very well made, very nice, very nice craftsmanship, very classy looking, very easy to adjust if you're just ready to go on the fly. Got a little attachment there. What is that? And it's very lightweight. I mean, obviously it's not meant for rough house. I wouldn't use it as a bicycle ramp, but it does the job. Let me see this. They gave me two. This one feels a little rougher. See that is two different. That's very smooth. This one has a little texture. So this one might be good for charcoal. And I do have some charcoal right here with me. Made in St. Louis. What? By artists for artists. Oh, this is, I apologize. This is their actual paper. I just thought it came with a pad, but these are definitely different. Let me see this. Sorry about that, guys. I didn't realize this was your paper. I guess I could probably pay attention. Let's see here. It is mixed media paper, drawing paper, 15 sheets, 24 sheets, 100 LB. This is 187 by 300. So 160. GM, GSM. What is that? I'm one of those artists that really have never paid attention to numbers or stuff like that. I'm self-taught. I go with what I like. Let's see what we got here. This is just drawing, right? See what we got with the pencil here. We'll do the paper, then we'll do the easel there, the one on the easel. So let's see. What should we draw here? Let's just do some lettering. Let's do Raza. Probably should have warmed up a little bit, but from what it feels like, this paper is pretty, pretty smooth paper. Like normally you can feel it like this drawing paper. Man, this is nice for a pencil. Like it goes on really smooth. Like I'm not used to reviewing stuff. I just normally just will take it and use it, but they were kind enough to send this to us. So if my reviews are a little unorthodox, I do apologize. I'm new at this, so I'm one of the artists that I kind of just kind of go with it. If I don't like it, I won't use it. I'm not going to say I like it and use it just because they sent it to me. We're kind of honest with our reviews. If we do get people to ask us to review their stuff, mainly that's the resin side. And Erica normally does that. So she is not here, as you can see. So I'm really digging this paper. Like I like it. It reacts really well with this pencil. Look at that. Man, that's like, like I like it because it's like you're using like the softest lead and this is just a regular pencil. Like I'm really digging it. They make their own pad. This is their pad of paper. That's their own paper? Yeah. Oh, it does say rassa. Yeah, I didn't even realize that. It looks so airbrushed on there. Like how faded it is. This is some General's charcoal 2B. That's another thing I don't really pay attention to. I just, I'll pick up a charcoal pencil and mark it and if it's dark, I love to use it. If it's not, then I probably won't, unless I'm kind of just sketching with it. Little different with charcoal. I used to charcoal, you know, spreading out a little bit easier, but then again, I wasn't really pushing hard on the charcoal until now. And now it's, I like it. It's very, it's very, very soft, very soft paper. These guys, let's see what this does.  You just kind of get into it. I always do that. That's because it, it takes me back to when you, when you first start doodling, when you first know, like that's what you want to do that. This is what you want to do because you do it all over your papers or all over your walls at home or wherever you doodle. This is, this is reacting really well with this. Horrible. What is this? I'm looking at it on film, on film. Anyways, there's that. All right, back to the easel. Boom. Bada boom, bada boom. I guess that's, that's it, right? That's how you do it. Unless I'm doing this backwards and you do it like this so people can see it, I imagine. Nope, because the pad of paper is on this side. You can't, you know, you can't do that obviously unless you turn this around, which obviously then the pad is backwards. But this thing is up here and how cool are all these little things. You know what? I do think that this is the bottom because this is kind of like tacky. I don't think there's, oh, there is one over there. There's two right here too. So I'm guessing that is the bottom. I don't know. But the, the pad of paper would be upside down though. Sorry about that. It even tells the degrees on the back. So that's the proper way because it has like readable degrees right there. So you, let's lift this up. So you open your pad first, bring this back so you expose your paper. I don't mind painting this low. I'm drawing.  I'm guessing you would do this if you were sitting on a desk.  If you were just doodling, you'd probably want it just down or at a slight angle. That's fun. We'll try to use these. Let's use these markers that they got. We've got a small tip here and like a brush tip. Oh yeah it is. That's fun. All right let's try this. Come on, let's go with this lighter and then we're going to outline that stuff. Let's see here. Whoa, you push down on it and you get a lot of ink. These are pretty nice. I don't know why I just did that. That does not look right. What is that? That is fun. Just draw with just the fine point of this brush. I guess it's a brush tip. I'm not sure here. Quite a bit of ink comes out of these when you push down. Do you have to hold your hand there or is that just preference? I don't know. I just do it. I think because I might worry that it's going to move but I don't feel like it's moving but I think I just have something stable. This is preference for steady. Yeah I guess. These are fun markers. You probably could just take that other marker, the original one and just darken that in. You can probably just fade that. Oh you can. Is that what these are for? This is a nice little easel. It's like super sturdy. These little grippers, they have like little, I want to say it's leather or maybe it's rubber. These are super nice. This little grip ejection here.  This is really thick paper too. I'm going to try to use some charcoal on this here a minute. These are turquoise cobalt green 156 until I come from an airbrush background. This is fun. Guys I will sit here all day and just do it. And it stops when it's done. That sharpener. Yeah this is definitely different paper as for sure. I'll get some thumb down, some thumbs down for this but like I forget that I'm filming sometimes and I'm sketching and doodling and stuff. So I do apologize. And that's how you can tell I'm kind of getting into this product here. Kind of forgetting what I'm doing and just enjoying what I'm doing. It's fun. All right let's try some taller pencils. Super smooth. You can tell this has a little bit more texture obviously than the other one because it definitely especially with these Prismacolor they get wears it down pretty quick. That's nice. You can actually paint or you can draw on these markers. Try this. Let's try some Posca pens on this paper. It's a regular old Posca pen. It's really weird. It's like it's giving me like some see how it's kind of like it's almost like holding on to the pen. I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this pen with that other paper. Yeah you just really gotta you can't really try to go slow with these because you can feel it sticking to the paper there. Let's try it on this real quick. This is just the uh this is the drawing paper I believe right? Yeah this is the drawing paper. Let's make sure we get a fair test. Shake it up a little bit. Yeah and I believe that was the paper that was on the end of that. It's a little different. I mean it's a little different.  It's so comfortable. Very nice. Very nice little easel. See how these guys react to each other because I think you're supposed to be able to get these Posca pens wet with either alcohol or water. I'm not sure and they kind of blend. I think we can do a 3d piece. I do have some 3d glasses but I don't think that'll work. Well I'm digging this. Here this is the smoother paper. Let's see what this does. Any difference? I'm not mad at this paper. I like it. I like the easel. I'm happy. What else we got? We got anything else we can draw in here with? This big old marker. We'll try to use this Pabio Pabio. I'm just all running out. This is a very smelly marker. I'm not a fan of that gold at all. It does kind of dry fast. Yeah this paper is is this the one? Yeah this is the thick paper.  That's still not dry. It definitely picks up the paper but we're not doing a review on the paper. The paper is nice. I like it. The this easel. I like it. It's fun. I totally take it on the airplane with me. We are going to Kansas at the end of the month and we're going to go to Florida and Oregon to go see Stone Coat Countertops. It will definitely be taking it with me on that trip. I guess you can just take this off and add it to this one. No problemo. Or you can just add it to that if you like. But there you go. I would say one out of a ten. Ten being awesome. I would say this is like a nine only because of the kind of a distraction and you kind of kind of get in the way. It's kind of a I don't know. It's just kind of a I guess it's different. I guess you would get used to it but all around sturdiness how light it is the function. It's a great little easel. Look at that and you're ready to go. It is. Thanks guys. I can dig it.