The Green New Deal 

One of the primary means of change will be The Green New Deal. This proposed legislation will turn the tide on climate change and build a better tomorrow both for us and our children. In the new decade we will: 

1. Enact an emergency Green New Deal involving a WWII-scale mobilization aimed at halting climate change. Our administration intends to create 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, conservation, and the restoration of ecosystems. 

2. Implement a Just Transition for workers currently in the fossil fuel industry and insure that those workers will receive full income and benefits as they transition to alternative work. 

3. Redirect research funds from fossil fuels into renewable energy and conservation. This will involve building a nationwide smart grid that can pool and store energy from an array of renewable sources. 

4. Put an end to destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure. Halt any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure and phase out all fossil fuel power plants. End all subsidies for fossil fuels and impose a greenhouse gas tax to charge polluters for the damage they have created. 

Fortunately, this plan will pay for itself over the next fifteen years by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution through litigation and tax fees, as well as eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies, generating revenue from the wholesale of energy produced by the regional Power Marketing authorities, scaling back military spending on maintaining global oil dependence, and through new income tax revenue from the jobs created by the plan. 

 

No More Half Solutions

On its own policies like the Carbon Tax are half-solutions. Given the immediacy of the issue, market pricing schemes shouldn’t be the centerpiece of our strategy. We need systemic change. The real solution must be a shift to green energy. 

 

Make America a Global Leader 

Climate change impacts the entire global community. We need to sign on to the Paris Climate Agreement once again and convene with world leaders to work for a better future. For too long America has tried to lead by force rather than friendship. It is time now for the entire world to mobilize to keep us at or below the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold. 

 

Fixing our Failing Infrastructure 

The people of these United States deserve to live in a better nation. In office, we will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. 

This will involve repairing the nation’s water systems through the WATER Act which creates a water trust fund dedicating up to $34.85 billion for The Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program, a new grant program to address lead in school drinking water improvements, a new grant program for residential septic systems, funding for nonpoint source management programs, pollution control programs, household water well systems, technical assistance to rural, small and tribal systems for drinking water systems, technical assistance to rural, small and tribal systems for wastewater systems, and a report on affordability, discrimination and civil rights violations, public participation in regionalization, and data collection among other programs. 

We will increase funding for roads, build resilient broadband infrastructure owned by the public, repair freight and transportation networks, and retrofit our infrastructure to weather the coming storm that is climate change.