Given the bleak happenings in Washington recently, holding on to hope is hard. Critical bills, from voting rights to Build Back Better, supported by huge majorities of voters, are being blocked in the Senate.
It is beyond frustrating. It is maddening and tragic. And it is dangerous for our democracy and our environment. A policy agenda chosen when we went to the polls and elected President Biden is being stopped in its tracks. This subverts the choice of 81 million people, more than have ever voted for a president in U.S. history.
But we can’t give up. Too much is at stake. Hard as it is, we must hold tight to hope. And I believe that our voices, hands, and hearts, together, can still create the momentum and movement to build a green, equitable future.
Campaign Action
What many in Washington do not seem to understand—truly understand—is that the climate crisis is not coming. It is here now. The litany of increasing disasters has almost become familiar. Massive wildfires in the West. Historic flooding and tornadoes in the Midwest. Stronger hurricanes off our shores.
No region or community is spared. Nationally, over 40% of Americans live in counties hit by climate disaster last year, and more than 80% lived through a heat wave. And at least 650 people died due to the climate crisis. Black, brown, Indigenous, and less-resourced communities are disproportionately impacted, as are women and those with disabilities. The human cost—the pain, suffering, and loss of life that those numbers indicate—is incalculable already.
The economic harm is also staggering. According to NOAA, the cost to the U.S. of the climate crisis was over $104 billion in just the past year. Even that is a vast underestimate of the true economic damages, counting only direct costs of large-scale disasters. Uncounted in that total are indirect costs, such as over $800 billion for health care needs caused by fossil fuel pollution annually. All this, while oil companies roll in profits.
The crisis is not only here now, it is getting worse by the day. The plain truth is that our planet, our economy, and our communities cannot afford to wait any longer for action from Congress.
That’s why Build Back Better is so important. And why, despite our understandable feelings of frustration, anger, and dread, we must double down on this fight.
The bill invests almost $600 billion over ten years to spur transformative, important changes in clean transportation, clean water, clean electricity, land and biodiversity protection, and energy-efficient buildings. American families would be better off. And the country would be put on track to achieving President Biden’s climate goals.
The bill would:
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Create millions of new green, family-sustaining jobs.
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Save the average family $500 per year on utility bills.
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Let people weatherize their homes by up to $10,000 less than it costs today.
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Make it $7,000 cheaper to put solar on the average family’s roof.
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Ensure frontline communities can install wind and solar for 30-50% normal cost.
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Reconnect neighborhoods in Black and Latinx communities divided by highways that reinforce systemic racism, spew pollution, and cause asthma and other health problems.
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Build a Civilian Climate Corps.
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Jump-start the transition to electric vehicles.
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Make polluters pay, ending handouts of billions to multinational fossil fuel companies—handouts that subsidize the poisoning of air, water, and our future.
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Invest in the more than 125 other climate and environmental justice initiatives in Build Back Better.
Not only is Build Back Better urgently needed, it is widely popular. Despite all the efforts of Republicans and special-interest groups to turn the public against the bill, support for Build Back Better has remained steady at just over 60%. Moreover, more than 85% of Democrats and 55% of Independents said, in a recent Data for Progress/Climate Power survey, that they prefer voting for a candidate for Congress who supports Build Back Better over one who does not.
In other words, Build Back Better is the right policy, coming in the nick of time—and it is supported by the majority of the country.
President Biden has made fighting climate change a defining issue of his presidency. On his first full day in office, he rejoined the Paris Agreement, shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, and set a course for the United States to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad.
Build Back Better is crucial to putting us on the path to achieving key priorities of the president’s agenda, including ensuring that 40% of federal climate money is spent in the frontline communities which bear the brunt of the climate emergency. The president has also committed to a 50% reduction in U.S. greenhouse gasses by 2030, an elimination of all carbon emissions for electricity generation by 2035, and an end to federal subsidies to fossil fuel corporations. These are historic, meaningful commitments.
President Biden ran as a climate champion. But he can’t do it alone. There are limits to executive action.
Which is why Congress must act. Build Back Better represents not only the greatest investment in fighting climate change in our history, it also represents our last, best hope for tackling the climate crisis, upholding environmental justice, and saving the planet.
We can still build a vibrant, sustainable future. But the climate clock is ticking. Time is running out.
Sign and send the petition: The House passed Build Back Better. Senate must finish the job.
Michelle Regalado Deatrick is the Chair of the DNC Environment and Climate Crisis Council. Sign up here for Council updates, calls to action and event invitations.