Senator Murray: “We know that the climate crisis is not some far off worry for another day or generation—it is here and now. That’s why we’ve got to meet this moment with the urgency it demands.”
ICYMI: Senator Murray in the Seattle Times: Congress must make a landmark investment in climate action – MORE HERE
***WATCH THE TWITTER LIVE HERE***
(Washington, DC) –Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chair of the Senate’s Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, hosted a Twitter Live this week on the urgent need for a major investment in climate action through the proposed budget resolution and bipartisan infrastructure package. The Senators discussed the immediate impacts of the climate crisis, what they’re hearing from constituents, and the path forward to secure a historic investment in climate action this Congress.
“We both know that the climate crisis is not some far off worry for another day or generation—it is here and it is now. So I really believe that we’ve got to meet this moment with the urgency it demands,” Senator Murray said during the Twitter Live. “We are determined to send President Biden a landmark investment in climate action that will protect our planet for current and future generations.”
“There’s been this kind of fight among environmentalists of if we should do wind, or solar, or conservation, or environmental justice, or the electrification of transportation. And the truth is, the magnitude of the problem, but also the magnitude of the economic opportunity, is so massive that we actually should do all of the things,” Senator Schatz said. “We’ve got to do all of the things…because once you say, we’re not picking among our favorite children—everybody gets to eat, it opens up this idea that climate action really good for everybody. The only people it isn’t good for are CEOs of fossil fuel corporations, but everybody else, American businesses small and large, communities, families, conservation folks, farmers and fisherman, and everybody in between.”
The proposed FY2022 Budget Resolution that Senator Murray, a senior member of the Senate Budget Committee, helped craft would fund: a Clean Energy Standard that would move the country’s electric grid toward renewable sources, clean energy and vehicle tax incentives, a Civilian Climate Corps, climate smart agriculture and wildfire prevention and forestry, the federal procurement of clean technologies, the weatherization and electrification of buildings, and the creation of a Clean Energy Accelerator. The Resolution would also propose new Methane Reduction and Polluter Import Fees to increase our emissions reductions. Senator Murray is also a leading advocate for the electrification of our nation’s school buses, introducing the Clean School Bus Act earlier this year to ensure our kids can breathe clean air on their way to and from school and as a part of a broader national strategy to “electrify everything” and cut carbon emissions.
Senator Murray recently penned an op-ed in the Seattle Times calling for a landmark investment in climate action, and reiterated her determination to secure major provisions to address the climate crisis in upcoming infrastructure legislation. Pointing to the recent heat wave in the Pacific Northwest as the latest irrefutable evidence of the climate crisis, Murray emphasized that for any climate action to be successful it must utilize the strength of the federal government to enact systemic change, center communities that currently bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and create good paying, union jobs.