Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Unveil Another Life-Changing Policy

In Our Future Climate Dystopia, This ... Robert Reich: Billionaires Don’t Actu...

Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Unveil Another Life-Changing Policy

Framing the climate crisis as both an existential threat and a “tremendous opportunity” to fundamentally transform American society, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday unveiled a Green New Deal for Public Housing that would eliminate carbon emissions from federal housing, invest $180 billion over ten years in retrofitting and repairs, and create nearly 250,000 decent-paying union jobs per year.

“Faced with the global crisis of climate change, the United States must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy,” Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement.

“The Green New Deal is not just about climate change,” the Vermont senator added. “It is an economic plan to create millions of good-paying jobs, strengthen our infrastructure, and invest in our country’s frontline and vulnerable communities. This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency.”

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The 54-page Green New Deal for Public Housing Act (pdf), which Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will introduce at a press conference Thursday afternoon, was co-sponsored in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and endorsed by more than 50 climate and affordable housing organizations.

In an interview with the Washington Post Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said the bill demonstrates that fighting the climate crisis “is not a jobs versus environment paradigm.”

“We need electrical workers. We need construction workers. And it doesn’t have to just be fossil fuel pipelines that create these kinds of jobs,” said the New York Democrat. “We can create millions of jobs in this country by actually rising to the challenge of addressing what this crisis is going to represent.”