Interior Secretary Deb Haaland To Join Ceremonial Protest Against Oil Pipelines On Sacred Lands

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:22:00 GMT

On Thursday, Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland, the first Native American to hold that position, will meet with indigenous climate activists who have brought a totem pole from Washington state to Washington D.C. The “Red Road to DC” activists made the journey in support of Native groups opposing projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Line 3 tar-sands pipeline being constructed in Minnesota.

Haaland is scheduled to participate in the 2 pm blessing ceremony for the 25-foot pole carved by the Lummi Nation, which will be followed by a press conference featuring tribal leaders, organizers, and Congressional representatives.

The Red Road to DC took the totem pole to Chaco Canyon, Standing Rock, Bears Ears National Monument, Black Hills, White Earth, and other sites along the way that are home to Native Americans and threatened by mining and fossil-fuel development.

Federal and state forces have been part of the industry-led effort to harass and intimidate the growing group of activists opposing the Line 3 pipeline.

The demands of the Red Road to DC activists are:

We call on President Biden and Congress to direct all federal agencies to require the meaningful engagement and consent of affected Native Nations, early in the planning process, and before a project is approved.

Native Nations must be a part of the decision-making process. No more oil pipelines threatening water supplies without the consent of tribes. No more oil and gas drilling in ancient burial sites, without their permission. No more large-scale projects without tribes’ participation in planning and consent.

The U.S. must uphold the rights of Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior & Informed Consent, as set forth by the United Nations.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman Introduces the Green New Deal for Public Schools

Posted by Brad Johnson Thu, 15 Jul 2021 18:03:00 GMT

Appearing before the JP Sousa Junior High School in the Bronx, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a lifelong educator and former middle school principal, on Thursday introduced the Green New Deal for Public Schools Act.

The ambitious new legislation — which aims to invest $1.43 trillion over 10 years in public schools and infrastructure to combat climate change — would invest in public school infrastructure by upgrading every public school building in the country, addressing historical harms and inequities by focusing support on high-need schools, and hiring and training hundreds of thousands of additional educators and support staff. If enacted, sponsors say, the legislation would fund 1.3 million jobs per year and eliminate 78 million metric tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road.

“It’s time for a revolution in public education,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman. “As we deal with a devastating climate crisis caused by decades of unchecked corporate greed, we need to center our children and their future. The Green New Deal for Public Schools represents the level of school infrastructure investment that is urgent and necessary to heal the harm from decades of disinvestment, redlining and cycles of poverty and trauma, particularly for Black and brown children. What this comes down to is whether we’re willing to provide our kids with the resources they need to realize their brilliance and have a livable planet. Do we want to continue building a world based on militarization, incarceration, poverty, and destruction of resources? Or will we take advantage of this moment, put our kids and educators first, and treat the climate crisis as the emergency it is? This legislation is what we need to put us on the right side of history.”

The legislation is modeled on a proposal by the Climate + Community Project at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Green New Deal for Public Schools proposes $1.43 trillion in new funding over 10 years, including the following distribution of resources:
  • $446 billion in Climate Capital Facilities Grants and $40 billion for a Climate Change Resiliency Program Climate Capital Facilities Grants will fully fund healthy green retrofits for the highest-need third of schools, as measured by the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, and offer a mix of grant funding and no- or low-interest loans for the middle and top thirds. Grants will cover two-thirds and one-third of retrofit costs for these schools, respectively.
  • $250 billion in Resource Block Grants Resource Block Grants will fund staffing increases, expanded social service programming, and curriculum development at high-need schools. The program will allow Local Educational Agencies across the country to hire and train hundreds of thousands of additional educators and support staff, including paraprofessionals, school psychologists and counselors, and learning specialists. The funds may also be used to design locally-rooted curricula; adopt trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and restorative justice practices, to move towards a “whole child” approach to public education; and partner with community organizations to offer a range of services to schools and surrounding neighborhoods, such as after-school programs.
  • $100 million for an Educational Equity Planning Grants Pilot Program Educational Equity Planning Grants will encourage neighboring Local Education Agencies to form regional consortia, which will receive funding to conduct extensive community outreach, identify the historical and current sources of educational disparities within the region, and create and implement a Regional Education Equity Plan to address those disparities. This pilot program is modeled on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants, which are designed to encourage equitable, locally-driven economic development.
  • $695 billion over 10 years for Title I and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) increases This bill proposes quadrupling Title I funding to reach $66 billion annually to support schools and districts with students living in poverty, as well as increasing funding for IDEA Part B to reach $33 billion annually to support students with disabilities.

“Our country’s public schools should be safe, welcoming and sustainable for every child, regardless of geography or demography,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. “As we navigate the ever-growing climate crisis and school buildings that are ill-equipped to deal with it, we find ourselves with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to meet the moment, and ensure all our students can learn in schools where they can drink clean water, breathe clean air and be free from mold and broken windows. This bill makes the bold investments in America’s K-12 education system we need, from retrofitting school buildings, to investing in school staff and mental health professionals, all while addressing historic inequities so we can build a just future where every kid can access basic opportunities to thrive.”

“The Green New Deal for K-12 Schools is a reflection of multiple movements for educational, environmental, and economic justice,” said Akira Drake Rodriguez, lead author of the Climate + Community Project report and Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. “Climate + Community Project was inspired to produce this research because of the activism in cities like Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Washington DC, and we are grateful to have received feedback from K-12 educators across the nation who have experienced and provided so much in this last academic year. As many re-enter school facilities in the coming weeks, we remain committed to the core principles in this report and legislation: locally-grounded solutions to environmental, educational, and economic vulnerability supported by robust and transformative federal funding.”

“To ensure a safe and exciting future for our kids and workers, let’s invest in upgrading every public school in the country to the highest standards of health and comfort, while eliminating carbon pollution,” said Daniel Aldana Cohen, co-director of the Climate + Community Project, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley. “This would drastically improve learning and teaching conditions, especially in the country’s most vulnerable schools. It would launch new careers for hundreds of thousands of workers. And it would bring green community infrastructure to every neighborhood in the country, especially Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and working class communities. Our research shows that a $1.4 trillion investment over 10 years would create over one million jobs annually, while eliminating 78 million tons of metric carbon dioxide emissions per year—the equivalent of removing 17 million cars off the roads.”

“The pandemic didn’t just start a crisis, but amplified the many crises we face – one being the importance of supporting our public schools. So many young people right now are suffering from underinvested schools, rotting infrastructure, and even a lack of AC units in classrooms. That’s unacceptable,” said Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement. “Rep. Bowman’s Green New Deal for Public Schools Act is just the forward thinking and long overdue legislation that would not only protect the health and wellbeing of young people, but transform our school systems, equip future generations to stop climate change and move us one step closer to our vision of a Green New Deal.”

“This is the right investment for our students, our school communities, and our planet. Our students see the effects of climate change and ask why the adults in their lives aren’t getting this done. Now is the time,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.

“Rep. Bowman’s Green New Deal for Public Schools combines human and physical infrastructure,” said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. “As an educator in under-resourced schools, he knows how we can fight the climate crisis, create jobs, and give every student in the country the school buildings they deserve. This is a solution at the scale of the crises we face. WFP is proud to stand with Rep. Bowman in championing this bill.”

“The success of our public schools is the foundation for the success of our future generations, and this legislation helps ensure that all students receive the robust education they deserve, while making significant investments in the sustainable economy,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. “We’re proud to join with Congressman Jamaal Bowman and advocates in support of this important legislation that will serve our students and serve to create thousands of jobs with good labor standards that will pave the way to the middle-class for countless hardworking Americans.”

“As a nation, we must prioritize long term investment for our students and address educational and environmental injustice, starting with the schools in Black and Brown communities that have been underserved for decades,” said Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director, Alliance for Quality Education. “That will mean funding for safe and updated school facilities, promoting equity across school districts and states, protecting the rights of students with disabilities, ensuring that small class sizes are a central pillar of our education system and more. We can and must ensure that our public schools are healthy, safe and supportive environments for all students.”

Original co-sponsors of the legislation are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-CA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Jesús G. “Chuy” García (D-IL), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Andy Levin (D-MI), Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Thomas R. Suozzi (D-N.Y.), Mark Takano (D-CA), Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), Juan Vargas (D-CA), and Frederica Wilson (D-FL).

Organizations endorsing the Green New Deal for Public Schools include American Federation of Teachers, Sunrise Movement, EduColor, Alliance for Quality Education, Justice Democrats, Climate Justice Alliance, Green New Deal Network, People’s Action, Center for Popular Democracy, Global Grassroots Justice Alliance,Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party, Indivisible, Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, Jobs with Justice, NY Renews, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, Green Latinos, Future Coalition, March for Our Lives, Friends of the Earth US, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), Progressive Democrats of America, and 350.org.

Analysis: $95 Billion Manchin Energy Infrastructure Act Is Heavily Biased Against Renewable Energy

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 13 Jul 2021 19:58:00 GMT

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), the chair of the Senate energy committee, has released the text of his Energy Infrastructure Act, which will undergo committee markup tomorrow.

An analysis by Friends of the Earth finds only $410 million in funding for renewable wind, solar, geothermal and tidal energy but nearly $30 billion for non-renewable energy programs.

Even the investments in storage and energy efficiency are less than half of spending in polluting energy.

The legislation proposes to make $95 billion in infrastructure investments mainly concentrated in the energy sector. But a close look at exactly where the money is going to go reveals an undeniable bet on dirty energy from the 20th century over clean energy from the 21st. In fact, the bill authorizes $28.8 billion in nuclear, carbon capture and dirty hydrogen over only $410 million in direct authorizations for wind, solar, geothermal and tidal. That’s a ratio of dirty to renewables of over 70-to-1. Even when combining the renewable provisions with the bill’s meager storage and efficiency programs, Manchin still proposes spending twice as much on dirty than he does on clean.

Most of the language for the carbon capture text was taken from the SCALE (Storing CO2 and Lowering Emissions) Act from Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.).

The nuclear provisions were drawn from the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

The fossil & polluting energy provisions include:
  • $12.6 billion for carbon capture projects, including financing for carbon-dioxide pipelines used for enhanced oil recovery to extend the life of oil wells.
  • $6 billion for subsidy payments to the nuclear industry to extend the lifetime of aging plants past economic viability.
  • $7 billion in research and development from hydrogen programs; 95 percent of hydrogen production is from fracked gas.
  • $1.9 billion in subsidies for commercial logging on public lands
On the storage and energy-efficiency side, provisions include:
  • $6 billion for battery production: minerals mining, processing, manufacturing, and recycling
  • $3.5 billion for the low-income energy efficiency efforts under the Weather Assistance Program

In addition, there is a further giveaway to the coal industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the text: a 20% cut to the Abandoned Mine Land fee paid by the coal industry.

Senior ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy revealed to a journalist posing as a corporate recruiter that Manchin holds weekly calls with Exxon. He named Coons and Barrasso as two other “crucial” allies to the oil giant’s agenda.

Democratic Climate Groups Release $10 Million Clean-Energy Jobs Ad Campaign

Posted by Brad Johnson Thu, 08 Jul 2021 14:54:00 GMT

The Democratic Party-aligned organizations Climate Power and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) have begun a $10 million spend on television spots to promote the Biden infrastructure plan with a clean-energy jobs message. This effort is part of a broader $28 million “Great American Build” campaign.

The new ads are airing on national cable and the Washington D.C. market, as well as the local markets of 23 congressional swing districts held by Democrats.

Climate Power is a joint effort of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and the Sierra Club, with an advisory board of Democratic and environmentalist luminaries.

Four states:
  • Arizona (Kelly and Sinema)
  • Georgia (Ossoff and Warnock)
  • New Hampshire (Hassan and Shaheen)
  • Nevada (Cortez Masto and Rosen)
The congressional districts:
  • AZ-01 (O’Halleran)
  • GA-06 (McBath)
  • GA-07 (Bourdeaux)
  • IA-03 (Axne)
  • IL-14 (Underwood)
  • KS-03 (Davids)
  • ME-02 (Golden)
  • MI-08 (Slotkin)
  • MI-11 (Stevens)
  • MN-02 (Craig)
  • NH-01 (Pappas)
  • NJ-03 (Kim)
  • NJ-07 (Malinowski)
  • NJ-11 (Sherrill)
  • NV-03 (Lee)
  • NV-04 (Horsford)
  • NY-19 (Delgado)
  • OR-04 (DeFazio)
  • PA-07 (Wild)
  • PA-08 (Cartwright)
  • VA-02 (Luria)
  • VA-07 (Spanberger)
  • WI-03 (Kind)
An example of the district ads: In addition to the television spots, there are digital ads. An example of the digital ads, targeting Georgia: