Wildfires are raging in the American west. There’s another triple digit heat wave headed for the Pacific Northwest, as communities across the Gulf South and East Coast prepare for a record breaking hurricane season. Climate change is here, and we need a Green New Deal to address this crisis, create millions of good paying, union jobs and advance racial and economic justice.

President Biden and Democrats in Congress are putting together an infrastructure package that could signify the beginning of the decade of the Green New Deal — but only if they pass policy at the scale this crisis demands. 

During the presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed spending $16 trillion over the next ten years investing in solutions to the climate crisis. Now, the biggest, boldest proposal in Congress would spend a total of about $4 trillion over the same period. We know this infrastructure package isn’t everything we need. 

But still, this package would represent the biggest-ever investment to combat climate change, and the biggest public investment towards supporting working people since the New Deal. It will create good jobs, start to address the climate crisis and begin to transition the economy from one of destruction and despair to one of care and compassion. It’s our chance to show people that the government can make their lives better and that when we organize, we can win the change we deserve. We’ll build on this foundation in the years to come and bridge the gap between what’s on the table and what we know this crisis demands.

But right now, this legislation is at risk. We know that the fossil fuel industry is lobbying Members of Congress — on both sides of the aisle — and pushing for a smaller, weaker bill that will let them continue polluting frontline communities, warming our climate, and locking us into decades more fossil fuel development. The scary part is that it’s already working; Democratic Chair of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee Joe Manchin has said that fossil fuels should be part of any “clean” energy policy, and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said that she wouldn’t vote for the infrastructure package as is, threatening its chance of passing unless it gets even smaller. 

We need to fight back, and stiffen the spines of Democrats in Congress to hold the line. We can’t let Exxon and their lobbyists attack our priorities and take them out of the legislative package.

We are fighting for Biden and Congress to pass an infrastructure package that will combat climate change, create millions of good jobs, advance racial and economic justice, and usher in the decade of the Green New Deal. This must include:

A fully-funded Civilian Climate Corps

• $132 billion to train a new workforce in long-term careers to tackle the climate crisis and improve community resilience, in line with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey’s Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act. 

Bold investments towards public housing, schools, transit, and renewable energy 

• $172 billion towards retrofitting existing public housing and building new units to expand safe, affordable housing, in line with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Sanders’ Green New Deal for Public Housing.
• $446 billion towards retrofitting America’s public schools, in line with Rep. Bowman’s Green New Deal for Public Schools.
• $573 billion towards electrifying and expanding public transit, in line with Sen. Schumer and Brown’s Clean Transit for America Plan, and Reps. Andy Levin and Ocasio-Cortez and Sens. Markey & Warren’s BUILD GREEN Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
• $250 billion towards funding climate projects and jobs in every local and tribal government in line with Reps. Bush and Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal for Cities Act.  
• $1.1 trillion to transition the power sector towards 100% renewable energy through a Clean Energy Standard that prioritizes renewable energy and excludes fossil fuels including natural gas, in line with Reps. Clarke and Welch’s American Renewable Energy Act, as well as through other incentives and direct investments towards new renewable construction and deployment.

Worker protections as outlined in the PRO Act 

• Every project of the Green New Deal must be driven by union labor. Congress must enact the largest labor law reform since the New Deal to protect and expand union organizing, in line with the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. 

At least 40% of investments to frontline communities 

• All climate investments must work towards reversing systemic racial and economic injustice and actively advance environmental justice. In order to ensure this is the case, Congress must utilize a robust mapping tool, such as what is outlined in Rep. Bush and Sens. Markey and Duckworth’s Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act, to help identify frontline, environmental justice communities who have borne the brunt of fossil fuel and other toxic industry pollution, impacts of the climate crisis, and decades of disinvestment and environmental racism, and direct at least 40% of all investments towards those communities. Every committee of jurisdiction must ensure at least 40% of funds are being granted to environmental justice communities, and Congress and the public must have oversight to hold the federal government accountable and ensure the funds reach communities justly and directly. 

An end to fossil fuel subsidies  

• Congress must stop spending public money as a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. Congress must repeal fossil fuel subsidies, in line with Rep. Omar and Sen. Sanders’ End Polluter Welfare Act, and invest in all of the above priorities to tackle the climate crisis rather than continue to fund the industry that created it. 

Growing up in Houston, Texas, I didn’t feel connected at all to my community. I had my small group of friends from school and we hung out at random places around the area. I didn’t know my neighbors, any local businesses, or any community leaders. I thought this was normal, until I learned Houston’s highways and roads directly contributed to the displacement of families and communities and it’s a big reason why it’s so hard to develop relationships with people in the city. If you need a car to get around the city, it’s harder to encounter people and naturally start conversations.

This is why I got involved with local organizers that were trying to stop the expansion of Highway i-45.

I-45 runs North from Galveston Beach Across Houston to Dallas. It gets really congested around Houston, so the Texas Department of Transportation made a plan to widen the highway although studies have already proven that wider highways do not improve traffic flow due to induced demand.

The expansion in certain areas will also displace low income and people of color: families in more than 1,000 homes and apartments, 344 businesses, two schools, and five places of worship. Many of the people living close to these highways already suffer from asthma and other respiratory problems due to the high concentration of pollution coming from vehicles on these highways.

Recently this year, TxDOT was told to pause the North Houston Highway Improvement Project  (NHHIP) by the federal government due to civil rights and environmental concerns raised through the public input process. This came after a lawsuit was filed by Harris County against TxDot claiming the NHHIP was violating NEPA (National Park Environmental Policy) laws. If it wasn’t for our local community organizers, none of this may have ever happened.

What Houston needs is an expansion of its public transit system. It needs to stop investing in highways that cut through communities, displace families, and most of all DON’T EASE TRAFFIC.

So what’s the solution? I for one think we should invest in communities where, at the very least, people can enjoy going outside and doing things within walking distance and not feel like they need to drive half an hour to an hour across the city to go to that one bar or park. AND not feel like design of your neighborhood is hostile towards pedestrians. The CCC would put people to work in developing these types of areas, offering better infrastructure to connect business and residential neighborhoods through parks, bike lanes, smoother sidewalks, and especially building things like the Ike Dike to protect our city from flooding.

Right now, 500 young people are enroute to barricade all 10 entrances to the White House to demand you, President Joe Biden, act on your elected mandate of climate justice and only pass an American Jobs Plan that includes necessarily ambitious solutions to the crisis. I am one of them.

I’m arriving in Washington D.C. after supporting seven young women on their 266-mile march from Paradise, to rallies outside the homes of Senator Feinstein and Speaker Pelosi. We sit outside the White House doors shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends who just finished their 400-mile march from New Orleans to Houston, our friends who spent the night in jail after refusing to leave a sit-in on Senator Cruz’s lawn. Our other friends arrived on foot for their last mile of 105 across the state of Pennsylvania. 

We made some calls–and 500 people from every corner of the Sunrise Movement answered. We march together down Pennsylvania avenue, and sit outside your White House doors to make unquestionably clear: the American Jobs Plan sitting on your desk will include bold and transformative action against the climate crisis or your plan will not pass at all. I’m here today because your plan, after rounds of performative concessions to the Republican minority, worsens the crisis of climate and leaves the millions of Americans that elected you on the promise of good-paying jobs without secure employment or a liveable wage.

Concessions made to people that did not elect you. We elected you–the youth vote carried the election. If you are going to negotiate on our lives and livability of our planet, negotiate with us.

You said it yourself in your victory speech: “What is the will of the people? What is our mandate? I believe it’s this: America has called upon us to marshal the forces of decency, the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time. The battle to control the virus, the battle to build prosperity, the battle to secure your family’s health care. The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country. And the battle to save our planet by getting climate under control.”

We demand you step up to your position as the highest elected leader in a party powerful with a federal majority, and act on your elected mandate. It starts with the American Jobs Plan: good jobs are economic justice, and Civilian Climate Corps jobs are climate justice.

Several Congressional members of your own party have drawn a line, stand on our side, and say: no climate, no deal.

500 of us sit at every entrance to the White House because this moment is bigger than the Congressional tug-of-war over the final version of the American Jobs Plan. At this moment, I and hundreds of other young people from across the climate movement are here to demand climate justice, and hold you accountable for your failure to uphold the basic pillars of climate justice.  

Real climate justice is ambitious and transformative policy in the American Jobs plan–but it’s also shutting down the Willow Creek Project in Alaska, and Line 3 in Northern Minnesota. Climate justice is ending all new fossil fuel projects in the United States, and ending our support for the cause of the crisis in projects abroad. Climate justice is spending this decade ensuring clean air and drinkable water, safe homes and good jobs, across racial, class, and generational lines.

In my 266-mile march across the state of California, I witnessed the severity of climate injustice. You said, “climate change is an existential threat” yes–and it’s right now. The backdrop of our march was charred black after years of record fires, and browned and barren after years of record droughts. The route was dotted with towns abandoned during water shortage. Streets were lined with homes burned and boarded up, with no plan to rebuild because when Cal Fire ordered evacuation, all the jobs fled too.

Along the march, I stopped to talk to lifelong Californians and the story was the same– communities and jobs taken by the crisis. I told them about the solution we marched for: good jobs for clean air, water, and energy and received a resounding consensus of support on the left and the right, in the young and the old. Their story is my story–I’ve lost the places I love to climate disaster, and fear for the future of my friends and family who call themselves Californians too.

It’s why Sunrise California, the Gulf South, and Pennsylvania marched hundreds of miles. It’s why I and hundreds of other young people sit-outside every entrance to the White House today: we’ve spent our entire lifetimes watching the climate crisis take our communities and threaten our futures even more unliveable. There are no excuses for weak action against the crisis, and there is no compromise worth our lives. 

Compromises and concessions made to people that did not elect you. We elected you–the youth vote carried the election. If you are going to negotiate on our lives and livability of our planet, negotiate with us.

So we will sit here until you commit to the side of climate justice, commit to an American Jobs Plan written with bold ambition against the climate crisis including a Civilian Climate Corps, and pass it through reconciliation immediately–or you will not pass a bill at all.

Joe, the climate crisis is here and your current compromised plan fails to protect this country from devastating disasters and dire economic consequences. Failure will be your Presidential legacy if you pass anything less than transformative climate justice in the American Jobs Plan.

Our White-House Sit-In Demands:

1. No Compromise, No Excuses. Democrats must take their power seriously and do what’s needed with or without the GOP.
2. Meet with the People Who Elected You. We demand that Biden set up a meeting with Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement, and other movement leaders to hear our demands on infrastructure and negotiate with us.
3. Fully Fund the Civilian Climate Corps. This moment demands bold action and a significant infrastructure package to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. That is why we need a fully funded Civilian Climate Corps to put over 1.5 million Americans to work in good paying union jobs while combating climate change and building a sustainable future for our generation – all while giving us hope for the future and changing how we see the government.

We Need Bold Climate Action

In 2020, young people organized in historic numbers to take back Congress and elect Joe Biden on a bold climate mandate. Our priorities then were clear as they are now: confront the twin crises of climate change and economic insecurity, root the solutions in racial justice, and put our politics on a path that makes a livable future possible.

We did our job, and delivered the new President a commanding victory. In 2021, it’s time for Joe Biden to do his. Our futures and our lives are not negotiable.

Right now, President Biden and the Democratic Party’s biggest political priority is passing a massive, multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package called the American Jobs Plan that will transition the energy grid, repair our crumbling roads and bridges, and jumpstart the care economy of the 21st century. This infrastructure bill is about climate, it’s about jobs, and it could create a fully funded Civilian Climate Corps that would put over 1.5 million Americans to work in good-paying union jobs that will slow the climate crisis by building sustainable infrastructure. 

On its own, this bill is not enough to tackle the many crises our generation faces, but we need to start somewhere, and this package can lay the foundation for future wins down the road. This is the best shot our movement has at kicking off the decade of the Green New Deal. But so far, the Biden administration’s proposal has not matched the urgency of the crises we face. 

Instead of prioritizing the rapid investment in jobs and justice we need, Biden is prioritizing appeasement and negotiations with the racist, anti-democratic Republican Party, and with every passing day, his plan becomes weaker, smaller, and fails to meet the challenges we face. Biden is wasting time attempting to work with Republican leaders on a bill, and could compromise on key climate and progressive priorities in the process. 

On top of it all, Biden’s administration is defending massive fossil fuel projects in court and has yet to revoke the permit for Line 3, a tar sands pipeline that violates the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg people, threatens a critical water source for millions, and would lead to more pollution and emissions from fossil fuels.

President Biden has called the climate crisis “the number one issue facing humanity” and his infrastructure plan a “once in generation investment in America.” He needs to act on those words by opposing poisonous oil pipelines, and refusing to whittle his own proposal away. 

Our generation has spent our whole lives watching politicians negotiate away our futures – but the time for incrementalism, half measures and compromise is over. 

Sunrise’s Demands to Biden

Our movement is fighting for a Green New Deal that includes a federal jobs guarantee and ushers in a new era of American prosperity. We want an America where workers have living wages, workplace protections, and the right to unionize, communities that have borne the brunt of systemic racism benefit from government employment projects and a stronger social safety net, and young people no longer live in fear of a dangerous and unstable future.

We need to pressure Biden and Democrats in Congress to pass the most ambitious infrastructure package possible, which will open the door for more policy wins in the future. 

If Biden and the Democrats are serious about passing a once in a lifetime bill, they need to stop listening to Republicans and start listening to the people who put them in office. Here are our demands for the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress as they work to pass this infrastructure package:

1. No Compromise, No Excuses. Democrats must take their power seriously and do what’s needed with or without the GOP.
   
2. Meet with the People Who Elected You. We demand that Biden set up a meeting with Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement, and other movement leaders to hear our demands on infrastructure and negotiate with us.
   
3. Fully Fund the Civilian Climate Corps. This moment demands bold action and a significant infrastructure package to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. That is why we need a fully funded Civilian Climate Corps to put over 1.5 million Americans to work in good paying union jobs while combating climate change and building a sustainable future for our generation – all while giving us hope for the future and changing how we see the government.

We have always known that the Green New Deal would be more than a single piece of legislation — the ambition and scope of the Green New Deal will require a series of bills that will pass over many years. We see this infrastructure package as our shot to officially begin the decade of the Green New Deal – if Biden will fight for it.

We will not be scolded. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down.

Today, a group of young people from Sunrise Movement are outside the White House making these demands clear to President Biden. We are taking the power of our movement to Biden’s doorstep and we refuse to leave until our demands are met.

Today’s action is a message to the President and an invitation to our movement. To everyone in our generation: if you also believe that more must be done, join us in Washington DC on June 28th to make sure that Joe Biden, Congress, and everyone else tasked with addressing the climate, economic and racial justice crises do their jobs. 

While we risk arrest at the White House, our movement is gearing up to take action all across the country. Young people are marching hundreds of miles in Northern California and across the Gulf South and will bring their demands straight to the halls of power at actions later this month. Our movement will take action in Washington DC, San Francisco, Houston, along the proposed route for Line 3, and in cities and towns everywhere.

We will not be scolded. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. We know the risks. We will act with the same clarity of purpose that led us to mobilize our friends and family in historic numbers last year.

2020 was the year that California skies turned orange. It was the year of storm after storm. It was the year that heat, and fire, and COVID, and police tear gas made it harder and harder to breathe.

2021 began in violence. But if we take decisive action together now, it can end with hope for the future. This is our shot and we will not allow that to be negotiated away.

This afternoon, President Joe Biden proposed trillions of dollars in new spending on clean energy, infrastructure, public schools, and our care economy. You can read more about the specifics of the plan here and here.

We should feel deeply proud of the power that our movement has built to make a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan that centers action on the climate crisis, undoing environmental injustice and racism, and creating millions of union jobs the common sense of the Democratic Party. And, we shouldn’t lose sight of how much more power we must build to fully realize our vision of a Green New Deal. 

If it’s passed, this plan would be the largest investment the federal government has made to address social and economic crises in fifty years. It’d create millions of good jobs and be the biggest investment our country has ever made in fighting the climate crisis. Still, this plan is nowhere near enough to meaningfully combat the climate crisis or transform our society and economy. To really do those things, we need at least $10 trillion in federal spending over the next decade (or $1 trillion/year), and we need to start making those investments as soon as possible.

We always knew the Green New Deal would be a series of bills over the course of many years, not just one piece of legislation. If we do our jobs, the plan that was announced today could be the first pillar of the Green New Deal. Our movement needs to make sure that this bill isn’t watered down by politicians and lobbyists, and back up our champions in Congress who will try to improve it. It’s up to us to ensure that this proposal is strengthened, becomes law and that it is the first of many pieces of legislation that will address the many crises facing our generation. 

Read on to learn more about what Biden’s new plan gets right and what it doesn’t, what it means for our movement and what comes next in the fight for the Green New Deal.

Let’s start with the bad news about the American Jobs Plan

Our window to totally transition our economy and energy grid is closing — scientists tell us we have about 9 years left to make big changes to our economy if we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Everyday that we fail to address poverty and systemic racism is a crisis for the millions of Black, Indigenous, people of color and working people in this country. There’s no such thing as “too big” for Biden and Democrats in Congress  — the crises we face demand unprecedented spending and action from the federal government, and this plan is not enough.

It’s especially disappointing because the plan Biden rolled out today falls short of what he promised on the campaign trail.  Biden was elected by young people on a climate mandate that called for a $2 trillion ‘accelerated investment’ in climate-related infrastructure over four years. This plan invests about $2.7 trillion dollars, but as of now, spreads it out over ten years. There’s a lot Biden could do to still keep to his commitment to get this money out the door as fast as possible — like making plans and commitments to deploy resources quickly, and ensure the legislation’s speedy passage — and our movement should make noise about it so that he does.

Where this plan really falls short:

• Housing: The plan only upgrades around 2 million homes out of around 140 million housing units across the country.
• Research and development: The investment in research and development was downsized from Biden’s campaign promise of $300 billion to $180 billion.
• Civilian Climate Corps: The plan Biden rolled out today would create about 10,000-20,00 jobs in a Civilian Climate Corps, which would train and employ young people to build clean energy and decarbonize the economy. When FDR rolled out a similar Civilian Conservation Corps, it employed around 300,000 people per year, and that was back when the US population was ~40% of its current size .
• Transportation: The investment in transit is significantly less than what’s been proposed in Senator Schumer’s Clean Cars Act and Warren and Markey’s BUILD Green Act, which are more transformative bills to move us to 100% electrified and sustainable public transit and electric vehicles. 

At the peak of the war effort in WWII, America spent 40% of our GDP in one year — equivalent to $8.5 trillion in 2021 alone. That makes the at least $10 trillion over the decade we are demanding look small. The task of transforming our economy and rescuing our planet from the brink of collapse are just as existential to our country now as the war effort was then. As is, Biden’s plan is not enough money outright and it’s not clear if this plan would invest the money at the pace needed to meaningfully address the climate crisis. We need to spend at least $1 trillion per year over the next ten years, not $2-3 trillion over ten. 

Now, this proposal is headed to Congress, where there’s a lot working against us. Not a single Republican voted for the COVID relief bill that passed last month and moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin could attempt to water this bill down or include handouts to corporations and fossil fuel companies. 

Our movement is clear: there are absolutely no excuses for Biden and Democrats to not deliver on campaign promises, and our members of Congress still have the opportunity to strengthen this plan. But we must pass something, swiftly. If Republicans don’t cooperate, do it without them. If the filibuster obstructs progress, abolish it. But that’s easier said than done. The only way change at this scale has ever happened is through persistent organizing from movements. It’s what got us to this moment in the fight, and it’s what will determine whether this bill will make it to the finish line into law. 

The good stuff about the American Jobs Plan

On the whole, this entire proposal is a massive win for our movement, and a real result of the power we’ve built over the past few years. Four or five years ago, the biggest idea any politician in America had to tackle the climate crisis was a carbon tax. President Obama’s Clean Power Plan was proposed to cost just $8.4 billion. The fact that the Biden administration is proposing ~$2.7 trillion (with more on the way – keep reading!) and that they are taxing corporations and billionaires to pay for it is a historic step in the right direction.

Where Biden’s plan shines:

• PRO Act and labor standards: Biden’s plan calls for the passage of the PRO Act, which would massively expand employees’ rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace and be the biggest victory for the labor movement in decades, it also ensures that climate jobs that are created from this plan will be good union jobs. 
• Civilian Climate Corps: It’s not enough, but this plan would take Biden’s loose proposal for a CCC and make it a reality. This gives our movement a starting place, and with a foot in the door we can fight to expand and strengthen the CCC over the coming years.
• Clean Energy: This plan would create millions of jobs to make our country’s homes and infrastructure more energy efficient, and includes a clean energy standard to build out renewable energy and advance environmental justice. We need to make sure this CES is not weakened by fossil fuel lobbyists and supports a bold transition to renewable energy. 
• Impacted communities: The plan would create jobs to guarantee 100% universal clean water to every single person in this country and includes deep commitments to environmental justice and a just transition for frontline and impacted communities.
• Care economy: The plan would make investments in care infrastructure to expand access to quality, affordable care for folks with disabilities and the elderly, as well as ensure new care jobs are good-paying, union jobs with strong benefits. Biden is expected to roll out another massive proposal in a few weeks that will focus on raising wages and labor standards for essential homecare workers, the vast majority of whom are women of color who have been historically underpaid and undervalued.

This plan makes clear that every dollar the government spends on infrastructure will be used “to prevent, reduce and withstand the impacts of the climate crisis.” Our movement needs to get loud and get in the streets to ensure the most ambitious version of this plan is passed into law and that it is the first of many bills that will create good jobs confronting the crises of climate change, racism and poverty.

What this means for our movement

When our movement was just getting started, we were called naïve and too radical, and top Democrats were calling the Green New Deal the “Green dream, or whatever.” Climate change was at the bottom of the list of political priorities for the Democratic party, and there was no real plan to combat the climate crisis from any party or mainstream political leader. The President openly denied climate change and did whatever he could to make life easier for the fossil fuel industry. The President before him bragged about how much oil was drilled under his administration.

Just a few years later, the President is releasing a plan to spend an unprecedented amount of money creating good jobs combating climate change and addressing systemic racism. And, he’s taxing corporations and billionaires to pay for it. It’s not enough, but it’s a historic step in the right direction.

The work of movements like ours is slow, and it’s hard, and it isn’t always clear how all of our work adds up. Today isn’t a cut and dry win, but it’s one of those days that makes me believe in the power of organizing and movement building. It makes me feel hopeful about the power of young people and it makes me wonder what else our movement can accomplish in the months and years to come.

Like many other moments over the past few years, we should take time to reflect and to celebrate. And then we continue the fight.

It’s our job to do what we can to strengthen the plan Biden rolled out today, make sure it becomes law as soon as possible and that it is the first of many pieces of legislation that will address the many crises facing our generation. The only thing worse than not meeting this moment at scale would be not meeting it at all. This proposal is headed to Congress next, where Republicans and moderate Democrats will try to water the bill down or stop it altogether. We need to talk to our neighbors and friends and get in the streets to make it clear: we need transformational change, and if politicians won’t move fast enough — our generation will force their hand.

Even if this proposal became law, it won’t be enough. We can’t let Biden and Democrats in Congress off the hook — we need to continue fighting for legislation that will guarantee millions of good jobs fighting climate change and making our society safe, healthy and strong. We always knew the Green New Deal would be more than a single piece of legislation and this bill is just the beginning.

Biden has said he wants to have a ‘Rooseveltian Presidency’ and that tackling climate change would be his top priority. If that’s true, he will need to use his bully pulpit to build the political will for a more transformative vision, like FDR famously did. Biden must tell the truth about the scale of the climate crisis — as he’s done with the COVID crisis — and work to rally the political will to truly lead the world in stopping it.

Taking Action on April 7th

On April 7th, our movement is taking action all across the country to demand Members of Congress pass legislation that guarantees good jobs for all, invests $10 trillion over the next decade to create millions of union jobs addressing the crises of climate change, economic inequality, and systemic racism. Members of Congress will be at home for Congressional recess, so it’s our first big opportunity to put the pressure on them and make it clear that our generation is ready to begin the decade of the Green New Deal.

Today, Sunrise Movement announced their first major statewide endorsements of 2021, endorsing Virginia gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Carroll Foy and lieutenant governor candidate Sam Rasoul. 

“Sunrise is proud to stand with Green New Deal champions Jennifer Carroll Foy and Sam Rasoul for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia,” said Evan Weber, Political Director of the Sunrise Movement. “At a time when our country spirals through a climate crisis exacerbated by a global pandemic, Virginians need leaders like Jennifer Carroll Foy and Sam Rasoul, who are committed to investing in green energy production, bringing diverse, high paying jobs to every corner of the Commonwealth and passing a Virginia Green New Deal. Jennifer Carroll Foy and Sam Rasoul are the only progressive leaders who can do this and ensure Virginians will not be represented by wealthy politicians like Terry McAuliffe, who don’t hold the same climate commitment and instead line their pocketbooks with money from environmentally toxic special interests.”

In response to Sunrise’s endorsement, Jennifer Carroll Foy and Sam Rasoul responded reinforcing their commitment to combat climate change, and commended the Sunrise Movement for their work.

“As a former foster mom and mother of three year-old twins, I know fighting for environmental justice is one of the most important things we can do for our children’s and our planet’s futures. That’s why when I learned that lead and arsenic from a Dominion plant was polluting water in my district, I immediately took them to task and worked to pass legislation to clean up coal ash ponds across our Commonwealth,” said gubernatorial candidate, Jennifer Carroll Foy. “I have been so inspired by the hard work the Sunrise Movement has done to champion the fight for the clean, just, and equitable future Virginians deserve, and will stand shoulder to shoulder as Governor with all Virginians committed to ensuring we do all that we can to protect our planet for our kids and future generations to come.”

“Every year here in Virginia we have seen the climate crisis with our own eyes: the flooding, the heat waves and the rising sea levels on our coast keep getting worse. But I am filled with hope because of the energy that the Sunrise Movement has created for intersectional justice in Virginia and around the country,” said Sam Rasoul. “Since I was first elected in 2014, I have stood with the growing movement of concerned residents in Virginia who defeated the Atlantic Coast Pipeline that threatened our water, our health and our planet, and who will soon defeat the Mountain Valley Pipeline, too. And since 2018 I have seen the Green New Deal grow from a righteous idea into a national movement that connects climate justice to racial justice, and economic justice, and health care justice. Along with Sunrise, we are going to ensure this is the decade of the Green New Deal in Virginia—the decade we avert climate catastrophe, create many thousands of good-paying jobs in clean infrastructure, and uplift impacted communities in every part of our Commonwealth.”

This comes as Sunrise Movement has cemented itself as a strong electoral player. In 2020, Sunrise contacted over 6.5 million voters in the primaries and general election creating the largest youth turnout in history. This led to not only the victory of Biden and the Senators in Georgia, but the victory of Green New Deal leaders across the country, including Senator Ed Markey, Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, and more. Sunrise Movement expects to contribute to both campaigns by bringing attention to these important elections in a year that will surely be a bellwether for 2022 through social media pushes, fundraising, and coordinating its network of organizers in Virginia and around the country.