Centering Equity in Community-Based E-Mobility Projects: An Expert Panel (Text Version)

This is a text version of Centering Equity in Community-Based E-Mobility Projects: An Expert Panel, presented on Nov. 8, 2023.

Gabe Klein, Joint Office of Energy and Transportation: Thank you so much, Bridget, and thanks to all of you for joining us today for this important webinar on centering equity in community-based e-mobility projects. It should really be an excellent way to spend the next hour and a half with plenty of time for discussion as well as audience Q&A.

I want to thank our staff, Bridget who you just met, Austin, Steve, Kristen, and all the people behind the scenes that make this work happen and these webinars happen, and also our awesome panelists and speakers and experts for sharing their expertise from five case studies today from across the country, including lessons learned so far from work with Native Sun Community Power Development in the upper Midwest, EVNoire work in the mid-Atlantic, San Joaquin council of governments work in Stockton, CARB's work throughout California, and NYSERDA's work in the Bronx.

We'll also hear overarching learnings from a soon to be released report as a part of the Joint Office United Support for Transportation or JUST Lab Consortium. And the JUST Consortium is conducting actionable research on integrating equity into federally funded EV infrastructure deployment efforts, which we want to quickly share out as we want to share out this information today so people can incorporate it into their work.

We know, at the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, that there are historic burdens that have been created through previous federal transportation investments, and we think it's best to be honest about that. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity with the bill funds in particular, as well as IRA to invest in a way that fosters sustained community well-being. This topic could not be more important or timely.

As Bridget covered, we're supporting the investment of almost $20 billion in school and transit bus electrification and EV charging infrastructure. And we need to be sure that we and our federal partners are embedding equity and justice in all programs from the beginning, including creating meaningful community engagement efforts that span the entire program life cycle and hopefully extend beyond.

And the way I like to think about this is you don't want to bake a cake and try to put in the sugar afterwards. You want to bake a cake with the essential ingredients up front. And for the Biden administration, this is an absolutely essential ingredient.

Thank you. Thanks to all of you, for the hundreds of people that come to our webinar, for being here and thanks in advance for sending along great questions and comments to foster today's discussion. And I will be going off camera and look forward to listening along with everybody else. Thank you.

Bridget Gilmore, Joint Office of Energy and Transportation: Thanks so much for that, Gabe. That was great. Now I'm going to ask Kristen to pull up our polling question. So, we just have two really quick polling questions just to make sure we're reaching everybody and see where folks are coming in from today. So, if I could– Yeah, perfect.

OK, so we have the first one, is what sector are you coming in from? So, if you can pick the option that closest speaks to you. We'll give it just a little bit. OK. And once it starts kind of filtering off, you can close that one. OK, great. Wow, it looks like we've got a lot of folks from the EV industry here today. That's very cool to see. Lots of folks across the government and in non-government public sector. So that's great. Thank you so much. We can go to the next polling question.

OK, so this one is, what region of the country are you coming from? We also have an international option that is not a US-based portion of the country. We'll give it just a little bit then we can close it when results start filtering. Great, thanks so much. So yeah, it looks like a lot of folks from the Northeast, but pretty good spread. We do have one person internationally. Welcome, thanks for joining us.

Awesome. So, from there, we can start passing it along, really get into the meat of today's webinar. I'd like to pass it off to Patricia Welkershelmer, and I would, yeah, love to allow you to facilitate the rest of the intros for folks as they start going.

Patricia Weikersheimer, Argonne National Laboratory: Thank you very much, Bridget. Thanks for the introduction and thank you all for being here. I want to reiterate that. We want to thank the Joint Office for hosting this webinar, which is based on the outcomes of task 5 of the Joint Offices JUST Lab Consortium which gave just described. The JUST Consortium comprises the department of energy and national laboratories, including Argonne National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

The presentations you're about to hear reflect very different projects and programs that seek to advance equity in e-mobility projects. There are various stages of implementation reaching a variety of usually underserved audiences or rather communities in various geographic locations. So, five speakers will give very top-level overviews of their projects. The first three presenters speak from a project level viewpoint, and the fourth and fifth presenters speak from mostly, but not entirely a program level perspective.

Our final speaker will present the principal's report that he and others at Lawrence Berkeley prepared as part of our JUST Consortium task. The report synthesizes the information from more than 60 sources published between 2015 and 2023. It describes three key activities to support informed decision making in these projects, in these e-mobility projects designed to advance equity. After our final speaker, we'll move on to a panel discussion, after which there'll be time for questions. As Bridget mentioned, feel free to submit your questions through the Q&A.

I'm about to hand it over to our first speaker, Rob Blake, but first I'd like to introduce him. Rob is a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Nation, and he is the owner of Solar Bear which is pronounced Gizis-o-makwa in Ojibwe. Solar Bear is a solar installation company located in Minneapolis. Rob is also the executive director of Native Sun Community Power Development, a nonprofit also located in Minneapolis. His passion is spreading the word about renewable energy through communication, cooperation and collaboration. So, Rob you can take it from here.

Robert Blake, Native Sun Community Power Development: (Greeting in Ojibwe), everyone. Hi, my name is Robert Blake, just like Patricia said, and I am the executive director of Native Sun Community Power Development. The upper Midwest inter-tribal electric vehicle charging network is a private public partnership between Sage, which is the utility authority at Standing Rock, and of course, this is the electric nation which we decided to name this project.

But this is creating fast charging infrastructure to connect tribal reservations with job opportunities, economic development, medical providers, and other critical services in between these tribal nations. As everyone probably knows, we also have a big powwow community too. And so, we do have different events like that in our respective communities. And this is also to connect those tribal members that are going in between tribal nations in those communities on the powwow trail, which we like to call it.

The timeline of this project is 39 months. The budget is $13.9 million. We've got about $7.2 million in cost sharing. And the opportunities here is really leveraging the data and lessons learned from these tribal communities to develop, demonstrate and deploy, and replicate this program to expand in a sustainable and electrified transportation to underserved communities with EVs data analysis, education, and outreach.

Historically, these communities have kind of been last at getting this particular type of investment and technology. So, it's a really wonderful thing to see that these projects are being put at the first and the fourth for getting this type of infrastructure and investment. And so that's kudos to the Biden administration and the Justice40 initiative.

The lead principal investigator on this is myself and Joe McNeil. Lisa Daniels is the project director along with Joe Parkhurst from Native Sun. Key partners are obviously Standing Rock, American Lung, Sage, the Standing Rock Renewable Energy Power Authority, American Lung Association, Conexus Capital, eFormative Options, and the Minnesota Center for Energy Environment, CEE.

Supporting partners are Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Power, OtterTail Power, Xcel Energies, ZEF energy. We have a lot of community partners all through Red Lake and Standing Rock and of course, other tribal nations in the Midwest through Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Next slide, please.

Our project approach and the outcomes have been just the launching and engagement into these tribal communities. We're just getting over COVID too, so the powwows have just now started to ramp up. And so, we see a lot of our engagement going to the powwows, kind of being there, getting information out into the community, and just kind of explaining what the opportunities are with electric vehicles.

Implementation and testing. So obviously we're in Northern Minnesota. We're out in the plains in North Dakota so it's very, very cold– it gets very cold in the wintertime. So, I think being to be able to test out a lot of these electric vehicles, seeing how the charging stations, seeing how everything holds up, I think is really going to be good to be able to have that and to be able to show that on the DOE website. So, we'll have all that available and we'll be tracking all that available as we go.

Yes, that is correct. That building right there is the Red Lake Government Center. That is the first project that we put the solar on top of the Red Lake Nation there. So, the idea was to allow the community to see that they can be a part of the energy transition. And if they see it, then they can do it. So that was the reason for that. But it's a beautiful building.

Analysis and community outreach, really, is just being able to take all the information and being able to break it down and to be able to do the outreach that we're going to need to do in these respective communities. So, create a sustainable ecosystem to expand equitable access to clean, affordable EV transportation, improve fuel diversity, increase local resiliency, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for rural, historically under-resourced and underserved upper Midwest tribes with this.

So, I've been approached by tribes all over the country. They're very interested in seeing how this project is going to work, how it's going to happen, and the lessons that we're going to learn from this. So excited to do that. And so far, all the tribal nations that we've been involved with have been very supportive. They're excited to be a part of this.

So, I always say too, if you build it, they will come. And so, if we put down one or two or three charging stations in a community, then what I'm hoping is that will then branch out into the rest of the community. Understand, everyone, we're also talking about communities that were dealing with energy poverty. So, this is a big issue in these communities. So, any way that we can reduce fuel cost for these communities is just another way to keep the lights on, to keep the heat on, and of course, obviously in the summertime, air conditioning is going to be a big thing here in the future too with climate change.

The project objectives address barriers to the upper Midwest tribal members, advancing access to clean, affordable transportation, and demonstrating EVs in tribal communities. The impact through installation of charging infrastructure, connect Standing Rock to Red Lake Nation and with the other 21 reservations.

And I just want to point this out to everyone too that there used to be an old thing where tribes used to say, we've got good medicine in our community, so we want to bring it to another community, and we want to be able to share that. And I kind of feel like this is what we're doing. We're taking this good medicine that we have here and we're going to share this with other communities, and in a sense, we're going to open these trading routes. And I think that's what needs to happen.

So, I see a lot of repairs here happening. I think in the past, I think the government kind of broke us apart by having US compete for grants and whatnot, made us compete against each other, and now I think this is a beautiful project in a sense that they're actually helping us bring us together and connect us. And so, I really do like that kind of aspect of it. I know maybe not everyone's looking at it that way, but I look at it that way.

Lower the burden of transportation costs and create systems of clean energy mobility across these rural states, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. And key outcomes; deployed 19 commercial residential and transit EVs. I think, guys, this is everything from trucks to vans to, I mean, Tesla to Bolts, Honda Ionics. I mean, we have them all for these different programs in these communities.

So, they're going to be testing them, they're going to be seeing how they're going to stand up to the inclement weather that they're going to be dealing with, and they're really going to provide a service to both these communities. So, it's really going to be exciting. Install 55 DC fast chargers and 60 level II providing at least one level II for all 23 nations in reaching at least 10,000 individuals in these communities.

So, this is really exciting, and I hope that this sparks a much bigger outline of more renewable energy infrastructure being built in these communities, tribal utilities, EVs, manufacturing, you name it. I really hope that tribal nations are a part of the energy transition. So Miigwetch, everyone and thank you for having me.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you very much, Rob. Let me introduce our next speaker, Dr. Shelley Francis. She's a former medical school faculty member, a public health executive, tech entrepreneur, and a transportation disruptor. Dr, Francis is the co-founder and managing partner at EVNoire technology consultancy focused on electric, connected, shared, and autonomous mobility solutions.

EVNoire's work focuses on two pillars, e-mobility best practices and e-mobility diversity, equity, and inclusion. Recognized as one of the top global women in EVs, Dr. Francis is also a former National Board director for the Electric Vehicle Association. It's all yours Dr. Francis.

Dr. Shelley Francis, EVNoire: Thank you. Wonderful to be here with everyone this afternoon. So just giving you a high-level overview of our project. It is the mid-Atlantic electrification project and want to acknowledge that we have a whole host of amazing partners that we're working with across this four-entity region. We're in DC, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia with Virginia Clean Cities and Virginia Department of Energy as the project primes and leads. So, we can go forward.

So, as you heard, our organization focuses on two pillars of work. It's e-mobility best practices and e-mobility DEI. And so, our idea is that we're working across the e-mobility sector, working on electric connected shared and autonomous mobility. And so, what that simply means all is that Terry Travis, and myself, who are co-founders and managing partners, we are leading teams of engineers, data and research scientists, e-mobility consultants, as well as charging infrastructure and network consultants.

And we're working with both the private and public sector to help them craft and implement their electrification/decarbonization strategies. So, we can move forward to the next slide. And this is just a quick snapshot of some of our team members here and again, for us, it's really important that our team is reflective of the diverse communities and partners that we work with moving forward.

So, getting to the meat of the crux of our conversation today. So, the mid-Atlantic electrification project focuses on this area. So, our charge as this project was to be the education and outreach technical lead, and the idea is that this is a project that is seeking to electrify transportation across a four-state or four-region ecosystem.

Now, what we're doing is we're electrifying corridors in terms of transportation corridors. We're electrifying work at airports and ports. We're working with communities and public/private partners to ensure that we have equitable access to this technology. So, whether we're electrifying transit buses, working with rideshare companies and drivers, the idea is that we need to work collaboratively to really understand the e-mobility and the mobility needs of the respective communities and stakeholders. So, we can go on to the next slide.

So, one of the core or crux goals of our organization is really making sure that while we're working with different partners that the partner voice is really helping to drive the process. And so, for us, in this particular process, it was really important to make sure that we centered community voices and stakeholder voices. And obviously here, this is why this strategy is really important because what we say in our work is that those who are closest to the problem are generally closest to the solution and they have a good idea that what's going to work really well in their respective community.

It's also really important to do more listening often than talking to really better understand the historical context because we know, as Dr. Klein said, that the historical inequities really play a significant role in how the transportation landscape looks today. So, it's really important to understand that historical context and to understand the cause of the problems and the barriers, as well as potential opportunities and solutions to address e-mobility and transportation needs.

And then also another key piece is to really make sure you're engaging in communities in an authentic way. Many times, when people say, oh, well, this x community didn't participate or we didn't hear from them, sometimes that's because we're not engaging the communities in an authentic and meaningful way, giving them the opportunity to engage. So again, it's really important to give them the opportunity to weigh in on some of these key issues that they usually have a good idea of what might work to solve them.

So going on to the next slide, this was our approach. So, when we go into working on e-mobility projects, we always start off with understanding the context in which we are operating in. So, we do that by facilitating a landscape assessment. And so, we're doing a lot of discovery work. We're looking at data, we're looking at where charging infrastructure is and isn't, we're talking and reaching out to key stakeholder groups, and then we utilize that data to inform what practice, policy, and the pilots look like.

As part of this, we're doing a lot of ongoing outreach and engagement throughout that process. So, whether we're facilitating EV hybrid drives or facilitating a campaign to help people understand multimodal electrification and its benefits and what it means to them, that's these first three steps are really important in the critical piece of our process.

And then, of course, we're doing evaluations. So, we're doing process evaluation as well as outcome and impact evaluation so we can make sure that, as we move through the project or move through our strategy, that we're really doing the things that we think are going to make that impact. And if we need to pivot and refine, and we have that evaluation data to be able to make an informed decision on what that looks like.
So going on to the last slide. So just the last couple points here are some of the key outcomes and findings so far. Overall, in terms of what the project has accomplished, we've installed 300, close to 400 charging stations. This project budget was close to $15 million. There are multiple project partners. As you can see here, we couldn't do it without these different project partners and different experts at the table. And part of our work, we've done actually close to 30 educational and outreach events, as well as facilitating a lot of critical data research as part of this project.

And in conclusion, I want to just thank our research team and our project team. Danielle Cherry-Hoover has been with the project since we launched three years ago. Alex Baad is our regional program manager and Dr. Mint Khan was the outreach manager for the project as well. So, thank you and looking forward to our Q&A session.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you so much, Dr. Francis. Next up is Christine Corrales. She is San Joaquin Valley– she's a San Joaquin Valley Native from Stockton, California interested in social equity and public health issues as they intersect with urban planning. Before starting her career in the public sector, she worked for various non-profit and community-based organizations engaging directly with communities of color on education, housing, and health equity issues. She serves as the manager of planning with the San Joaquin Council of Governments where she leads a diverse team on regional housing, climate resiliency, clean mobility, and community partnerships. Christine, it's all yours.

Christine Corrales, San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG): Thanks, Patricia. Greetings from the West Coast, everyone. As was mentioned, my name is Christine Corrales and I serve as the planning manager at the San Joaquin Council of Governments. We're here in Stockton, California. And I'm the project manager for the Stockton Mobility Collective. I oversee the administration and implementation of the Stockton Mobility Collective which is funded with a $7.5 million grant from the sustainable transportation equity project or. STEP is a program administered by the California Air Resources Board. Next slide.

So, to briefly provide some geographic, social and place context for Stockton in San Joaquin County, the region is located within the Northern California megaregion. So, to the West of us is the San Francisco Bay Area, and to the North of us is the Sacramento capital region.

San Joaquin County experiences disproportionately high poverty and unemployment rates compared to the state-wide average. While housing is relatively affordable in this region compared to our neighbors, there's a housing affordability crisis going on with our longtime residents here in San Joaquin County.

Additionally, because of the land use patterns and relatively low population density in this area, it's not feasible to provide the level of transit service you might find in more urban contexts. So, what that means is that for somebody who has limited access to a private vehicle is transit dependent and/or is living with limited financial means, transportation security, or the confidence in which you're able to get to where you need to go when you need to, it can make it really difficult to meet your daily needs.

So, at a high level, the Stockton Mobility Collective was established by SJCOG and is comprised of several partners with the shared mission of increasing transportation options and access in Stockton, with a focus of serving disadvantaged and low-income communities. Our project approach is to provide a suite of new mobility pilot programs.

So, within the Stockton Mobility Collective, we're seeking to provide access to 100% electric car sharing and bike sharing programs. We're working on integrating the shared mobility options in our Vamos EZHub mobility as a service app or a Maas app. Additionally, we're offering incentives or prepaid debit cards to reduce transportation costs for families and households that qualify. But in addition to this suite of mobility programs, our SMC project also includes a workforce component and a community engagement component.

So today I'll just be focusing very quickly on a couple of challenges and successes outcomes to date on the next slide. So sorry this came out really small, but I wanted to highlight just a few of these challenges. As we identified station locations for our Miocar program, we pursued partnerships, and the project team had to assess readiness and feasibility at various sites throughout our project area.

One of our biggest successes in the process was working with a site partner that already had existing or had plans in place for EVSE. This partner was the Housing Authority of the County of San Joaquin, and so this partnership really was a fruitful one for SJCOG, because it really aligned our goals around serving low income and disadvantaged populations with a partner who could provide a site access and had already done some of the heavy legwork of getting EVSE installed.

In this process of identifying our station locations, we also heard from our community members. And there were several priority sites on our list that were city owned. And so, we worked with the city to assess feasibility for carshare stations at their sites. But within that process, we did come across a longer list of questions and challenges to address before we could start on any EVs installation.

So as a result of our work with the city, our project has really endured quite a few challenges and delays in the process. But I think it's important to note that this is the first public carsharing program to be implemented in our community, and the city has been supportive from the beginning to see Miocar stations available at its community centers, libraries, and parks in the project area.

But because we're the first, there are a lot of departments to consult and challenges to sort through. One, for example, that we didn't anticipate was sorting through and determining which entity would own and maintain EVSE. And I think to date, we're about 90% there and very close to executing a number of agreements so that we could start the permitting process.

So, we started all this back in, I want to say, 2021 in the spring. And to date, we still do not have those permits, but I would still consider it a success that we worked through multiple implementation challenges in the process with the local jurisdiction. And the optimist in me sees a bigger picture here. That we're paving the way for future public charging in our community and/or future public charging or public car share programs. And then, so I'll just skip to our last slide with some key takeaways from our process to date.

This is a multi-year process and we're about 2/3 of the way through our project. And the biggest takeaway I would share, I know there's a long list here, but the biggest one I would share is that for any project that involves multiple parties, multiple stakeholders, and the community, I think it's important to anticipate that there's going to be significant investment of staff time and resources on problem solving, on partnership development, stakeholder engagement, community engagement, and of course, the customer service and once the programs are up and running. And with that, I'll conclude my remarks. Thanks for having me.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you, Christine. Our next speaker is Bree Swenson who is an air pollution specialist in the California Air Resources Board or CARB's sustainable transportation and communities division. She leads the sustainable transportation equity project, also called STEP. It's a grant program where she supports community-based investments in clean transportation projects intended to increase access to destinations and services without relying on personal vehicles. It's all yours, Bree.

Bree Swenson, California Air Resources Board (CARB): Thanks, Patricia. So, this is the same program that funds the Stockton Mobility Collective that you just heard about. So, I'm glad Christine had a chance to share how their project is going. So, STEP is a funding program run by the Air Resources Board using cap and trade auction proceeds to fund clean transportation projects. Next slide.

STEP addresses two main challenges. So, there's climate change in California. The transportation sector accounts for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions. But it's not just about electrifying the transportation sector. We also need to get people out of their cars and into shared and active modes of transportation to meet our climate commitments. We also are trying to address transportation inequity through STEP. So, we're living in a transportation system that highly favors car travel that has a legacy of injustice that's been put on the state's low income and black Indigenous people of color residents.

And through a barriers study to clean transportation that the state did back in 2016, we identified some barriers to low-income residents accessing clean transportation, including the state needing to direct more funding to projects that were actually things the residents wanted and needed. So, you need that, community context and community engagement built into project selection. And that's what STEP tries to do. Next slide.

So, this is STEP's primary goal is to increase transportation equity by addressing community-identified needs, increasing access to key destinations and services, and reducing GHG emissions and vehicle miles traveled. We're trying to accomplish this through two types of grants: planning grants and implementation grants. These are available to local governments, community-based organizations, and tribes, and we do require partnerships between those entities and community-led decision making to be a big factor in implementing these projects. And you heard a little bit about that from Christine.

The STEP focuses on the state's priority populations. Sorry, go back to the previous slide. Thank you. The STEP focuses on the state's priority population. So disadvantaged and low-income communities in California. And we fund a variety of clean transportation services and supporting projects within the program that work together to holistically address clean transportation needs within a single community.

So as an example, we have a project that STEP funded in South LA which includes a universal basic mobility wallet pilot, a new electric shuttle service, an electric car share expansion, an e-bike lending library, active transportation infrastructure, a workforce development program that includes maintenance trainings for e-bikes, vehicles, and charging infrastructure, outreach and education activities like open streets events, and then also resident capacity building to help them lead the governance of these projects.

So that's all one project in one community. SJCOGs example is another one where we're trying to really get that holistic view of everything that needs to happen to improve and make clean transportation accessible. Next slide. So, our original STEP grants are now about halfway, a little bit more than halfway through implementation. And like Christine said, there have been some delays as these communities are learning what all needs to happen to install EV charging infrastructure and to implement these e-mobility services.

I have some of the more quantifiable benefits of our projects listed here. So, vehicle miles traveled reductions, GHG reductions, travel cost savings, air pollution reductions. But there are a lot of benefits on here that are not quantifiable and we're trying to figure out how to better how to better share those outcomes. So, outcomes like increases in quality of life, increases in economic and community resiliency, and access to economic opportunities, both through workforce development, but also through just access to transportation to get to jobs and schools and stuff.

So, we've learned a lot so far. We just closed our second request for application, so our second cycle of funding, and the program is significantly oversubscribed. So, there's a lot of demand for these projects and we are continuing to learn from them and implement those lessons learned in our future cycles and I'm looking forward to discussing some of those details in this panel today.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you, Bree. Our next speaker is Rachel Fishman, who is a clean transportation project manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, also called NYSERDA. She oversees a portfolio of NYSERDA's clean transportation initiatives, including the New York State Clean transportation prizes, an $85 million initiative to improve mobility and accelerate electrification in underserved communities. It's all yours, Rachel.

Rachel Fishman, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA): Thanks so much, Patricia, and great to be here today. As Patricia mentioned, my name is Rachel Fishman and I work for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority or NYSERDA. And I'm here today to talk about the clean transportation prizes program and showcasing just one of our 10 great projects awarded under that initiative called the Bronx is breathing. So with that, we'll move over to the next slide, please.

So just a little bit about the clean transportation prices. In general, the idea behind the clean transportation prize is initiative, it's an initiative run by NYSERDA, is to electrify transportation, reduce air pollution, and enhance clean mobility in underserved communities in New York State.

The idea behind it is similar to the STEP program that Bree was just talking about, where we had planning grants that preceded grand prize awards. So really encouraging our applicants to spend time in their communities and really refining their proposals before we looked at the implementation plans and awarded 10 grand prize winners. This is an $85 million program; each award is between 7 and 10 million dollars.

And so, we are highlighting one of these 10 projects, which is the Bronx is Breathing led by Volvo. And so just a little bit about the Bronx is Breathing project. They brought in 10 partners, five of which were local organizations based in the Bronx. And just to level set about the community that this project is based in, which is Hunts Point, it is home to about 13,000 residents 40% of whom live below the poverty line and asthma rates are 2.5 times higher than the New York City average.

There are about 15,000 truck trips that go through this neighborhood each day, generating high levels of ozone particulate matter, nitrous oxides and the like. And so, there's really a huge need for cleaner mobility in this neighborhood. And so, this project was setting out to implement three interdependent strategies. The first of which is a publicly accessible and freight-focused charging hub paired with on-site solar and storage. The second is to partner with an existing trucker’s cooperative to launch an electric trucker’s cooperative, and address some of the economic barriers to freight ownership.

And third is modeling EV deployment paired with battery electric refrigeration in a food delivery fleet. So, this project was also working with a food rescue organization that brings food to pantries throughout the Bronx. And they are working to electrify their refrigeration units as well. So those, together, form the basis of the project, which was really informed by the planning work and the community engagement that this project did. So, with that, we'll move over to the next slide.

So, during the planning phase, the Volvo team really talked to Hunts Point residents. They went out into the community, and they asked them what it was that they wanted to see from a project like this. And what they heard was that economic opportunity was critical. And so, to that end, they built in training and certification programs into their project plans. And from an industry perspective, they acknowledged the barriers to transitioning to electric fleets and working to address those through their charging solutions and kind of continually iterating on their program.

So, this project is still in its early phase. It will be implemented for the next three or four years. It just got launched at the start of this year. But so far, they have really done a great job at continuing that engagement and that level setting within communities. And so, they hosted a community workshop and they, with that, co-developed a community benefits agreement really codifying what those benefits were that they heard within the community into a binding agreement.

They targeted workforce development and training for local residents. So, they were talking about how they heard that economic development opportunity. And so, they are providing four times a year training for folks to become commercial driver's license certified, lunch and learns, things of that nature. And really, also transparently communicating the timeline that this is going to take a while and that there's going to be some construction disturbances, and really being transparent about that.

So, looking ahead, they are planning to do a lot more work here, from forming a steering committee of local groups to inform this project as it goes along, to thinking about space planning workshops, working with local artists on wayfinding, continuing outreach within the community, and also providing the education, job training, and learning panels that we discussed. They're really focusing on looking at who doesn't attend and figuring out how to reach them as well.

So finally, for key takeaways, on the program side, so for folks like NYSERDA implementing these programs, we've really discovered that a phased approach yields a really great opportunity to have these organizations that maybe haven't worked within communities build that capacity and build the cultural competency to work within the communities. And then on the same side, providing funds and coaching and training opportunities for those community organizations, also to build the capacity to take on big projects like these.

For project teams, what the Bronx is Breathing and some of our other projects have learned was really just understanding that the community needs and desires are the foundation of developing a project and to not go into a project assuming that you know what a community needs. Co-design projects are really the ones that are the most sustainable.

And also, we are looking to incorporate community organizations into project teams and pay them to really get out into the site and visit and talk to people and really get into the community and physically be there as well, we found is really important. And providing multiple pathways for participation. So, whether it's online or in person or through surveys, et cetera. Piggybacking on existing meetings and events, we found is very helpful where people already go to these events, and then setting expectations early and often.

So next up we are planning to share more news and updates from all 10 of the projects via our website, and planning to publish a data dashboard to show the progress that these projects are making. And finally, also at the end of these projects, we'll be sharing replication playbooks to hopefully provide some good lessons learned and strategies for others to implement. So next slide. With that, I'll close. Here's our website where you can see our first update and bulletin and where the data dashboards will be found. So, thank you for that.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you, Rachel. Our final speaker is Andrew Satchwell, a research scientist and deputy leader in the energy markets and policy department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he leads the financial analysis of electric utility regulatory and business models. His current work quantifies the financial impacts of distributed energy resources on utility profitability and customer rates and bills. Andy and a team of other analysts at Berkeley researched and prepared the JUST Consortium's task 5 principles report which you'll hear about right now.

Andrew Satchwell, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Great. Thanks so much, Patricia, especially for coordinating and facilitating what's a really excellent panel. Yeah, so as Patricia mentioned, I'll be providing an overview of this forthcoming report that identifies a number of program designs and strategies for equitable EV deployment. This report picks up on, and I think includes many of the themes and implementation experiences you've heard already from the panel. So, my presentation is really intended to fill in some additional information gaps and maybe provide a broader perspective.

Before I begin, I certainly want to thank and acknowledge my co-authors, Jason, Sydney, and Alexandra, who pored through dozens of publications and developed much of the content you'll see here. And also want to acknowledge and thank the Joint Office for supporting this work and certainly making this report possible. So next slide, please. Thank you.

So partly as a result of the sharp increase in state and federal EV funding, policymakers, state officials, community leaders, and program managers are really challenged to ensure equitable community level outcomes while accelerating the deployment of EV at a pretty unprecedented scale.

So as these decision makers begin to implement more equity-focused EV programs or revise their existing ones, we wanted to provide an understanding of common practices across the US. So as Patricia noted earlier, this forthcoming report synthesizes and categorizes information from more than 60 sources published over the last sort of eight years, including national, regional, and state level EV program summaries, as well as updates, policy briefs, proposals, white papers, and reports.

As an outcome of the report's literature review, we identified three key activities, each with their own supporting processes. And I'll describe those in more detail in the following slides. But really want to say, in researching these key activities, we found two fundamental practices common to equity-focused EV deployment programs. First, customizing and designing strategies through community partnerships, and the other fundamental practice was ensuring community participation in the decision-making process. Let's go to the next slide. Thank you.

So, building equitable programs through transparent and inclusive partnerships with local communities is a key activity that we found across many of these equity-focused EV programs. Cultivating effective partnerships allows for the integration of community perspectives and their priorities as these EV programs are planned and implemented. We identified three supporting processes for this first key activity and provide some examples of strategies for overcoming those barriers. They'll all be detailed in the forthcoming report. And I just want to call out a few notable examples today.

So one is that institutional decision makers should really prioritize relationship building through frequent communication among existing and new stakeholders and institutions. We found an example of Puget Sound Energy, which is a utility hosting workshops with local community stakeholders to better understand the needs of low-income customers. And then a year later, the resource noted that Puget Sound Energy's relationships with local organizations and the feedback that it obtained were instrumental in developing EV pilots based on these mutually beneficial objectives between the utility and the community.

As another example, it may be difficult for capital-constrained organizations to participate in cost sharing programs, especially that require upfront or lump sum payments, as it can reduce their capacity to fund other projects. So, some publications we reviewed suggested that staging payments or pushing those financial commitments closer to project execution timelines can reduce that gap.

And last, rural communities and disadvantaged communities may have significant access barriers to certain technologies like computers, smartphones, or the internet. So, creating alternative participation pathways like outdoor all-weather computer kiosks is a potential solution to this problem. These sorts of central locations can also allow organizations to refine that sign-up process, walk users through each step, educate communities and residents on using the program, and administer user surveys throughout the program. Next slide, please.

So, equity-focused EV programs should also recognize the existing barriers to EV deployment and create alignment between program goals and a community's needs and wants. So, the second key activity in our report goes beyond just identifying engaging partners that I talked about previously, but requires several important activities, including proactive outreach, fair and culturally competent communication, and collaboration throughout a program's development and implementation.

Like the previous activity, we identified three supporting processes here, each with their examples of strategies to overcome barriers. And I'll just call out a few examples here. So, an important first step in a program as it often dictates the electrical capacity, availability, existing meter electricity access, all of those infrastructure needs, as well as the benefiting populations.

So, if any of these electrical upgrades are needed, early location identification may be particularly critical to support this EV supply infrastructure, especially for multi-unit dwellings. Several resources that we found and cited in our report found that locating these multi-unit dwelling sites was one of the biggest challenges. So successful installations can be achieved through early buy in from homeowner’s associations, for example, building owners, property managers, and residents.

As another example, environmental justice tools like the federal climate and economic justice screening tool or California's CalEnviroScreen tool, or even Argonne National laboratories' EV charging Justice40 MAP tool can provide valuable insights into the history and context of inequality in a program's jurisdiction. These tools can display detailed statistical disadvantages at the county, or sometimes the census tract level, which can be useful for understanding disparities within a community.

And last, we reviewed a number of publications suggesting low-income customers are much more likely to purchase used vehicles, pay with cash, participate in car scrapping programs, and rely on upfront incentives rather than guaranteed financing programs. So, decision makers could create programs and build development goals around these alternative supply channels and alternative financing, and consider things like leasing options, point of sale rebates, or even short-term rentals. Last slide or next slide. Thanks.

So as our last key activity, we found that planning and implementation of equity-focused EV programs should include continuous measurement, evaluation, and improvement. This key activity includes using a needs assessment at the onset of a program to influence its design, as well as continued assessments to facilitate achievement of equity goals throughout the project's lifetime. Like the other key activities, we had three supporting processes here and I'll call out some examples.

So one is that EV supply equipment deployment, especially in public or multi-unit dwelling settings must comply with local zoning permitting and other codes and statutes that themselves may impact the installation and operation of this equipment. Decision makers can gain valuable experience by working through zoning and permitting issues at the local government level so that they can align deployment practicalities with these various programmatic goals.

Another example is that rules and requirements among local utilities can sometimes delay project realization, and consequently, utilities should be engaged at multiple levels of a program, and as early as often in that program's development is possible. State regulators can be strong partners in this area as they often oversee things like interconnection requirements and have existing relationships with local utilities.

And last, qualitative surveys can really help identify significant, direct and even indirect metrics for EVSE, EV supply equipment implementations. So, for example, the report references a US Department of Transportation 25-question survey to measure equity in transportation workforce data.

Programs can build on their surveys and questionnaire results to create both evaluation metrics and general program targets, things like reducing emissions from medium and heavy-duty vehicles. For example, if a survey identified vehicle emissions as a critical metric to monitor, establishing targets for electrifying school buses could generate meaningful outcomes for a community. Next slide, please.

So, in conclusion, I think our findings underscore the importance of meaningful community engagement, particularly in low income, disadvantaged, marginalized areas to overcome these barriers in equitable EV deployment. Whether that's from the identification of these key activities to the description of these relevant processes, I think our report tries to highlight the critical role of community involvement in developing and implementing effective equity-focused EV programs.

And ultimately, decision makers should adopt what we discuss in our report to fit their unique context. So much of this is context dependent. I think this would allow decision makers to really identify impactful techniques and build these successful approaches that develop partnerships, identify community needs, and improve programs. Let's go to the last slide, please.

So again, thanks for your attention and time today. This is my contact information, if you have any questions. I've also added some links here to some other recent energy equity-related publications from our research group. So, with that, Patricia, I will hand the mic back to you for the discussion.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you very much and thank you all for those excellent presentations. I'm going to start– looking at the time, I think we have about 15 minutes for the panel discussion, which will leave us 15 minutes for attendee Q&A. I'm going to start with some community engagement questions because what became clear in preparing all of the case studies associated with your work is that real community engagement is absolutely key. It's a foundation on which a successful EVSE program is built.

And I would say to that building trust and facilitating two-way communication, that it's not a single conversation. That engagement is an ongoing conversation. So, I want to ask our panel about some of their preferred strategies and best practices. And I'm going to, because sometimes it can be a little awkward to start a panel discussion, I'm going to call out a couple of people who mentioned compensating community members for their time in some way and that compensation can take many forms. So, DR. Francis, Bree, who would like to start?

PANEL DISCUSSION

Dr. Shelley Francis: So, I'm happy to start, Patricia. So yes, when we talk about working with partners, I want to address the compensation question, but will we also get a chance to discuss just overall best practices in terms of working with community partners? Would this be an appropriate time to adjust that?

Patricia Weikersheimer: Very appropriate time to do that.

Dr. Shelley Francis: OK, perfect. So, here's what I'm going to say about where to get started because I get this question a lot in terms of, OK, well, we know we have to do engagement with this particular project, how do we get started? And so, what I would suggest is that engaging with communities, particularly diverse communities begin with the foundation of respect, cultural humility, and a commitment to an authentic partnership, which includes compensation. And we'll talk about that very quickly.

But really start off by listening and learning about the specific community needs, their culture, history, values. Also understand the historical context in terms of what has happened around transportation and pollution and infrastructure in the community. Identify local leaders and organizations that can help guide your efforts and that you can work alongside as partners, and they can serve as a bridge to the community.

Then also you should collab with community members to help co-design your strategy, and your thinking about your evaluation process. That helps remove some of the barriers that may limit access to some of the groups that you're seeking to engage with. And then you also want to prioritize equitable participation and remove– prioritize equitable participation, holding events at times where people in the community can attend them. Not in the middle of the day because many people might be working. So that's something that you should evaluate as you begin to work with the communities.

And then also in terms of just building relationships and showing that you're committed to engaging with that community in an authentic and respectful way is go to community events, go be visible, attend local events. That helps demonstrate your commitment to the community's well-being and sustainability. And then also work on maintaining transparency as well as respecting privacy. As you facilitate research, you should be gaining informed consent and continuously seek feedback on your strategy and your approach to doing community input.

You have to remember that a successful partnership and engagement process is ongoing. It's not a one-off. It's also rooted in trust cultural sensitivity and really a desired impact or genuine desire to really make an impact in collaboration with the community.

And in regards to paying them for their time, when you show up to events after hours or during the day, you expect to get compensated and paid, right? So, then that's the same respect that we should have with community partners, is that they're experts, there essentially are consultants in the gateway to the community. So, we need to compensate them for their time. And, sometimes that compensation looks like monetary compensation, but it's OK to ask how people would like to be compensated. So, thank you for that question.

Patricia Weikersheimer: I'd like to ask the speakers to turn on their cameras. Who would like to speak next? Bree.

Bree Swenson: Yeah, I totally agree with what Dr. Francis was saying. And don't have much to add, but I was taking notes on a few things. I would just highlight, in STEP, we really encourage working with residents as early in the process as possible. So even before they apply for a planning grant for funding, we're already expecting that some of that can be used to really help build those partnerships and build that engagement and do a lot of the engagement. But the earlier on, the more likely you can catch things before you go down a road that the residents don't want you to go down.

I would also say, we have to be really careful about power dynamics. Often, we're funding either a community group or a local government and then expecting them to work with each other. And there's a lot of context and history in those relationships sometimes and a lot of power dynamics behind who has the grant agreement with CARB, who has the funding in their hands first. And so, we do have, in STEP, technical assistance providers that can help provide that kind of third-party facilitation if it's needed to help address any kind of flag power dynamics for people that are coming up.

And then from the funding side, I think it's been important for us to try to be as flexible with what our funds can do as possible. We still have some work there in terms of what we can fund, but we are making sure that we can fund compensation for residents of various forms so that they can participate in the different ways we want them to.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Who else would like to speak to this issue, whether it's compensating partners or community members, or just more broadly best practices of community engagement? Looks like, Christine, you're ready.

Christine Corrales: Yeah, I had some specific examples from the Stockton Mobility Collective project to share, various ways in which we're compensating community members and stakeholders for participating in our project. So, what's integrated in our project is ongoing data collection, and part of that is distributing user surveys for our various programs. And with each survey that we distribute, there's always a little bit of an incentive, either a small gift card in the amount of $10 or $15 to just compensate folks for giving their input and their feedback on the programs that they're using. So that's one level of incentive that we're providing to people who choose to give us feedback on the surveys.

We also have a steering committee that we run that provides advice to our project implementation team, and we've stood that up and had it running for the duration of our project thus far. A unique element of our steering committee is that we have eight seats available for residents in the project area to serve as residents at large representatives providing high-level feedback on our project implementation. And in order to be a resident on the committee, you have to apply. And then for each meeting that you participate in, we are stipending each resident $50 per meeting.

And then the other level that we provide is, on the community engagement side, we're a government agency. We don't have the access and the tools and the training necessary to reach all the communities that we need to reach. And so, we really lean into our partnerships with CBOs by providing mini grants like in the amount of 5 to $10,000 for their expertise in helping us get our messaging and our resources to communities that could directly benefit from the programs that we're implementing. So those are a couple of examples where we're compensating our partners and our residents for their work.

Patricia Weikersheimer Excellent.

Robert Blake: Yeah. And then I could probably add to that, Patricia. So, in tribal area space, it's all about Indian tacos. And what I mean by that is we like to break bread on the tribe, on the Res. And there's always some aunties, you know what I'm saying if you all watch Reservation Dogs on FX, there's always some local aunties in the community that could use some work to make some food and you can pay them. And that's how we do it. That's how we like to do it and our thing, so. And just get folks together and just talk about what's happening.

So that's the way that I like to do the engagement and I'm just saying that that's working. So, it's just keeping it simple stupid, and it's really just having some Indian tacos, having some drinks. Tea is really good in tribal country. Natives love tea, iced tea, and they love their Indian tacos. So, if y'all can do that, that's the perfect engagement tool to go into tribal country. And of course, any tacos or frybread, right? It's frybread with topping, if that can help there, Patricia.

Rachel Fishman: I have so little to add to all of these great tips. I mean, I guess one thing I would say to be aware of is just on the contracting side, when you're compensating community organizations, we, in our planning grants, the way that NYSERDA administered them was we paid retroactively for work already accomplished. And what we found was that a lot of these were going under spent. And so, what we have learned from that is really just, like, if there's a way to get creative to pay folks in advance who have fewer resources to begin with, that that's a really helpful way to compensate.

And really also just understanding contracts and walking through them. I mean, this is stuff that a lot of organizations that are smaller and haven't worked with big state organizations like ours that is new. And so, providing that time and that walking through, I think, is also really important. But yeah, to the best practices on actual community engagement and nothing to add, no notes.

Andrew Satchwell: Just to build off what Rachel was saying. We did highlight in that flexibility of the funding mechanisms, we found one reference that we cited in our report that really stressed the flexibility around using funding to help buy down even just some of the EV charging costs, like just having flexibility to use the money for multiple purposes to bring down the overall cost of the program.

And then as far as supporting community involvement and keeping the program going, a lot of these funding mechanisms can be pretty complicated, and state requirements versus federal requirements, just tracking those and managing those can be quite complex. So actually, dedicating funding for people involved in the project to actually track those things and keep an eye on those requirements was another successful example that we noted.

Patricia Weikersheimer: I see that we are closing in on 15 minutes and we have at least 12 questions in the Q&A. So, I want to pass this back to Bridget to manage the Q&A portion.

Bridget Gilmore: That sounds good. Sorry to break up a great conversation, but yeah, we do have so many questions.

Patricia Weikersheimer: But what I should say is that the case studies and the principles report will be available soon. So, if what you're hearing interests you, if you haven't already signed up for Joint Office notices or you aren't watching for that news, do so because these are excellent resources.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

Bridget Gilmore: Yes, thank you. So yeah, I guess just to jump into some of these questions we've received. I see Dr. Francis you had pinged one that you might want to answer. One person has asked, have any projects been scrapped because community members said that they didn't want the project to happen that you all have seen in your work? So, I guess I can direct that to you, Dr. Francis, but anyone is welcome to respond if they've seen projects that folks have said, I don't want this anymore.

Dr. Shelley Francis: So, I have not in my experience, and that's been like a lot of years working in both e-mobility and in the broader public health field. But what I have seen is that projects have pivoted. So, they may have started off doing one thing but because they did a lot of community listening sessions and different engagement or there may have been a lot of pushbacks from community members, the project may have pivoted and included a more comprehensive approach. But I have not seen it scrapped. So, I would love to hear from my other fellow panelists to see if they've experienced that and how that actually was managed.

Bree Swenson: The best example I can think of was not a STEP project, but it was a CARB-funded project in the Bay Area funding electric car-sharing at a few different affordable housing developments. And this was before we had a requirement that community engagement be done prior to applying for funding for implementation.

And so, they went in after the fact and surveyed the residents of the housing developments and asked, how would you use this car-sharing service and stuff? And what they found is that, I think, about half or maybe more than half of the residents didn't have licenses. So, the car-sharing service wouldn't work for them. So, they did make a big pivot. They used that funding for public transit subsidies and for a bike share program and stuff. So, they did different things with that funding, in addition or instead. I'm not sure. But the best example I can come up with.

Bridget Gilmore: Yeah, thanks for that. One question that came in for Rob, if you could speak a little bit more to how you put together the partnership with the 23 tribes, what that process was like.

Robert Blake: Yeah. I mean, well, thankfully I got a lot of attention, right? I got a lot of press that was showing the work that I was doing with Solar Bear and I was installing the solar projects. And that really was helpful in outreach because other tribes were looking at that and– and understand, everyone, this is kind of COVID too a little bit, like at tail end there and the concept of the idea was that casinos were shutting down. And so, there was a lot of revenue being lost for tribes.

So, it was like, hey, man, the sun shines every day. We should really get into electric vehicles because we should stop the pipelines. And this is another form of resistance for Native Americans against the fossil fuel industry. And it was just all these things kind of culminating together. And so, I think that that really helped with that message, right, like getting that out, getting the community involved.

And so that really was, I think, that kind of built a really good base for me. And I think all of our organizations here probably had other work that was pre before we started doing this work that was mine. And so that really was the calling card, I think, out to tribal country and that really helped them be a part of this.

And I think also too, community members were– it's kind of a cultural thing too with Native people, like, with our environment. I was telling like– I always tell like the kids when I go speak to the kids at the reservation schools like, hey, we're not going to be playing pro football. We're probably not going to be playing baseball or singing music in the top 40, but we have this responsibility to take care of the planet and the environment. That is our birthright and that is something to be very proud of.

And the kids resonate with that. They're like, yeah, this is our thing. And so, I think it's kind of a cultural thing too that has really helped. And so, I think all that kind of culmination really has pushed this forward and gotten tribes and other communities involved and wanting to be a part of this. That's my, that's my opinion.

But to really say what every 23 tribal nations, what they're because some of them are thinking to themselves, wow, if we put this electric vehicle charging station in this casino parking lot, we're going to draw more people in here to come spend at our casinos. I mean, there's like all these different reasons that come up, you know what I mean? I'm just trying to get at a few of the things that I think are pulling at people.

Bridget Gilmore: Yeah, got you. Very cool. One question that came up that I think is applicable across a lot of these different presentations, but how are you all thinking about best practices for program metrics and thinking about effectiveness and evaluation?

Rachel Fishman: I'm happy to kick this off. Yeah, so for the clean transportation prizes initiative, we are working with an evaluation expert that is working with all 10 of the winning teams to look at five different benefit areas ranging from energy use to workforce development impacts, to community impacts, to a number of factors. And so, we'll be looking across all of these projects at how they're going to be impacting their communities and how their services are working. And we're publishing a dashboard kind of tracking that progress for the public as well.

To start, we did a baseline survey. So, we went into the communities and provided a survey for just understanding at a baseline, like, how are people getting around today? What are people's main mobility challenges? And so then over time, over the course of these projects, we'll also be following up with users of the services that are implemented through the projects and tracking them with a variety of travel diaries, things like that, and then looking at how their mobility habits are shifting over time. So that's kind of our predominant approach to measurement evaluation.

Christine Corrales: Yeah, I was going to chime in here from our perspective at SJCOG and the Stockton Mobility Collective. There are a lot of requirements through the grant for data collection. But one of the big things that I'm excited that we're incorporating into our user surveys is a set of questions, I think, that might be recognized by transportation researchers in the audience around Transportation Security.

These questions are really about getting to how these new services are impacting people's mobility and freedom to get from point A to B. And I'll be curious to see findings once the programs are or once the grant is complete in terms of how these programs have really impacted people's transportation security and their decisions for getting around. But in addition to those sets of questions, we're also really looking at our utilization data.

So, with our carshare program Miocar, for example, we're getting the data feeds that tell us how many folks are signed up, how many trips are happening every day, how many miles are driven. And it's been exciting to see, since we officially launched the program in April, to see month after month, like, a steady increase in utilization really indicating to us there's a need for this and that we really need to hurry up and expand our program and get those last few stations online. But really, it's not up to us. It's up to the utility at this point, so. Yeah, that's where we are.

Bridget Gilmore: Great. Thanks for that. And then Andy, I saw you had dropped a link in the chat. Do you want to describe a little bit about that?

Andrew Satchwell: Yeah, and this is a, I think, it's actually a really nice report that came from Pacific Northwest National lab with its focus on energy equity metrics, but I think many of them are translatable and worth thinking about. I think it's worth, conceptually, when you talk about metrics, right, you want to think through what metrics are going to provide a high amount of information versus are they readily available.

And it's that, the tension between the two, I think, is something that, as you design these programs, to really think through, is we would love to track certain bits of information but it's just not available, right?

And so, trying to balance that is really the critical kind of conceptual consideration.

Bridget Gilmore: Oh, that makes sense, that balance between the two. And Bree, I thought you just dropped something in as well. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Bree Swenson: It's just a link to the calculator tools that we use to project impacts. We still have to get, on the other side, the actual real impacts of our people using the services like we anticipated from these projections. But that's one tool we have.

Bridget Gilmore: Great. Thanks for sharing. I think that this is a good question based on what Christine was saying too. How do you all envision establishing capacity building partnerships with electric utilities to energize EV sites at scale? Thinking about how they're going to be lots of these different sites and looking to meet Justice40 requirements for federal programming, how are you all, I guess, yeah, helping your projects, or within your project, try to work with the utility to anticipate that a lot of these things might be coming down the road?

Rachel Fishman: Yeah, well, I guess the clean transportation prizes are a utility-funded program. The $85 million comes from the utilities. And so, they really have this vested interest in seeing, are these projects that are going to be scalable and replicable, how are they working? How can we support them? And so, I think we're in a really nice unique position there.

But generally, across any project, I think right where we're engaging the communities early and often and throughout the project, we also want to be engaging the utilities early and often and throughout the project. And working with them on, OK, here are sites that we're anticipating, what is the electrical capacity there? Are there upgrades that are needed? How can we anticipate those?

And utilities also, they have tons of customers, right? And so, if you're trying to get the word out about a project and a service, sometimes there's willingness to help spread the word, whether it's through in-built inserts, I've seen in other states as well. But yeah, there's a lot of ways that utilities can be really helpful partners, and they're thinking about this kind of electrification too and how they fit into that. And so, the more that you engage and brainstorm with them, I think, the better smoother sailing the implementation can tend to be.

Dr. Shelley Francis: And I will jump in. We've had the good fortune of having our utility partners as well as co-ops be part of the project since its inception. So, they've been working with us for the last several years and they had their own projects, or some of them did. So, one of the projects that one of our partners, for instance, is BGE in the Baltimore area. And so, one of their charges was supporting rideshare electrification.

So, they put an installed charging infrastructure at Baltimore-Washington International Airport BWI. They've also been working with a particular community that is disproportionately impacted by transportation emissions and has some mobility gaps. They've deployed an electric carshare program there that has been a huge success. The idea is that, over the life of the project, to deploy hundreds of electric vehicles for the carshare program. So, they've done 50 vehicles. They're going to be doing the remaining vehicles before the project ends.

But in that last year, they've done about 500,000 miles in the EVs. And so, it's been a really strong and well received project by the community. So that's some of the ways that, in our project, utilities are really engaged around the charging infrastructure, deployment looking at grid resiliency, working with community stakeholders to address those specific mobility needs that I spoke about earlier.

Bridget Gilmore: Yeah, that's great. Thanks for sharing. I don't know if anyone else wants to jump in on that one, but I can close this out. I think we have time for maybe one more question, which I think is a great one to end on. How can we help community-based groups shift from doing advocacy to implementing projects like these? What capacity building efforts have worked beyond simply providing funds? Do y'all have any words of wisdom there?

Robert Blake: Yeah, let me take a shot at this, everyone. This is a tough question, Bridget. But you know what, like tell the story, everyone. Man, we all got a story out there. All of you in your communities. All of you got a story out there that you all want to tell, that you want everyone to hear, that you want to see. Everyone, you care about your community. You want to advocate for it. We all want clean air. We all want a better future for our children, for our grandchildren. You know what I'm saying?

I mean, tell that story. You know what I mean? And I think I'm a big believer in the good will attract the good, and in that, that will be a ripple effect. So, I'm a big person on storytelling. I'm a big person on like, OK, we're going to be fighting the pipelines. Let's figure out a way to deal with these multinational oil companies and tell a story around this project. You know what I'm saying? That's what I was thinking. And it resonated, it just resonated. So that would be my advice.

Bridget Gilmore: Christine, I see you have your hand up.

Christine Corrales: Yeah. So, one thing that we're working on at SJCOG– we actually just received another grant. It's a capacity building grant from the state, the Strategic Growth Council, for regional climate collaboratives. And one of the things that I'm excited about this project is that most of our partners are community-based organizations and we're basically in the trenches with them, conducting the planning, conducting the outreach, and developing projects to seek for funding, implementation funding down the road.

And so, I think this is one example maybe of helping our CBO partners build that capacity beyond their advocacy and turning it into projects that are informed by community needs and led by community partners. So, we're just getting this project kicked off, but I see that as a potential pathway to really helping communities implement their own projects.

Bridget Gilmore: That's super cool.

Bree Swenson: That goes along with, how I was thinking about this as well is, local governments need the community groups. And more and more I think we're realizing how much they need them and how much they need their expertise. And so, what we're seeing a lot of is those partnerships where the community group might be doing a lot of the work, but the local government is there to make sure that they have right of way access and to streamline permitting and that kind of thing. And they have their role.

But also, to build those relationships that are consistent. It's not just a one-off relationship for one project. It's like we're seeing capacity, building, and planning applications coming in that are building out these forums basically where community groups can have a consistent communication with the local governments, and that can build a relationship beyond just advocacy into project implementation.

Bridget Gilmore: Super cool.

Rachel Fishman: Dr. Shelley, you said this, like, those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, right? And so, yeah, I think having the ideas stem from these community organizations, and then really like taking the time to work through, OK, how can we build that capacity to help you in whatever role you want to take on in this project be in that position? And I think it's up to us, organizations like NYSERDA, state governments, local governments, federal governments, to provide the funding and the resources to help build that capacity. And so, I've really, really happy to see that happening here in New York and elsewhere.

Bridget Gilmore: That's great. Thank you so much. This hour and a half totally flew by. I can't believe it's already over and time is over and now my dog is barking right on time. But thank you all so much for being here. These are some of the resources from today. And we do have an upcoming webinar that's going to be on new resources for technical assistance for tribal nations, and then we'll also have another webinar coming up on ride electric. So definitely still on topic.

And this has been such a fruitful discussion. So really, thank you all so much for being here. This was really wonderful. And be sure to send us any questions that you didn't get answered today through our website if you'd like to reach out through the contact form. But we hope to see you again soon. Thanks so much.

Patricia Weikersheimer: Thank you.

Bridget Gilmore: Thanks, Patricia. Yeah, thanks, all.