Services - what we do

As set out in our mission statement, Brightline's focus is on three pathways to protect and empower vulnerable communities: 1) advancing environmental justice, 2) ensuring job creation and retention, and 3) advocating for the development of fair, affordable, and sustainable housing.

BACKGROUND

Brightline Defense Project began operation in early 2006 as a traditional legal aid organization, but quickly became a strong voice in the advocacy movement to bring environmental justice to San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point community.  A high-profile campaign to stop the construction of new power plants in low-income Southeast San Francisco and subsequent efforts to develop green-collar job opportunities for those historically burdened by power plant pollution have elevated Brightline’s reputation as a capable advocate for underserved and underrepresented San Franciscans.

ADVOCACY

Brightline’s two most successful advocacy efforts to date are 1) our work to end fossil fuel power plant pollution in San Francisco and 2) our push for green jobs for residents historically burdened by dirty power plants.

No New Power Plants

Since 2003, the City of San Francisco’s plan to shut down its last remaining fossil fuel-burning power plant had been to build four new natural gas power plants to replace it.  The argument that these new power plants would be cleaner than the aging Potrero Power Plant began to look increasingly unviable over time, leading the Godmother of Hunters Point, Espanola Jackson, to ask us to become engaged in June 2007.

Brightline joined Bayview-Hunters Point community leaders in calling for environmental justice for the low-income African-American, Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islander residents of Southeast San Francisco who have borne the brunt of the city’s power plant pollution for decades.  Our advocacy began in the form of a July 2007 letter to Mayor Gavin Newsom, followed by a court action on behalf of community members and groups that September, and a San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed jointly authored by Brightline Executive Director Joshua Arce and national environmental justice leader Van Jones in October.

Those efforts kick-started a movement that found Brightline at the center of a coalition of environmental organizations such as Sierra Club and Environmental Defense, social justice groups such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, and community rights advocates such as Greenaction and Our City to push for a power plant-free plan to close the Potrero Plant and end the history of power plant pollution in Southeast San Francisco.

By August 2008, Mayor Gavin Newsom had joined our coalition and courageous San Francisco Supervisors including Ross Mirkarimi, Michela Alioto-Pier, Chris Daly, and Tom Ammiano to declare his commitment to no new power plants for San Francisco, and in May 2009 the city submitted a plan to state regulators to begin shutdown of the Potrero Plant by year's end without any replacement power plants. On August 13, 2009, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced that power plant operator Mirant had signed an agreement to shut the entire Potero facility by no later than December 31, 2010.

Green Collar Jobs For Polluted Communities

The winding-down of the power plant campaign allowed Brightline to hone its mission statement as one promoting sustainability and empowerment of low-income, disadvantaged communities such as Bayview-Hunters Point.  With an end to power plant pollution in sight for Bayview-Hunters Point, we began to focus on ensuring a role for residents who have disproportionately suffered from the effects of dirty power plants in the greening of San Francisco’s energy grid.

In the summer of 2008 we advocated on behalf of a workforce development incentive in the city’s GoSolarSF program that would provide San Francisco residents an increased discount on solar panel installations if they hired a company that employs economically disadvantaged San Franciscans.  That incentive was later expanded to include commercial installations through Brightline’s advocacy and leadership from San Francisco Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and John Avalos in February 2009.

In March 2009 Brightline began working with the Southeast Jobs Coalition, a collection of Southeast San Francisco job advocates with a history going back nearly forty years, to win jobs for underserved San Franciscans on the state’s largest municipal solar project to date at the city’s Sunset Reservoir.  Brightline engaged San Francisco’s CityBuild program and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to advance a requirement that solar developer Recurrent Energy hire no less than thirty percent of the project workforce from San Francisco’s most economically disadvantaged communities.

THE FUTURE

The next two years will find Brightline expanding its scope by 1) offering policy recommendations and advocacy tools that can be replicated at the state level and in other low-income environmental justice communities, 2) increasing our coalition- and capacity-building efforts among San Francisco community advocates, and 3) collaborating on an employment barrier removal program to help ensure that disadvantaged communities are able to take advantage of green workforce opportunities.