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Thursday, September 14, 2017 — 3A

has determined climate change 
poses a threat to the health and 
well-being of the citizens it 
serves. That decision was made 
in 2007 in a Supreme Court case, 
Massachusetts v. EPA, in which 
the court decided, 5-4, that if 
the EPA made such a finding of 
endangerment, it was obligated 
to regulate greenhouse gases 
under the Clean Air Act.

One of the panelists, Roger 

Martella, was serving as EPA 
general counsel under former 
President George Bush when 
the decision was handed down. 
The decision came as a complete 
surprise to Martella: Rather than 
trying to act on climate change 
with existing laws, Martella said, 
the general expectation was that 
Congress would first have to pass 
new ones.

“This is all probably totally 

understood, second nature to 
everybody today — 2007 doesn’t 
seem like it was that long ago, 
but it was 10 years ago,” he said. 
“This kind of shocked everyone’s 
universe. Environmental lawyers 
will say they were thinking about 
it, but the regulatory community 

in the federal government didn’t 
have any preparation for the 
fact that we might actually be 
addressing climate change based 
on existing laws as opposed 
to waiting for Congress to do 
something.”

Following the decision, he 

said, Bush favored making a big 
push to begin regulation, but 
concerns quickly arose about 
the viability of passing such 
complicated regulations in the 
short period of time Bush had left 
in his second term.

The Clean Air Act, passed by 

Congress in 1963, was designed 
to regulate specific and localized 
air pollutants like lead, ozone and 
particulate matter. Greenhouse 
gases — which are emitted by 
every gasoline- and diesel-fueled 
vehicle on the road –– were not in 
the initial picture.x

When Avi Garbow — one of the 

panelists — arrived at the EPA 
as the Obama administration’s 
deputy general counsel, though 
he was later promoted to general 
counsel. His first task, after 
verifying the integrity of the 
science behind the endangerment 
finding, 
was 
promulgating 

regulations to reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions.

The EPA’s first target was 

mobile 
source 
emissions, 
or 

emissions from vehicles, which 
Garbow said were relatively easy, 
as they were predicated near 
fuel-efficiency standards, which 
allow people to save money on 
gas. Garbow added that states 
also carried some of the burden 
of regulation.

“The statute allowed the state 

of California, given some factors 
that were ostensibly peculiar to 
it — its size — to issue its own 
regulations and standards,” he 
said. “The world’s automakers 
want to be able to sell cars not 
just in California, but elsewhere, 
so it really brought parties 
together to try to make sure that 
there were uniform standards. 
You can’t put out a Nissan Sentra 
that’s compliant in California 
and a totally different one that’s 
compliant in Virginia.”

Once the EPA began to shift 

toward 
regulating 
stationary 

sources of greenhouse gases, 
like forcing power companies 
to implement more renewable 
energy, though, the public wasn’t 
as supportive.

But the concept of the EPA 

regulating 
greenhouse 
gases 

began long before that. After a 
tense encounter during a House 
appropriations hearing, Jonathan 

Cannon, a panelist and general 
counsel to the EPA during the 
Clinton administration, became 
the lawyer in charge of providing 
the initial legal argument that 
the EPA had the authority to 
regulate greenhouse gases.

“My boss, Carol Browner, who 

was an administrator, was there 
testifying on the agency budget,” 
Cannon 
said. 
“Tom 
DeLay, 

who was the majority whip at 
that time, came blustering into 
the hearing with some EPA 
document that he’d gotten and 
he accosted the administrator 
with his document in a question 
saying, ‘Do you take the position 
that the EPA has the authority 
to address climate change under 
the CAA?’ And she said, ‘Yes, 
I believe it does.’ And he said, 
‘Well I would like a legal opinion 
on that issue.’ And she turned to 
me and said, ‘Yes, a legal opinion 
will be forthcoming.’ She had not 
talked to me before that. I didn’t 
have an opinion at that point.”

Though there is widespread 

concern 
over 
the 
intentions 

of the Trump administration 
and EPA Administrator Scott 
Pruitt regarding climate action, 
Cannon said that as long as the 
endangerment finding remains 
valid, the current administration 

can’t 
institute 
any 
dramatic 

change.

“So far — and I could be wrong 

— but my best information is 
that so far, the administration 
has not moved to withdraw the 
endangerment finding,” he said. 
“EPA Administrator Pruitt has 
talked about some sort of science 
review process that presumably 
could lead up to that, but right 
now they’re not disturbing that, 
which means they have a set 
of legal issues related to the 
existence of that endangerment 
finding on the books, upheld by 
the D.C. circuit, creating certain 
obligations under the clean air 
act or arguably so.”

The other panelists agreed that 

while there is cause for concern, 
there are procedural roadblocks 
in the administration’s way that 
would slow any drastic actions, 
and actions outside the federal 
government could still outweigh 
those.

Despite 
President 
Donald 

Trump’s decision to leave the 
Paris climate accord, Garbow 
pointed out, due to provisions 
within the accord, the earliest the 
United States could withdraw is 
Nov. 4, 2020 –– one day after the 
next presidential election. And 
Martella — currently the general 

counsel for General Electric’s 
Environment, Health and Safety 
division — said “business is doing 
what it needs to do” on climate 
change.

Cannon agreed, stating he was 

hopeful for the future.

“The hopeful thing is that 

as the current administration 
abdicates this place and begins to 
withdraw these regulations there 
are a lot of things happening 
outside the federal regulatory 
sphere,” he said. “So, although 
regulation 
will 
remain 
an 

important component, these are 
hopeful signs, and I think we all 
ought to think about ways we can 
support, foster and extend these 
trends in a way that may make 
what Washington does, at least 
for the moment, less crucial.”

Campbell said she came away 

from the panel having had her 
faith in the legal system restored.

“I thought what was really 

interesting was ... that we can’t 
just depend on our political 
system to solve all of our 
problems and put all of our eggs 
in that one basket, but that it is 
also about community action at 
the local and regional levels that 
really can drive climate change 
action forward, so there’s a lot of 
hope there,” she said.

EPA
From Page 1A

interested in sciences, she recalls 
preferring a hands-on research 
approach to learning about said 
interests.

“I realized more and more 

what I wanted to do was work at 
the nexus of human-environment 
interactions … be the person 
thinking about what actions we 
take, how do we do things, how 
we make policies,” Taylor said. 
“The 
field 
of 
environmental 

sociology focuses on the social 
aspect of how humans interact 
with the environment.”

Taylor’s 
research 
has 

concentrated on social factors 
such as race, gender and class, 
and their subsequent relation to 
environmental issues. She noted 
these components play into how 
various demographics are affected 

by the environmental obstacles 
we 
face 
today, 
exemplifying 

the recent hurricanes as one of 
many instances in which the 
consequences are exponentially 
higher 
for 
poorer, 
minority 

communities.

“You do get to see some of the 

invisible institutional structures 
or barriers, especially when you 
look at these things historically,” 
she said.

Taylor 
has 
authored 
both 

research reports and books, “Food 
Availability and the Food Desert 
Frame in Detroit: An Overview 
of the City’s Food System” (2015) 
and “The Rise of the American 
Conservation Movement: Power, 
Privilege, 
and 
Environmental 

Protection” (2016) and various 
similar works that explore social 
issues and their relation to the 
environment.

In addition to her work as a 

professor, author and researcher, 

Taylor is the University director 
of the Doris Duke Conservation 
Scholars 
Program, 
a 
two-

year internship and research 
program 
for 
undergraduate 

students, including those of other 
universities, who are otherwise 
inadequately represented in the 
environmental and conservation 
field.

This past year, the second-

year students were taken to 
the U.S. Virgin Islands to learn 
about different ecosystems in a 
hands-on learning experience 
that combined the hard science of 
survey data and actual interaction 
with communities there.

So 
far, 
60 
students 
have 

gone 
through 
the 
program, 

and 
Taylor 
emphasized 
the 

myriad 
opportunities 
made 

known 
to 
these 
students 

following 
this 
experience, 

including recruitments to the 
University. Additionally, Taylor 

is the principal investigator of the 
Environmental Fellows Program, 
which helps fund the expenses 
of graduate school and prepares 
students to be financially secure 
at their completion of school, 
with experience in the job market 
and networking.

“These fellowship programs 

are a direct result of the research 
that we have done on diversity, 
with the 2014 report (most 
commonly referenced as Green 
2.0 report), a group of graduate 
students helped me collect the 
data and we put out the national 
report. It’s been a game changer, 
with 
the 
garnered 
publicity 

we have been able to have 
organizations open up positions 
to hire students,” Taylor said.

Taylor is also the director of 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 
program 
for 
the 
School 
of 

Environment, where her tasks 
range from incorporating more 

inclusive teaching techniques in 
classrooms to helping recruit a 
more diverse base of students.

“At 
an 
elite 
university 

like 
Michigan, 
we 
have 
to 

ask ourselves: Are we only a 
university for the rich? Or are 
we going to take the mandate of 
public education seriously? If we 
do, then it behooves all of us to 
think about ways of broadening 
the audience we reach, the 
students that get an opportunity 
to come to schools like ours,” she 
said.

Taylor 
noted 
the 
growing 

popularity of her undergraduate 
courses on food justice and 
insecurity, claiming that close to 
500 undergraduates have gone 
out to participate in and do their 
own research.

“It’s been really quite amazing, 

both in terms of being able to 
teach and having students get 
really excited about this topic,” 

Taylor said.

An example of such students 

includes University alum and 
current Ypsilanti Mayor Amanda 
Edmonds, who took the course on 
food systems and later moved on 
to create the nonprofit Growing 
Hope, a program that helps 
communities cultivate consistent 
access to healthy food.

Taylor’s 
food 
project 
has 

additionally funded community 
gardens 
in 
Ypsilanti, 
Flint, 

Grand Rapids and Lake Superior 
State. For the past five years, 
they have supported community 
gardens that provide plots for low 
income residents, and each year 
has yielded food for at least 20 
families.

“There are a lot of very 

practical ways in which these 
research papers translate in a way 
that it positively impacts the lives 
of students and the lives of the 
community folks,” Taylor said.

RESEARCH
From Page 1A

setting that requires the practical 
application of their valuable 
language skills to work with 
organizations 
in 
Washtenaw 

County committed to a social 
cause,” Andrasko wrote.

In the initial planning stages, 

the team created a proposal 
to develop an app to provide 
its users an easier way to find 
nutritious foods in Washtenaw 
County. However, since they 
lacked the coding knowledge 
to design an app, they instead 
explored other options. 

Around the same time, the 

team started making trips to 
the Bryant Community Center, 
one of their community center 
partners. 
Here, 
they 
saw 

firsthand a need for something 
like LingoMatch. 

“It 
has 
been 
especially 

rewarding to see firsthand how 
excited 
Bryant 
Community 

Center clients are to be able 
to speak their native language 
with volunteers, which shows 
how meaningful language can 
be in connecting people and 
promoting an environment of 
inclusivity,” Andrasko wrote.

Since its launch, the program 

has 
already 
hosted 
several 

projects, including the most 
recent, which involved volunteers 
translating a booklet on how 
undocumented immigrants can 
best protect their families during 
immigration 
raids. 
Another 

project 
was 
assisting 
those 

who do not speak English as 
their first language during food 
distribution days at food banks.

Furthermore, the program 

plans to provide students with 
valuable volunteering and cross-
cultural 
language 
experience 

in addition to providing clients 
with a safe and confidential 
space where they can ask any 
individual questions about the 
application process while getting 
personalized assistance in their 

native language.

Though LingoMatch is still 

in its initial phases, the team 
members are very optimistic for 
its potential growth.

“At the end of the day, making 

and seeing an actual impact is 
the true goal,” Andrasko wrote.

LSA junior Timberlee Whiteus 

believes the program is beneficial 
since it focuses on marginalized 
citizens.

“It is imperative to make 

refugees feel comfortable as 
many have come from troubled 
areas,” Whiteus said.

Andrasko agreed, noting the 

social signifiance of volunteering 
with the program as well. 

“We provide interpretation 

services for community centers 
that have a clear commitment to 
a social cause, such as working 
with food banks, immigration 
law 
firms 
or 
resettlement 

agencies,” 
Andrasko 
wrote. 

“We act as a bridge between the 
organization and the potential 
student volunteers at U of M.”

PROGRAM
From Page 1A

after he was elected, Trump 
suggested the possibility of a 
Muslim registry and in January 
of this year, Trump pushed 
for a ban on travel from seven 
majority-Muslim countries.

LSA 
senior 
Haleemah 

Aqel, 
Islamophobia 
Working 

Group 
student 
coordinator, 

has 
experienced 
forms 
of 

discrimination she likened to 
that 
of 
Japanese-Americans 

during World War II. Despite 
that, she did note “the severity 
of our discriminations are on 
different levels.”

“You sometimes feel as if 

you don’t belong because of 
certain policies, certain wars 
and especially this year with the 
Muslim registry. I have definitely 
felt as if I’ve questioned, ‘Am 
I 
really 
American?’” 
Aqel 

said. “We kind of all just feel 
sometimes as if we don’t belong.”

“The Japanese race is an 

enemy race,” wrote Lieutenant 
General John DeWitt in 1942 
in the Final Report: Japanese 
Evacuation 
from 
the 
West 

Coast. “While many second and 
third generation Japanese born 
on American soil, possessed 
of American citizenship, have 
become 
‘Americanized,’ 
the 

racial strains are undiluted.”

Roosevelt 
justified 
the 

internment 
of 
Japanese-

Americans by deeming them a 
threat to national security and 
labeled them “enemy aliens.”

Japanese-Americans 
have 

recognized similarities between 
the 
oppression 
they 
and 

generations before them faced 
during World War II and the 
oppression Arab and Muslim 
Americans face. The similarities 
in 
oppression 
have 
pushed 

Japanese-Americans to stand 
up for the rights of Arab and 
Muslim Americans.

Matthew Stiffler, a researcher 

at the Arab American National 
Museum and lecturer at the 
University of Michigan, noticed 
the alliance form in the early ’90s, 
long before the announcement 
of the immigration ban from the 

majority-Muslim countries.

“The Japanese and the Arab 

community 
specifically 
and 

the Japanese and the Muslim 
community more broadly has 
had an affinity not just since the 
announcement of the Muslim 
ban in January, but going back 
a lot further,” Stiffler said. “So 
the first case that I found of 
cooperation was in 1991. That 
was the run up to the first Gulf 
War in Iraq.”

Stiffler added the support 

for 
the 
Arab 
and 
Muslim 

American communities started 
with 
a 
Japanese-American 

congressman.

“And during that time, the 

FBI was going around and 
interviewing 
Arab 
American 

community leaders about the 
run-up to the war in Iraq and 
a Japanese-American, he was 
a Congressman at the time, 
former 
Secretary 
Norman 

Mineta, spoke out very publicly 
against this, as a Japanese-
American himself, whose family 
was incarcerated during World 
War II,” Stiffler said. “He said 
we’re not going to go down that 
road again.”

Aqel said alliances between 

minority groups have more 
power than one group standing 
on its own.

“This 
alliance 
and 

connections 
and 
solidarity 

networks between groups have 
been formed specifically since I 
think a lot of people of color have 
noticed that this discrimination 
against them is so high that 
sometimes we … think that 
doing 
things 
by 
ourselves 

won’t go anywhere but forming 
alliances will allow both of our 
movements, both our voices, our 
people to expand for others to 
hear our struggle,” Aqel said.

LSA 
junior 
Maureen 

O’Bryan, the co-event chair 
for 
the 
Japanese 
Student 

Association, wrote in an email 
interview 
that 
connecting 

Japanese 
discrimination 
to 

the discrimination of Arab and 
Muslim Americans today puts 
their reality in context.

“It’s 
powerful 
because 

Japanese-Americans 
have 

(experienced) this and we say 

never again should this happen,” 
O’Bryan wrote. “I think if 
the 
Trump 
administration 

really wants to use Japanese 
incarceration as precedent for 
his Muslim ban, he’s going to 
see a strengthening alliance 
between 
these 
two 
groups 

because we’re not going to let 
what happened to us be used 
against another minority group 
that is a supposed ‘threat’ to 
national security because it was 
found that Japanese-Americans 
did not pose any threat to the 
U.S. during WWII.”

Stiffler has personally seen 

the alliance through his work 
at the Arab American National 
Museum. 
The 
museum 
has 

close ties with the Japanese 
American 
National 
Museum 

in Los Angeles, which helped 
train some of the employees at 
the Arab American National 
Museum when it opened in 
2005.

“We’ve 
shared 
exhibits, 

we’ve hosted their staff here for 
workshops, we’ve shared ideas. 
So we feel that we’re very closely 
aligned with them,” Stiffler 
said. “We call them our sister 
museum, just because there is 
that shared history both what 
it’s like to be an ethnic group in 
the U.S. today but also an ethnic 
group that has been targeted 
for civil rights violations by the 
federal government.”

There has been coordination 

between 
the 
two 
groups 

on 
campus, 
according 
to 

O’Bryan. She said she saw 
the alliance strengthen last 
year 
following 
the 
election 

and the announcement of the 
immigration ban.

“Just recently the Lebanese 

Student Association reached out 
to collaborate with the Japan 
Student Association, and as the 
external chair for JSA I plan 
on pursuing this relationship,” 
O’Bryan wrote. “I am hoping 
that this friendship between 
these two groups will continue 
to grow on our campus and all 
around the country. Even if it 
is the Muslim ban that brought 
us together, I hope even after 
it is hopefully defeated we can 
maintain a stronger alliance.”

SUPPORT
From Page 1A

major milestone in Parkinson’s 
disease where quality of life goes 
down, mortality goes up, injuries go 
up — hip fractures, skull fractures, 
things like that,” he said.

“(The symposium) is one of 

many concrete mechanisms by 
which we can get people in the 
common space to begin talking 
about these different ideas,” Dauer 
said.

He said the center’s goal is 

“to foster dialogue so people 
with different perspectives can 
challenge each other so that we 
can come up with ideas that are not 
obvious to one discipline by itself. 
It’s sort of analogous to the idea 
of neurochemicals — how do they 
interact to create unique things?”

Speakers for the event included 

researchers 
from 
various 

departments at the University, 
like the Department of Biomedical 
Engineering, as well as researchers 
from Michigan State University. 
Presentations included molecular 

research 
to 
optimize 
animal 

models, 
as 
well 
as 
imaging 

techniques to better understand 
the structures and mechanisms 
involved in Parkinson’s disease.

In addition to inviting leading 

researchers to the University from 
local and national institutions, 
Dauer emphasized the importance 
of educating the future generation 
in 
research. 
The 
symposium 

series provides a place for younger 
researchers to present research 
findings, engaging in the larger 
research community.

“We saw this line drawn 

between 
these 
presentations, 

which 
was 
really 
interesting, 

but of course we all use different 
techniques and strategies to get 
at these questions,” said Matthew 
Gaidica, 
a 
neuroscience Ph.D 

candidate, in his presentation. 
“Bringing those people together 
— the ones that think about 
molecules and chemicals and the 
ones that think about circuits 
and motor behavior — is really 
important because we’re attacking 
this disease on multiple fronts.”

Samuel 
Pappas, 
research 

investigator and post-doctorate in 
the Dauer Lab, echoed Gaidica’s 
sentiments on the importance of 
diversity in research.

“There 
was 
everything 

from molecular work in new 
animal 
models 
to 
(positron 

emission tomography) imaging 
in humans and really modern 
electrophysiology 
and 
new 

techniques,” 
Pappas 
said. 
“I 

thought it was a great depth and 
breadth of research and gave a nice 
cross-section of the different types 
of research that are done.”

Dauer emphasized the relevance 

of 
interdisciplinary 
work 
in 

tackling complex diseases like 
Parkinson’s.

“We want people to interact 

so they can come up with ideas 
that are not obvious to either one 
alone,” he said. “This is a long-term 
problem — we hope we can make 
a dent in it, but we ain’t going to 
solve the whole thing. We need 
absolutely to educate people.”

SYMPOSIUM
From Page 1A

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