Bill Gallegos

Biography

Bill Gallegos is the Executive Director of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), one of the leading environmental justice organizations in the United States.

During its 28 years of organizing in California. CBE has achieved groundbreaking environmental policies that have led to cleaner air and water in for low income communities of color living near power plants, oil refineries and other large polluters. CBE recently won the most stringent regulations in the US on the highly-toxic oil refinery practice of "flaring" their excess gases. Several years ago, CBE helped win a major victory for the residents of Santa Fe Springs when it prevented televangelist Pat Robertson from re-opening a high polluting oil refinery in that small Southeast Los Angeles city.

Bill has nearly thirty years of experience as a social justice activist and leader. He is currently a member of the California Environmental Justice Advisory Committee that is working to help implement California's new greenhouse gas legislation; and is in the leadership of GREENLA, a coalition of more than sixty environmental and environmental justice organizations working to make Los Angeles "the greenest big city in the United States." Bill also represents CBE in the Southwest Network for Economic and Environmental Justice, and is helping that network to lead a campaign calling on the federal Department of Health and Human Services to recognize environmental pollution as a major cause of health problems in minority communities.