During the upcoming 2021 legislative session, state leaders will grapple with major crises: keeping people healthy and financially stable through the pandemic, dismantling systemic racism, closing a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall, and acting on the climate crisis.
Our broad climate coalition is calling on state legislators support our Resilient Future Priorities and enact bold relief and recovery policies that set us on a path toward a just and sustainable future for generations to come!
We are in a pivotal movement in history and our collective work has never been more consequential, which is why we need people power to advance our shared priorities.
Our 2021 Resilient Future Legislative Priorities:
- Pass the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act to make sure our most impacted communities have a voice at the decision-making table and a healthy future for generations to come.
- Invest in a clean and just transportation system that is efficient, affordable, creates living-wage jobs, cleans our air, and ensures a sustainable climate.
- Update the Washington Growth Management Act to make sure we address climate change, affordable housing, and environmental justice in our state’s land use planning.
- Pass progressive funding that drives down pollution and supports climate-resilient investments.
- Pass an equitable carbon pricing policy that reduces pollution and supports the just transition of workers and communities away from a harmful fossil fuel economy and into a clean and resilient future.
- Create a state public bank to make sure our tax dollars stay in Washington and invest in our communities, not lining the pockets of wall street’s fossil fuel financiers.
- Re-prioritize our state budget away from extractive and exploitative practices that criminalize, incarcerate and harm the health of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities and instead invest in the equitable distribution of sustainable investments in climate resiliency and the health and safety of BIPOC communities.
- Invest in immediate and long-term relief that directly supports communities hit hardest by the health, environmental, and economic crisis.
- Pass the Buy Clean and Buy Fair Washington Act and enact clean and just state public purchasing and contracting that centers good job creation, equity, and the environment to ensure that every dollar of state spending delivers public good.Contact your legislators and ask that they support these important priorities!
We call on the legislature to look bigger, bolder at this crisis and invest in the critical services, create new job opportunities, and prioritize those most impacted first. Now, together, with your support, we believe Washington state can and must lead an equitable and just transition to a clean and resilient economy.
The crises we face are deeply intertwined, and a just recovery will require bold action. We know firsthand that the solutions needed to recover from the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 can also advance climate resilience. This is the time for action that stabilizes not just our economy, but our climate and our future.
Onward,
Lauren Breynaert
Coalition Director
The Climate Alliance is Washington State based coalition of environmental advocates, labor unions, health professionals, businesses, faith communities, and communities of color, working with tribal nations–plus thousands of volunteers from across Washington State–committed to building a resilient climate justice movement.