Democracy

Posted on April 8, 2020 by mekorganic

Articles related to Democracy

Waging Non-Violence

Posted in Democracy, non-violence, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Just Transition for Frontline Communities – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

There is no doubt that the poor and marginalized suffer from the impacts of pollution and climate disruption — particularly communities of color. They are at the frontlines of the climate emergency. For example, of the 73 waste-burning incinerators across the United States, an astounding 79 percent are located within three miles of low-income and minority neighborhoods, which are exposed to mercury, lead, and soot. The Green New Deal is not only a serious climate plan, but an opportunity to uproot historical injustices and inequities to advance social, racial, and economic justice, including redressing the exclusion of black, brown, Native American, and other vulnerable communities from the programs that made up the original New Deal.
As president, Bernie will:

  1. Ensure an inclusive, comprehensive process from start to finish. Workers and communities on the frontline of fossil fuel extraction, transportation and use and those most vulnerable to climate impacts must be involved from the creation and implementation of regulations and protocols to the distribution of funds and carrying out the work of the Green New Deal.
  2. Follow Environmental Justice principles. It is an unfortunate reality that institutional racism also impacts environmental health, and thus the public health and safety of millions of low-income families, people of color, and tribal communities. African American and Latinx communities deal with 56 percent and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than they create. Tribal lands are only 4 percent of the United States land base, yet a quarter of our nation’s 1,322 Superfund hazardous waste sites, as well as the vast majority of our abandoned uranium mines, are in Indian country. Additionally, federal leasing of public lands for fossil fuels extraction significantly impacts numerous indigenous communities that share more than 3,000 miles of contiguous border with National Forest lands.

 

The Green New Deal must serve to address modern and historical inequities and environmental racism. We will follow Environmental Justice principles and:

  1. Ensure the full and equal enforcement of all environmental, civil rights, and public health laws and aggressive prosecution of violators. Hazardous waste sites, chemical and industrial plants, aging lead pipes, and decaying infrastructure that endanger the health of all citizens will be fully regulated to ensure the health and safety of all. The EPA’s Office of Civil Rights will step up its investigations into alleged environmental justice violations, including corporate polluters as well as the elected officials who enable them.Ensure that Green New Deal jobs and job training resources are made available to low-income and disadvantaged communities equitably, and ensure equal access to clean energy, electrification, efficiency, and transportation funding, grants, and other incentives. We will promote cleaner manufacturing and materials recycling, safe conditions for farm workers, and a clean energy economy, while providing safe, healthy job sites and other economic benefits to people of color.
  2. Focus job training and local hiring to reflect the racial and gender diversity of the community receiving federal investments. Federal procurement will prioritize minority- and women-owned businesses, cooperatives and employee-owned firms, and community-owned and municipal enterprises. Programs such as the Historically Underutilized Business Zones will be expanded under the Green New Deal to promote job growth in economically distressed communities.
  3. Update permitting rules that allow polluters to target poor communities for polluting infrastructure. Cumulative environmental impacts will be measured and we will require polluters to remediate them. Precaution for the health and safety of our children and planet should be valued above profit.
  4. Ensure that all agencies abide by Executive Order 12898, which according to the EPA requires agencies to “identify and address the disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of their actions on minority and low-income populations, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law.”
  5. Extend civil rights protections to ensure full access to the courts for poor and minority communities to seek legal protections by overturning the Sandoval Supreme Court decision that set an unreasonable burden of proof of racism for claims of environmental racism, including disparate and cumulative exposure to environmental health risks.
  6. Follow the Principles of Environmental Justice adopted at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. The goals and outcomes of the Green New Deal should continue to be developed under the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing with strong and consistent consultation with the communities most affected by the currently unequal enforcement of environmental laws.
  7. Ensure that funding from the Green New Deal for parks and public lands are distributed equitably in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Superfund hazardous waste sites should be fully remediated, instead of simply covered up to make urban parks.
  8. Fully survey and track pollution in vulnerable communities. The EPA EnviroScreen will be enhanced to provide comprehensive information about cumulative environmental impacts. States will be required to report progress made on environmental justice every five years. Traditionally under-represented communities will receive significant public education, technical assistance, and outreach as part of agency rulemakings and public commenting processes to elicit participation.
  9. Promote urban sustainability initiatives to improve the environmental and social conditions of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color without rendering those neighborhoods inaccessible for future residents of limited economic means.
  10. Ensure the creation and implementation of the Green New Deal is accessible to people with disabilities and non-English speakers. All publications will be in multiple languages, including Braille, and meetings will have language interpreters, including sign language, as appropriate.
  11. Create equitable hiring standards. We will ensure that all the funding that stems from the Green New Deal plan follows standards and guidelines to ensure the jobs created by investing in infrastructure are jobs are available first to displaced workers, veterans, formerly incarcerated people, people with disabilities, and people from vulnerable communities.
  12. Impacted communities, including Tribes, will receive dedicated grant funding. Funding that flows from this plan will prioritize, to the greatest extent possible, communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction, transportation and use and those most vulnerable to climate impacts. Funding will be prioritized for low-income communities, communities of color, people with varied abilities, Tribes, rural communities, and community-based organizations and community development funds. Each agency involved in carrying out the Green New Deal will be required to coordinate in an interagency process to ensure local communities are involved in carrying out this plan.
  13. The first two years of this plan will be spent very aggressively laying down a social safety net to ensure that no one is left behind. Because this plan is so comprehensive in ensuring we solve the climate crisis, we must prioritize establishing a social safety net in the first years of the implementation of this plan:

Energy assistance. While we do not expect energy prices to spike because the federal government is going to weatherize homes, electrify heating, and keep electricity prices stable, we still want to ensure that families are protected during the transition. We will expand the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by $25 billion to help low-income families pay their heating and cooling bills. Additionally, the program will be expanded to provide 10 percent of program costs for maintenance of new efficient heating and cooling systems and technical assistance for the installation and use of new furnaces, heat pumps, boilers, and other upgrades for the duration of the 10-year transition.

Ensure a hunger-free transition. Because the cost of energy and food are so intertwined, we will provide $215.8 billion for free, universal school meals, including breakfast, lunch and snacks. We will expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $311 billion to increase the benefits from the “thrifty” plan which provides inadequate benefits to the more generous “low-cost” food plan, include those with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line, remove punitive work requirements, remove barriers for college students to access SNAP, and ensure people are not denied benefits due to past interaction with the criminal justice system. We will also expand the SNAP program and benefits to the people of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa so they are on par with the benefits in the continental United States.

14. Ensure Tribes and Native American people benefit from this plan.

The federal government will abide by treaties and respect tribal sovereignty while upholding the trust responsibility in every step of this plan.

Tribes will be eligible for all funding available through this plan. Tribes will be able to request technical assistance from agencies carrying out the Green New Deal to equip them with the resources needed to co-manage resources and review federal government actions through the consultation and consent process.

We will abide by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ensure the free, prior and informed consent by Indigenous Peoples.

15. Invest in Environmental Justice centered community economic development.

We will repair, dismantle, and convert fossil fuel infrastructure on our federal public lands. We must not only clean up existing blighted sites, but as we transition away from fossil fuels, we must ensure no infrastructure is abandoned in a way that would create health or safety dangers for the surrounding community. We will spend $100 billion on fossil fuel well and mine cleanup.

We will clean up Brownfield and Superfund sites. We will clean up and repair thousands of contaminated sites. We will invest $238 billion to clean up Superfund sites and $150 billion to clean up and revitalize Brownfields, and other areas and communities that have been polluted by the fossil fuel, chemical and mining industries.

Source: Sanders

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Economic Development – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

As president, Bernie will:
Provide targeted regional economic development. Communities especially in need of assistance during our transition to a clean energy economy will be eligible for an additional funding for economic development investments through regional commissions and authorities. Our federal regional commissions make targeted economic development investments in rural America. These commissions have funded projects that enhance workforce competitiveness, build and repair infrastructure, and increase community capacity like broadband projects, clean drinking water, organic farming, and energy efficiency.
An additional $5.9 billion in funding will be distributed as follows:

  1. $2.53 billion for the Appalachian Regional Commission
  2. $506.4 million for the Delta Regional Authority
  3. $304 million for the Denali Commission
  4. $405 million for the Northern Border Regional Commission
  5. $94 million for the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission
  6. $2.02 billion for Economic Development Assistance Programs
  7. Infrastructure investments for impacted communities. We will provide $130 billion for counties impacted by climate change with funding for water, broadband, and electric grid infrastructure investments.

Source: Sanders

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

 

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Climate Change, community, economic development, Uncategorized, workers | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Workers – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

Bernie has fought for workers his entire career. He understands that coal miners and oil-rig operators are not the problem. Fossil fuel workers have powered the country for more than a century, working in dangerous and precarious jobs to provide for their families. They have given their lives on unsafe, under-regulated worksites, and they have seen their pensions get cut, their health care get stripped away, and their jobs disappear while fossil fuel executives rake in billions.
For too long, this country has neglected workers displaced by government policy. NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, which Bernie opposed, eliminated millions of jobs and left entire communities devastated. Bernie will put workers first. Full employment, economic opportunities and high-wage jobs in underserved areas will be supplemented by income, health care, education and pension protections. When we are in the White House, compensation and assistance for displaced workers will come first; the balance sheets of fossil fuel corporations and billionaire investors will come last.
As president, Bernie will:
Ensure a just transition for energy workers. When we are in the White House, we will create millions of union, family-wage jobs through the Green New Deal in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants. We will spend $1.3 trillion to ensure that workers in the fossil fuel and other carbon intensive industries receive strong benefits, a living wage, training, and job placement. We will protect the right of all workers to form a union without threats or intimidation from management. The benefits include:

  1. Up to five years of a wage guarantee, job placement assistance, relocation assistance, health care, and a pension based on their previous salary.
  2. If workers would like to receive training for a different career path, they will receive either a four-year college education or vocational job training with living expenses provided. They will also be eligible for health care through Medicare for All.
  3. We will fully fund tenant-based Housing Choice Vouchers to ensure housing assistance to provide safe and affordable housing.
  4. If a worker is ready to retire, they may opt for pension support and access to health care through Medicare for All.
  5. Currently, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund and multi-employer miners pensions are paid for by coal companies. We will protect miners’ pensions and provide $15 billion for the Black Lung Disability Fund to ensure it remains solvent as we transition away from coal.

Require strong labor standards. All funding that flows from this plan should have the best labor standards attached. That means that all projects completed with funding from the Green New Deal will have fair family-sustaining wages, local hiring preferences, project labor and community agreements, including buying clean, American construction materials and paying workers a living wage to the greatest extent possible. We will improve worker and fenceline community safety standards at manufacturing and industrial plants. Additionally, we will ensure that workers remain safe on the job by providing $100 million in funding for the Department of Labor Susan Harwood training for high-risk industrial workers.
Provide employers with tax credits to incentivize hiring transitioning employees. In order to ensure that workers who are displaced by this plan are able to find meaningful employment, we will provide the Work Opportunity Tax Credit to employers who hire them.
Invest in workers and de-industrialized communities’ economic development. Counties with more than 35 qualifying workers will be eligible for targeted economic development funding to ensure job creation in the same communities that will feel the impact of the transition most. Economic development funding will be distributed through an interagency effort spearheaded by the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. Funds will be allocated through the Appalachian Regional Commission, Economic Development Assistance Programs and the Abandoned Mine Lands fund. Other eligible projects include drinking and waste water infrastructure, broadband, and electric grid infrastructure investments. These targeted investments are intended to supplement, not supplant infrastructure and economic development funding throughout the rest of this plan.
Protecting the right of all workers to form a union without threat or intimidation from management. Currently, the clean energy economy jobs are not yet as densely unionized as fossil fuel and building trades jobs. We plan to change that. Jobs created through this plan will, to the extent feasible, be good-wage, union jobs. In order to do that, we must protect the right of all workers to form a union and collectively bargain by passing Bernie’s Workplace Democracy Plan. We will work with the trade union movement to establish a sectoral collective bargaining system that will work to set wages, benefits, and hours across entire industries, not just employer-by-employer. Unions not only ensure that workers receive fair pay and benefits, they fight to ensure that workers, first-responders, and fence-line communities are safe and healthy.

Source: Sanders

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

The Green New Deal – Green Party

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, de-industrialize, economy, Energy, first-responders, Fossil Fuels, Green New Deal, NAFTA, tax, union, workers | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rebuild Our Economy and Ensure Justice for Frontline Communities and a Just Transition for Workers – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

As we rapidly move toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, we must ensure that the workers employed in the fossil fuel industry see that their standards of living are not only protected, but improved. A just transition for workers means guaranteeing the incomes, training, and pensions of affected workers, as well as major targeted investments in fossil-fuel-dependent communities. The clean energy economy, which will create three times more jobs and a full-employment economy, must also build strong unions, high wages, and benefits. Finally, the Green New Deal will redress historical injustices, by tackling poverty, inequality, and the disproportionate impacts of environmental damage on poor neighborhoods, communities of color, First Nations, and rural America.

Source: Sanders

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

The Green New Deal – Green Party

Posted in Bernie Sanders, community, economical justice, economy, Green New Deal, Uncategorized, workers | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

End the Greed of the Fossil Fuel Industry and Hold them Accountable – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

For decades, fossil fuel corporations knowingly destroyed our planet for short-term profits. The fossil fuel industry has known since as early as the 1970s that their products were contributing to climate change and that climate change is real, dangerous, and preventable. Yet, they kept going. Instead of working to find solutions to the coming crisis, the fossil fuel industry poured billions into funding climate denialism, hiring lobbyists to fight even the slightest government regulation and oversight, and contributing to politicians who would put the interests of fossil fuel executives over the safety and security of the planet. Fossil fuel corporations have fought to escape liability for the pollution and destruction caused by their greed. They have evaded taxes, desecrated tribal lands, exploited workers and poisoned communities. Bernie believes this is criminal activity, and, when he is President, he will hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.
Transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy cannot be done without standing up to fossil fuel corporations. Bernie will make fossil fuel corporations pay for the irreparable damage they have done to our communities and our planet, and he will ensure that all fossil fuel workers affected by the transition are entitled to new jobs, health care, pensions, and wage support. He will not allow fossil fuel executives to reap massive profits while endangering the future of humanity. He will not leave it to the market to determine the fate of the planet. The science is clear on what is necessary. As president, Bernie will take immediate action to end the fossil fuel industry’s greed once and for all.
As president, Bernie will:
Make the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution by:

  1. Massively raising taxes on corporate polluters’ and investors’ fossil fuel income and wealth.
  2. Raising penalties on pollution from fossil fuel energy generation. The EPA has historically under-enforced the existing penalties for polluting under the Clean Air Act. As president, Bernie will raise and aggressively enforce those penalties.
  3. Requiring remaining fossil fuel infrastructure owners to buy federal fossil fuel risk bonds to pay for disaster impacts at the local level. Federal risk bonds can then be paid to counties and municipalities when there are fossil fuel spills, explosions, or accidents.

Prosecute and sue the fossil fuel industry for the damage it has caused. When it was revealed in 2015 that the fossil fuel industry knew their actions were contributing to climate change decades ago, Bernie sent a letter to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking her to open a federal investigation to find out whether the industry violated the law. President Bernie Sanders will ensure that his Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigate these companies and bring suits — both criminal and civil — for any wrongdoing, just as the federal government did with the tobacco industry in the 1980s. These corporations and their executives should not get away with hiding the truth from the American people. They should also pay damages for the destruction they have knowingly caused.

  1. We will also support state and regional action to determine the projected harm to communities and pave the way for actions that remunerate devastated communities requiring care and repair and the dollars to do it.

Create a National Climate Risk Report. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will jointly develop an economy-wide survey of climate risks. To create this report, the SEC will require corporations to audit and report their climate risks. The EPA will use the information to target the worst climate risks through economy-wide regulations to limit carbon pollution emissions under the Clean Air Act to achieve our carbon pollution reduction goals.
Implement sanctions for corporations that violate our domestic climate goals. Polluters should not be allowed to run around our climate laws. Bernie will require the EPA and the Treasury Department to monitor investments and actions made around the globe to ensure our national carbon pollution emissions reduction goals are met. Bernie will impose sanctions on corporations and entities that threaten national and global emissions reduction goals.
End fossil fuel subsidies. The federal government hands out almost $15 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry every year. The American people will no longer be on the hook for this wasteful and dangerous spending when we are in the White House.
Keep fossil fuels on public lands in the ground. Scientists have been clear that in order to solve the climate crisis, we must leave fossil fuels in the ground. We will immediately end all new and existing fossil fuel extraction on federal public lands.
Ban offshore drilling. If we are serious about moving beyond oil toward energy independence, lowering the cost of energy, combating climate change, and cutting carbon pollution emissions, then we must ban offshore drilling. If there is a lesson to be learned from the 2010 BP oil spill disaster, it is that Congress must not open new areas to offshore oil drilling and ban drilling in the Arctic Circle and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
End all new federal fossil fuel infrastructure permits. We will ensure fossil fuels stay in the ground by stopping the permitting and building of new fossil fuel extraction, transportation, and refining infrastructure. Additionally, Bernie will repeal Trump’s Executive Orders (Orders 13867 and 13868) which fast-tracked construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and revoke all federal permits for those projects. He will also deny all Section 401 permits for fossil fuel infrastructure.
Require fossil fuel corporations repair leaking infrastructure, including natural gas and oil pipelines and drilling sites. Methane from fracked natural gas is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can be more than a thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane leaked by the oil and gas industry each year is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon pollution emitted each year by the US coal industry. The Trump administration repealed important regulations that were based on Colorado’s regulation of leaking fracked natural gas pipeline and wellhead leaks. Those regulations must be reestablished and strengthened to ensure there are no more oil and fracked natural gas leaks.
Clean up old and abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure. There are thousands of abandoned fossil fuel sites all over the country. As we move forward with this plan, there will likely be thousands more. We will put people to work in those communities cleaning up plants, pipelines, well heads, and refineries with good-paying, union jobs while ensuring the highest workplace safety standards, and repurposing these facilities for community needs.
Ban fracking and mountaintop removal coal mining. Fracking and mountaintop removal coal mining are two particularly harmful methods used to extract fossil fuels. They make surrounding communities less healthy and less safe. They must be immediately banned.
Ban imports and exports of fossil fuels. Congress’ decision in 2015 to lift the ban on exporting fossil fuels was a mistake. We must no longer export any fossil fuels. Our coal and natural gas are contributing to increased emissions abroad. We will also end the importation of fossil fuels to end incentives for extraction around the world. We can meet our energy needs and ensure energy security and independence without these imports.
Divest federal pensions from fossil fuels. Federal employees’ pensions are currently invested in fossil fuels. That puts their pensions at risk. The federal government must protect and grow those pension funds by instead investing in the clean energy economy.
Pressure financial institutions, universities, insurance corporations, and large institutional investors still invested in or insuring fossil fuels to transition those investments to clean energy bonds through executive action. When we are in the White House, we will establish new financial rules through the SEC and other regulatory agencies to pressure hedge funds, the insurance industry, and other large investors currently invested in fossil fuels to divest or pay for clean energy investments through clean energy bonds. We have seen a movement of activists force divestment from fossil fuel corporations, and we will support these movements in the White House.
Place a fee on imported Carbon Pollution-Intensive Goods. We will make sure that goods sold into the U.S. are not able to undercut domestic manufacturing by placing a fee on the carbon intensity of those products, under the World Trade Organization General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Article 20. This will not only prevent U.S. manufacturers from being incentivized to leave the United States, it will also provide extra revenue to boost clean domestic manufacturing.
Accurately estimate the climate impacts or benefits of all legislation proposed in Congress. In order to ensure our lawmakers keep us on the right path, we will require the Congressional Budget Office to coordinate with the EPA to provide a “climate score” for legislation, similar to the budget score legislation currently receives.
Focus the federal government’s resources on transitioning to a 100 percent clean energy economy. In order to make the carbon pollution reductions required by the IPCC report, we must eliminate all new fossil fuel production in the United States immediately. This will require reorganizing the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Energy Information Administration, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Federal Emergency Management Agency to prepare for the clean energy economy and climate impacts to eliminate or transition resources and offices historically used to facilitate fossil fuel extraction, transportation, refining, and use. Instead, these agencies will lead a centralized taskforce to phase out fossil fuels by expediting research, development, deployment, and technical support for polluting industries to ensure a smooth transition for the workers and communities who have historically relied on fossil fuel production. This taskforce will be responsible not only for phasing out fossil fuel production on public lands and waters, but will support the end of fossil fuel production on private property as well.

Source: Sanders

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

Green New Deal

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Clean Air Act, Climate Change, Dakota Access pipelines, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fossil Fuels, Green New Deal, Keystone XL, mountaintop removal coal mining, National Climate Risk, offshore drilling, polution, Securities and Exchange Commission, subsidies, Uncategorized, World Trade Organization (WTO), WTO | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Conserving Our Public Lands – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

Our public lands are a national treasure. They belong to all of us. Instead of selling them off to the highest bidder and allowing them to be destroyed by billionaire fossil fuel industry executives, are going to expand our green infrastructure and conserve our public lands. Our public lands serve an important role in not only preventing climate change but also in mitigating the catastrophic effects of climate change like floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather that have been increasing in frequency. Bernie is committed to providing a total of $1.34 trillion to ensure that all Americans have access to urban, suburban and rural recreational green space that are vital to our national heritage and our country’s tradition of recreation and conservation.
As president, Bernie will:
Achieve aggressive emissions reductions in the forest sector. Conserving and sustainably maintaining our forests not only helps improve air and water quality and provide recreation opportunities for American families, it is also a huge opportunity for carbon pollution sequestration. In order to fully understand the opportunities, the Forest Service must work with the U.S. Geologic Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a survey of emissions and natural carbon sequestration from the forestry and agricultural sectors.
Invest in green infrastructure and public lands conservation by reinstating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). One of the most successful New Deal programs and the most rapid peacetime mobilization in American history, the CCC put millions of men to work building and maintaining trails and conserving America’s wilderness. By the time the program ended at the start of World War II, it had planted more than 3.5 billion trees, and even today stands responsible for more than half the reforestation done in our nation’s history.
We will invest $171 billion in reauthorizing and expanding the CCC to provide good-paying jobs building green infrastructure, planting billions of trees and other native species, preventing flood and soil erosion, rebuilding wetlands and coral, cleaning up plastic pollution, constructing and maintaining accessible paths, trails, and fire breaks; rehabilitating and removing abandoned structures, and eradicating invasive species and flora disease; and other natural methods of carbon pollution sequestration. We must take these natural solutions seriously as an important part of our strategy to solve the climate crisis.
Fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). For 50 years, the LWCF has helped stimulate our nation’s $1.7 trillion a year outdoor recreation, natural resource protection, and historic preservation industry by conserving millions of acres in our national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and wild and scenic river corridors via over 41,000 state and local projects. In 2019, the LWCF was permanently authorized. However, it has been chronically underfunded. We will spend $900 million to permanently fund the LWCF to safeguard natural areas, water resources, and our cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans.
End our National Park maintenance backlog. Our National Parks are one of our greatest national treasures. National Parks and park rangers help educate the public about the need to protect wild spaces, sequester carbon by protecting wilderness, and conserve historical, cultural and natural resources. Our National Parks have fallen into serious and dangerous disrepair. We will perform more than $25 billion of repairs and maintenance on roads, buildings, utility systems, and other structures and facilities across the National Park System. This will help ensure that park visitors have a safe and enjoyable experience connecting with nature for years to come.

Sources: Sanders

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

Green New Deal

Posted in Civilian Conservation Corp, Climate Change, Conservation, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), forest, Green New Deal, infrastucture, Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), National Park, public land, recreation, U.S. Geologic Survey, Uncategorized, wilderness, wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Invest in Resilience and Justice – BS

Posted on April 7, 2020 by mekorganic

The Green New Deal is going to keep carbon pollution emissions low enough to stave off the worst impacts of climate change that we know are coming. However, scientists tell us that it is already too late to prevent all climate change impacts, as we have already begun to experience. That means that we must prepare for climate impacts like sea level rise, more frequent and severe weather, wildfires, spreading disease, heatwaves, floods, and droughts. We know that children, people with disabilities, the elderly, low-income families, and communities of color are most affected by these impacts and are also the least capable of preparing for, and recovering from, impacts like these. We must ensure that the most vulnerable communities are provided with the resources they need to adequately prepare. This means everything from ensuring emergency preparation and warnings are provided in multiple languages to providing extra resources to vulnerable communities to ensure full and rapid recovery after a disaster.
As president, Bernie will:
Create a Climate Justice Resiliency Fund. The CJRF will ensure our infrastructure and communities are protected from the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

  1.  Once the CJRF is established and funded at $40 billion, the EPA, together with a number of other agencies, will conduct a nationwide survey to identify areas with high climate impact vulnerabilities and other socioeconomic factors, public health challenges, and environmental hazards. Each community will then be eligible for funding in order of most vulnerable to least vulnerable.
  2. The interagency council will issue block grants to states, territories, tribes, municipalities, counties, localities, and nonprofit community organizations. The funds will be able to be used for climate resiliency projects, building emergency community centers and shelters with reliable backup power, wetland restoration, abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure and other environmental hazard reclamation; seawalls; community relocation; community evacuation plans and resources for safe and complete evacuation.
  3. Within the CJRF, we will establish an Office of Climate Resiliency for People with Disabilities. The office will be led by people with disabilities to ensure that nationwide, the needs of people with disabilities are consistently addressed during adaptation planning and that those efforts are coordinated throughout the federal government.

Rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. In order to remain resilient to the climate impacts we know are coming, we must repair our crumbling infrastructure. Our outdated and dangerous national infrastructure is not ready to withstand impacts like floods, hurricanes, or wildfires. Bernie has introduced legislation to rebuild America’s aging drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
Repair the nation’s water systems. Flint, Michigan, still does not have clean drinking water. Communities all over the country from Denmark, South Carolina, to rural Iowa are faced with similar dangerous contamination, such as lead, diseases, or other toxic pollution like PFAS. Bernie introduced the WATER Act, which would provide up to $34.85 billion for:

  1. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund program
  2. The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program
  3. A new grant program to address lead in school drinking water improvements
  4. A new grant program for residential septic systems
  5. Funding for nonpoint source management programs
  6. Pollution control programs
  7. Household water well systems
  8. Technical assistance to rural, small and tribal systems for drinking water systems
  9. Technical assistance to rural, small and tribal systems for wastewater systems
  10. A report on affordability, discrimination and civil rights violations, public participation in regionalization, and data collection
  11. A study on water affordability and discriminatory practices or violations of civil rights and equal access to water and sewer services
  12. Technical assistance to rural and small municipalities and tribal governments. The bill would also double the amount of federal funding to Tribes for water infrastructure grants
  13. A new grant program to help households install, repair, replace and upgrade septic tanks and drainage fields
  14. Requiring states to use no less than half of federal funds to provide additional subsidization to disadvantaged communities and to support the rebuilding of municipal resources where disrepair impacts community health
  15. Limiting federal funding to publicly owned, operated and managed drinking water utilities and small private water systems and requiring additional subsidization to disadvantaged communities
  16. Allowing state Drinking Water SRF funds to provide grants to private property owners to replace lead service lines
  17. Expanding federal funding to decontaminate our drinking water from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
  18. Requiring funds made available to use iron and steel products produced in the United States
  19. Requiring prevailing wages for all projects funded by the federal government for water infrastructure and requires recipients to use project labor agreements to the maximum extent practicable

 

Build resilient, affordable, publicly owned broadband infrastructure. Internet access and communications are key in the wake of a disaster. In order to ensure that communities get the help they need, we will provide $150 billion in infrastructure grants and technical assistance for municipalities and states to build publicly owned and democratically controlled, co-operative, or open access broadband networks. This communications infrastructure will ensure first responders and communities are ready to deal with the worst climate emergencies.
Increase funding for roads. Our national roads and highway system is crumbling. That’s why Bernie’s Rebuild America Act provides $75 billion for the National Highway Trust Fund to improve roads, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure in the United States and another $2 billion for other surface transportation needs.
Repair freight and passenger transportation networks. This plan ensures that our freight transportation is fully renewable by 2030 at latest, but to ensure the safety of those transportation networks, the Rebuild America Act provides $5 billion for TIGER grant projects that build or repair critical pieces of our freight and passenger transportation networks that are located in rural areas.
Build the 7.4 million affordable housing units to close the affordable housing gap across the country and guarantee safe, decent, accessible affordable housing. We will greatly expand the National Housing Trust Fund to build the units necessary to guarantee housing as a right to all Americans.
Repair and modernize public housing including making all public housing accessible, conducting deep energy retrofits of all public housing, and providing access to high-speed broadband. We will also ensure that public housing has quality, shared community spaces to ensure every public housing complex has the capacity to serve as a community resiliency center.
Retrofit our public infrastructure to withstand climate impacts. Beyond repairing our existing crumbling infrastructure, we must ensure that our public highways, bridges and water systems are ready for climate impacts we know are coming. We will invest $636.1 billion in our roads, bridges, and water infrastructure to ensure it is resilient to climate impacts, and another $300 billion to ensure that all new infrastructure built over the next 10 years is also resilient.
Adapt to sea level rise. Forty percent of the US — over 126 million Americans — live on the coast. Because such a high percentage of the American people live on the coast, coastal resiliency deserves special attention. We will provide coastal communities with $162 billion in funding to adapt to sea level rise.
Increase funding for firefighting to deal with more frequent and severe wildfires.

  1. In order to be able to quickly and effectively respond to wildfires, we will expand the wildfire restoration and disaster preparedness workforce. We will increase funding for firefighting by $18 billion for federal firefighters to deal with the increased severity and frequency of wildfires.
  2. Because we have already seen deaths related to the increased severity and intensity of wildfires, we must facilitate community evacuation plans that include people experiencing homelessness, and increase social cohesion for rapid and resilient recovery from climate impacts to avoid the use of martial law and increased policing in disaster response.

 

Protect community cohesion. After Hurricane Katrina, 24 percent of New Orleans residents — many of them low-income families and people of color — evacuated the city and were never able to return. The same thing is still happening in Puerto Rico today as almost 130,000 people have been forced to leave the island because the federal government has failed to distribute all the disaster aid approved by Congress. Our disaster response should ensure that to the extent possible, families are able to return to their home communities. We will amend the Stafford Act to ensure that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is empowered to address this problem specifically to ensure that recovery and rebuilding efforts make affected communities stronger than they were before the disaster so they are more resilient to the next disaster.
Increase investments in the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. The FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds projects that help mitigate damage from future disasters. The program saves $4 for every $1 invested up front by decreasing the impact of future disasters. We will invest $2 billion to ensure communities that are rebuilt after disasters strike have necessary resources to build back stronger than before the disaster.

Source: Sanders

Green New Deal

The Green New Deal – Bernie Sanders

Posted in Climate Change, Climate Justice Resiliency Fund, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Green New Deal, infrastucture, National Housing Trust Fund, Rebuild America Act, Uncategorized, water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Green Workers – BS

Posted on April 6, 2020 by mekorganic

Bernie has fought for workers his entire career. He understands that coal miners and oil-rig operators are not the problem. Fossil fuel workers have powered the country for more than a century, working in dangerous and precarious jobs to provide for their families. They have given their lives on unsafe, under-regulated worksites, and they have seen their pensions get cut, their health care get stripped away, and their jobs disappear while fossil fuel executives rake in billions.
For too long, this country has neglected workers displaced by government policy. NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, which Bernie opposed, eliminated millions of jobs and left entire communities devastated. Bernie will put workers first. Full employment, economic opportunities and high-wage jobs in underserved areas will be supplemented by income, health care, education and pension protections. When we are in the White House, compensation and assistance for displaced workers will come first; the balance sheets of fossil fuel corporations and billionaire investors will come last.
As president, Bernie will:

  1. Ensure a just transition for energy workers. When we are in the White House, we will create millions of union, family-wage jobs through the Green New Deal in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants. We will spend $1.3 trillion to ensure that workers in the fossil fuel and other carbon intensive industries receive strong benefits, a living wage, training, and job placement. We will protect the right of all workers to form a union without threats or intimidation from management.
  2. The benefits for workers include:

a) Up to five years of a wage guarantee, job placement assistance, relocation assistance, health care, and a pension based on their previous salary.

b)  If workers would like to receive training for a different career path, they will receive either a four-year college education or vocational job training with living expenses provided. They will also be eligible for health care through Medicare for All.
c)  We will fully fund tenant-based Housing Choice Vouchers to ensure housing assistance to provide safe and affordable housing.
d)  If a worker is ready to retire, they may opt for pension support and access to health care through Medicare for All.

e)  Currently, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund and multi-employer miners pensions are paid for by coal companies. We will protect miners’ pensions and provide $15 billion for the Black Lung Disability Fund to ensure it remains solvent as we transition away from coal.
Require strong labor standards. All funding that flows from this plan should have the best labor standards attached. That means that all projects completed with funding from the Green New Deal will have fair family-sustaining wages, local hiring preferences, project labor and community agreements, including buying clean, American construction materials and paying workers a living wage to the greatest extent possible. We will improve worker and fence line community safety standards at manufacturing and industrial plants. Additionally, we will ensure that workers remain safe on the job by providing $100 million in funding for the Department of Labor Susan Harwood training for high-risk industrial workers.
Provide employers with tax credits to incentivize hiring transitioning employees. In order to ensure that workers who are displaced by this plan are able to find meaningful employment, we will provide the Work Opportunity Tax Credit to employers who hire them.
Invest in workers and de-industrialized communities’ economic development. Counties with more than 35 qualifying workers will be eligible for targeted economic development funding to ensure job creation in the same communities that will feel the impact of the transition most. Economic development funding will be distributed through an interagency effort spearheaded by the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. Funds will be allocated through the Appalachian Regional Commission, Economic Development Assistance Programs and the Abandoned Mine Lands fund. Other eligible projects include drinking and waste water infrastructure, broadband, and electric grid infrastructure investments. These targeted investments are intended to supplement, not supplant infrastructure and economic development funding throughout the rest of this plan.
Protecting the right of all workers to form a union without threat or intimidation from management. Currently, the clean energy economy jobs are not yet as densely unionized as fossil fuel and building trades jobs. We plan to change that. Jobs created through this plan will, to the extent feasible, be good-wage, union jobs. In order to do that, we must protect the right of all workers to form a union and collectively bargain by passing Bernie’s Workplace Democracy Plan. We will work with the trade union movement to establish a sectoral collective bargaining system that will work to set wages, benefits, and hours across entire industries, not just employer-by-employer. Unions not only ensure that workers receive fair pay and benefits, they fight to ensure that workers, first-responders, and fence-line communities are safe and healthy.

Source: Sanders

Rebuild Our Economy and Ensure Justice for Frontline Communities and a Just Transition for Workers

Posted in Black Lung Disability, China, Green New Deal, health care, NAFTA, union, workers | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Green Workers – BS

Posted on April 6, 2020 by mekorganic

Bernie has fought for workers his entire career. He understands that coal miners and oil-rig operators are not the problem. Fossil fuel workers have powered the country for more than a century, working in dangerous and precarious jobs to provide for their families. They have given their lives on unsafe, under-regulated worksites, and they have seen their pensions get cut, their health care get stripped away, and their jobs disappear while fossil fuel executives rake in billions.
For too long, this country has neglected workers displaced by government policy. NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, which Bernie opposed, eliminated millions of jobs and left entire communities devastated. Bernie will put workers first. Full employment, economic opportunities and high-wage jobs in underserved areas will be supplemented by income, health care, education and pension protections. When we are in the White House, compensation and assistance for displaced workers will come first; the balance sheets of fossil fuel corporations and billionaire investors will come last.
As president, Bernie will:

  1. Ensure a just transition for energy workers. When we are in the White House, we will create millions of union, family-wage jobs through the Green New Deal in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants. We will spend $1.3 trillion to ensure that workers in the fossil fuel and other carbon intensive industries receive strong benefits, a living wage, training, and job placement. We will protect the right of all workers to form a union without threats or intimidation from management.
  2. The benefits for workers include:

a) Up to five years of a wage guarantee, job placement assistance, relocation assistance, health care, and a pension based on their previous salary.

b)  If workers would like to receive training for a different career path, they will receive either a four-year college education or vocational job training with living expenses provided. They will also be eligible for health care through Medicare for All.
c)  We will fully fund tenant-based Housing Choice Vouchers to ensure housing assistance to provide safe and affordable housing.
d)  If a worker is ready to retire, they may opt for pension support and access to health care through Medicare for All.

e)  Currently, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund and multi-employer miners pensions are paid for by coal companies. We will protect miners’ pensions and provide $15 billion for the Black Lung Disability Fund to ensure it remains solvent as we transition away from coal.
Require strong labor standards. All funding that flows from this plan should have the best labor standards attached. That means that all projects completed with funding from the Green New Deal will have fair family-sustaining wages, local hiring preferences, project labor and community agreements, including buying clean, American construction materials and paying workers a living wage to the greatest extent possible. We will improve worker and fence line community safety standards at manufacturing and industrial plants. Additionally, we will ensure that workers remain safe on the job by providing $100 million in funding for the Department of Labor Susan Harwood training for high-risk industrial workers.
Provide employers with tax credits to incentivize hiring transitioning employees. In order to ensure that workers who are displaced by this plan are able to find meaningful employment, we will provide the Work Opportunity Tax Credit to employers who hire them.
Invest in workers and de-industrialized communities’ economic development. Counties with more than 35 qualifying workers will be eligible for targeted economic development funding to ensure job creation in the same communities that will feel the impact of the transition most. Economic development funding will be distributed through an interagency effort spearheaded by the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. Funds will be allocated through the Appalachian Regional Commission, Economic Development Assistance Programs and the Abandoned Mine Lands fund. Other eligible projects include drinking and waste water infrastructure, broadband, and electric grid infrastructure investments. These targeted investments are intended to supplement, not supplant infrastructure and economic development funding throughout the rest of this plan.
Protecting the right of all workers to form a union without threat or intimidation from management. Currently, the clean energy economy jobs are not yet as densely unionized as fossil fuel and building trades jobs. We plan to change that. Jobs created through this plan will, to the extent feasible, be good-wage, union jobs. In order to do that, we must protect the right of all workers to form a union and collectively bargain by passing Bernie’s Workplace Democracy Plan. We will work with the trade union movement to establish a sectoral collective bargaining system that will work to set wages, benefits, and hours across entire industries, not just employer-by-employer. Unions not only ensure that workers receive fair pay and benefits, they fight to ensure that workers, first-responders, and fence-line communities are safe and healthy.

Source: Sanders

Rebuild Our Economy and Ensure Justice for Frontline Communities and a Just Transition for Workers

Posted in Black Lung Disability, China, Green New Deal, health care, NAFTA, union, workers | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment