Washington State Legislature
Our air,
Our water,
Our relatives.
Indigenous Just Transition stands behind the CURB (Cumulative Risk Burden) Pollution Act, a bill in the Washington State Legislature led by Front and Centered — because every permit Washington issues on our air, our water, and our homelands is a decision made about family.
Led by Front and Centered
CURB is a bill in the Washington State Legislature, authored and led by Front and Centered, a statewide coalition of frontline, communities-of-color-led organizations. Indigenous Just Transition stands behind their leadership on this campaign and brings a tribal lens to how the bill treats Indigenous homelands.
Permitting decisions don't stop at a reservation boundary.
The CURB (Cumulative Risk Burden) Pollution Act is a bill before the Washington State Legislature, led by Front and Centered, a statewide coalition of frontline communities. Indigenous Just Transition stands behind Front and Centered's leadership on this bill and brings a tribal lens to how it should treat Indigenous homelands.
Washington State's permitting system was never built to reckon with generations of environmental racism. But air and water don't hold to state lines or jurisdictional maps — pollution moves through the same river systems and airsheds our relatives have stewarded since long before Washington was a state.
Indigenous Just Transition is rooted from the Nch'i Wána, the Big River, homelands of our Yakama and Umatilla relatives, out toward Indigenous communities across Mother Earth. We carry that same grounding into how we read Washington State policy: a permit renewal is not an administrative checkbox. It is a decision about a relative's health.
Washington's Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act embedded environmental justice into state agency policy, budgets, and planning. CURB is the next step — bringing that same environmental justice lens directly into how the state permits pollution in the first place.
Our liberation is tied to the health of our waters and the breath of our relatives.
— IJT Core Values
A tribal lens on three permits
What we're watching in the 2027 Washington State legislative session
The CURB bill's 2027 push in the Washington State Legislature centers on three permitting tracks that touch Indigenous homelands directly. IJT is applying a tribal lens to each one — air and water not as regulated substances, but as relatives owed protection.
Air Operating Permit (AOP)
Clean air as a relative
Air quality standards protect a living relative with reciprocal responsibilities — not just an emissions ceiling on a five-year renewal cycle.
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Tribal consultation carries equal weight at renewal as it does at initial issuance
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Review standards account for cumulative airshed impact, not facility-by-facility limits alone
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A share of AOP fees on tribal homelands directed to Tribal Natural Resource departments
CAFO Discharge Permit
Clean water as a relative
Manure, litter, and process wastewater discharge threatens salmon and subsistence water use in ways generic surface-water limits don't account for.
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Review standards recognize cultural and subsistence water use, not only industrial and municipal categories
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Tribal consultation triggered at both initial coverage and reissuance of general permits
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A share of CAFO permit and compliance fees directed to monitoring capacity on tribal homelands
Stormwater Permit
Clean water as a relative
Industrial, construction, and municipal stormwater runoff carries cumulative pollutants into waterways — the permit type long cited as an example of a process that ignores historical and cumulative burden.
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Direct notice to affected tribes at every request and renewal, not published notice alone
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Cumulative watershed impact considered across the full permit cycle, not single-site review
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A share of stormwater permit fees directed to watershed monitoring on tribal homelands
What we're asking for
Three asks that apply across all three permits
Government-to- Government Consultation
Defined on its own terms, not folded into a general public comment category.
Notice at Every Request & Renewal
Direct notice to the relevant tribe at issuance and at every renewal, not administrative pass-throughs.
A Dedicated Revenue Share
A percentage of permit fees on tribal homelands set aside for Tribal Natural Resource departments.
Who's behind this campaign?
Front and Centered leads.
IJT stands behind them.
Front and Centered
Washington's statewide coalition of frontline communities. Author and lead organizer of the CURB Pollution Act.
Indigenous Just Transition
Coalition partner bringing a tribal lens to how CURB treats AOP, CAFO, and stormwater permitting on Indigenous homelands.
Tribal Nations & Communities
The homelands and relatives whose air and water are directly shaped by every permit this bill touches.