April 27, 2020 to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Kathy Castor, Chair, Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, plus Peter DeFazio, Chair, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Raúl Grijalva, Chair, Committee on Natural Resources; Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chair, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; Nita Lowey, Chair, Committee on Appropriations; Richard Neal, Chair, Committee on Ways and Means; Frank Pallone, Jr., Chair, Committee on Energy and Commerce Bobby Scott, Chair, Committee on Education and Labor;

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Chairs Castor, DeFazio, Grijalva, Johnson, Lowey, Neal, Pallone, and Scott,

The Sierra Club and our 3.8 million members and supporters appreciate your continued work as congressional leaders to protect workers and communities on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. The implementation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act will offer much-needed health protections and economic relief for millions of people. We also strongly support your efforts, via your respective committees, to craft further COVID-19 relief and stimulus packages to support health and economic security for workers and communities who still face unacceptable risks, to safeguard our democracy, and to put millions of unemployed people back to work. Much remains to be done.

The Sierra Club has already conveyed our priorities for a CARES 2.0 package to bridge outstanding gaps in critical, immediate relief and to equitably protect workers, communities, and our democracy. That includes health and economic protections for communities and workers on the front lines, such as a moratorium on water and utility shutoffs, safety standards and equipment for frontline workers, benefits coverage for immigrants, measures to address racial disparities, and expanded housing and nutrition assistance. We also have called for additional funding to protect the health and safety of voters and poll workers, including expanded registration options, expanded early voting to prevent crowded polling places, and vote-by-mail options. In addition, we have specified strong conditions that should be tied to all industry assistance to ensure effective oversight, high-road labor standards for workers, and business practices that support a transition to a more equitable, clean energy economy. We urge swift action to address these urgent needs.

With over 26 million people filing for unemployment in the past five weeks, we also must pair these immediate relief measures with a big, bold stimulus package so that we are ready to put millions of people back to work in family-sustaining jobs when the economy reopens. There is no shortage of work that needs to be done. We need to hire millions of workers not only to rebuild the economy, but to chart a path to a more equitable economy that better supports the health of our communities and planet. We can tackle the concurrent crises of unemployment, public health, and climate change by creating good jobs to replace lead pipes, build clean and affordable public transit, modernize our grid, build and repair public housing, manufacture essential health and clean energy goods, restore our forests and wetlands, upgrade stormwater systems, expand wind and solar power, weatherize our buildings, produce electric vehicles, clean up hazardous waste, and strengthen communities’ disaster preparedness. While some jobs could not be filled until after the need for social distancing has diminished, we must act now to allocate money and begin administrative preparation so that the jobs are shovel-ready when the pandemic subsides.

This stimulus plan will support working families, reduce air and water pollution that is exacerbating

COVID-19 risks, counter systemic inequities that the crisis has magnified, and tackle the climate crisis that is compounding threats to our economy and health. Critically, no funding in a COVID-19 stimulus package should support new fossil fuel infrastructure. In addition, this stimulus package should be paired with increased funding for environmental enforcement to protect public health and our air, water, and climate as we rebuild the economy. Our response to one crisis must not fuel another.

Our stimulus solutions need to match the scale of the problems we face — hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, millions of lost jobs, and trillions of dollars’ worth of long-awaited repairs for ailing infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we need over $2 trillion in investments to get our current infrastructure to a “B” grade. We appreciate the work you have already done to craft the $770 billion “Moving Forward” framework as part of a big and bold infrastructure investment. The magnitude of the current crises requires us to advance many of the “Moving Forward” proposals while also going beyond that framework to address other critical infrastructure needs that will protect communities while creating jobs for workers that are grappling with the COVID-19 crisis.

The Sierra Club urges you to consider the following pro-worker, pro-health, pro-equity, pro-climate stimulus investments as top-tier priorities that should be included in forthcoming COVID-19 packages.

Cross-cutting Environmental, Labor, and Equity Standards

All infrastructure investments should uphold these core environmental, labor, and equity standards:

• Climate and Environment:

Investments in infrastructure should meet a baseline climate and environmental test. To qualify for funding, projects should demonstrate that their use will support reduced greenhouse gases, reduced toxic pollution, and/or increased climate resilience.

The materials and parts used should be subject to Buy Clean standards that reduce industrial pollution, climate resilience standards, and energy efficiency standards (as applicable).

All construction and related contracts should include requirements to use climate-resilient designs for infrastructure and low-emissions operations.

Labor:

• All construction and related contracts should include requirements for Davis Bacon prevailing wages, project labor agreements, a neutrality policy on collective bargaining, and use of registered apprenticeship programs; in addition to preferences for local hire, community-based businesses, and worker cooperatives.

• The materials and parts used should be subject to Buy America and other domestic content policies to support manufacturing job creation.

Equity:

• At least 40 percent of infrastructure spending should be invested in low-income communities, communities of color, and communities facing disproportionate impacts from the COVID-19 crisis and/or climate change.
  • The share of infrastructure funding that goes to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories should be at least proportional to the population of these jurisdictions.

• All construction and related contracts should require community benefit agreements; a mandatory “ban the box” policy to ensure fair employment opportunities for all; hiring preferences for low-income workers, people of color, people with disabilities, and returning citizens; and contracting preferences for businesses led by women and people of color.
  • All jobs created should be accessible to undocumented immigrants and paired with a moratorium on deportations and a path to citizenship for those workers.

Energy:

• Support the clean energy industry (Labor Department data show 106,000 clean energy workers lost their jobs in March alone; other projections estimate 500,000 more jobs lost in the coming months) by providing: refundability of existing tax credits (direct pay or 1603 grants) for renewable energy; extensions of the commence construction and safe harbor deadlines by 18 months; and $41.5 billion over five years to fund extensions of clean energy tax credits for solar, on and offshore wind, storage, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency. This includes passing:
  • The Renewable Energy Extension Act (H.R. 3961/S. 2289) at $30 billion over five years,
  • Incentives for onshore wind at $10 billion over five years,
  • Incentives for offshore wind (Incentivizing Offshore Wind Power Act H.R. 4887/S. 1988; Offshore WIND Act H.R. 3473/S. 1957) at $316 million over five years,
  • The Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act (H.R. 2096/S. 1142) at $310 million over five years,
  • The Home Energy Savings Act (H.R. 4506/S. 2588) at $916 million over five years, and
  • The Renewable Energy Transferability Act (H.R. 2704).

• Pass and fully fund the National Climate Bank Act (H.R. 5416), including $30 billion over the first five years. This will offer financial backing to shovel-ready clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects facing financial uncertainty due to the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.
• $17 billion in 2020 for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to support weatherization, energy-related home repairs, prevention of utility shutoffs, and reconnection of homes that have experienced shutoffs.
• Pass and fully fund sections of the LIFT America Act (H.R. 2741) at about $21.5 billion over 5 years, specifically “Enhancing Electric Infrastructure Resilience, Reliability, and Energy Security” (31101), “21st Century Power Grid” (31201, 31202), “Energy Efficiency Infrastructure” (32101-32102), “Smart Building Acceleration” (32201-32207), “Weatherization Assistance Program” (32301-32303 ), “Smart Energy and Water Efficiency” (32401, 32402), “Accelerated Adoption of Energy Efficient Engines and Vehicles” (32501, 32502), “Energy Improvement at Public School Facilities” (32601), “Homeowner Managing Energy Savings” (32701-32716), “Low Income Solar” (33101, 33102 ), “Clean Distributed Energy Program” (33301-33304), “Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy” (33501), “Smart Communities” (34101-34104), “Clean Cities Coalition Program” (34201), and “Electric Vehicle Infrastructure” (34301-3407).

• Create jobs for wellhead services workers by investing $60 billion over five years to close over 3 million orphaned and leaking oil and gas wells, relieving a burden that currently falls largely on states. In exchange, states should be required to update closure and bonding obligations.

Transportation:

• Increase public transit operational funding by $50 billion and maintenance funding by $100 billion over 10 years to ensure timely, data-driven public health responses, to ensure hygiene and safety measures are in place, and to make up for lost revenues from increased telecommuting and decreased travel. While $25 billion for transit and $1 billion for passenger rail is a good initial response, estimated COVID-19-related losses to transit agencies alone tally between $26 and $38 billion, and Amtrak is also experiencing unprecedented drops in ridership. In addition, the Department of Transportation estimates the transit maintenance backlog to be approximately $99 billion. The prohibition on using capital funds for operational expenses also should be waived, so that public transit systems are not forced to use capital funding to maintain operations.
• Increase investments to expand and upgrade passenger rail, public transit, and pedestrian and biking infrastructure to increase jobs and expand clean, accessible mobility, including $29 billion in rail over five years. Congress should create a $4.5 billion annual fund with 10 years of funding for Complete Streets projects and training for state Departments of Transportation and local agencies to build streets that are safe and economically prosperous.
• Invest in electric vehicles and charging infrastructure that support good jobs, clean air, public health, accessible mobility, and climate resilience, including:
  • $20 billion over five years for school districts and transit systems to replace 60,000 school and transit buses (about 10% of the national fleet) with domestically manufactured electric vehicles and charging infrastructure (via the Clean Cities, Clean School Buses, and Low and No Emissions Vehicle programs),
  • Extending and expanding the electric vehicle tax credit to boost investment in light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicle electrification (e.g., the Driving America Forward Act, H.R. 2256/S. 1094) –– the equivalent of a $12.3 billion investment over 10 years,
  • Investing in programs focused on electric vehicle manufacturing, government fleets, and consumer adoption (e.g., the Clean Cars for America proposal, which invests $454 billion over 10 years to use consumer rebates to replace millions of gas vehicles with electric vehicles, with support for equitable access and domestic manufacturing), and
  • Investing in charging infrastructure that makes electric cars, trucks, and buses more accessible. The Clean Corridors Act (H.R. 2616) should be passed and fully funded at $300 million per year for 10 years, along with the sections of the LIFT America Act (H.R. 2741) named below. Such infrastructure proposals should include an evaluation of how well programs increase mobility choice for people from disadvantaged communities (in addition to application of the cross-cutting standards above).

• Pass and fully fund the Transit to Trails Act (H.R. 4273) at $10 million per year for 10 years to award grants to entities that provide transportation connectors from critically underserved urban and rural communities to much-needed public lands and green spaces.

Buildings

• Pass and fully fund the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act (H.R. 5185) — at $172 billion over 10 years — to retrofit all U.S. public housing in support of energy efficiency, electrification, rooftop solar, climate resilience, and a healthier living environment. In addition to creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, this investment would improve living conditions for over 2 million people, and cut over 5 million tons of carbon emissions each year.
• $61.2 billion in new funding over five years to support retrofits of all Municipal, University, School, and Hospital (MUSH) buildings to support public health, clean and efficient energy, and climate resilience. This includes reauthorizing the Hill-Burton Act at $2 billion, increasing funding for the Healthy High-Performance Schools grant program, and passing and fully funding the Rebuild America’s Schools Act (H.R. 865) and Clean Air, Sharp Minds Act (S. 3364). These building upgrades would create good jobs; improve health standards for hospital patients, health workers, students, and teachers; cut energy costs; reduce pollution; and help tackle climate change.
• $30 billion for Community Development Block Grants over five years to expand affordable housing, improve living conditions and public health, and support economic development
• $7 billion in additional funding over five years for the Weatherization Assistance Program to enable retrofits in low-income households that support health, safety, and energy efficiency. In addition, funding should be created for equivalent programs at the state level.
• $3.2 billion in new funding over five years for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program to support building weatherization and other energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy projects. EECBG funding should prioritize spending in communities that have not yet benefited from past or ongoing energy efficiency programs.

Manufacturing:

• Pass the Medical Supply Chain Emergency Act to require President Trump to implement the Defense Production Act to compel domestic manufacturing of urgently-needed masks, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for health workers on the front lines of the crisis.
• $3 billion over five years for retooling grants under Section 132 of the Energy Independence and Security Act to expand manufacturing of electric vehicles and components. In addition, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program should be expanded and funded at $20 billion over five years to support the manufacture of medium and heavy-duty electric vehicles.
• Extend and expand funding at $3 billion over five years for the Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit under section 48C of the Internal Revenue Code to boost manufacturing of renewable energy, energy storage, and energy efficiency goods.
• Expand federal, state, and local government procurement of domestically manufactured clean energy goods, including electric vehicles for government fleets; components for government-owned public transit and passenger rail; energy efficient construction materials and appliances for government buildings; and renewable energy, battery storage, and grid modernization components for federal and municipal-owned energy systems.
• Create and capitalize an economic development and industrial bank to provide preferential loans to manufacturers for expanding the production of goods needed for clean energy, clean transportation, efficient buildings, clean water, and resilient infrastructure, and for investing in reductions in greenhouse gas and toxic emissions from industrial production. In addition, a new Office of Industrial Transformation should be established to execute a program of technology development, demonstration, and deployment that supports clean industrial production and workforce development in these and related sectors.

Water

• $100 billion over five years for Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs), split evenly between the two SRFs, with at least 20 percent of funding distributed to disadvantaged communities as additional grants (not loans) and at least 20 percent of Clean Water SRF funding set aside for investing in green infrastructure.
• $45 billion over 10 years for the Reducing Lead in Drinking Water program to replace lead pipes and protect our children and communities from the damaging impacts of toxic lead pollution. All of this funding should be in grants to fund full (not partial) Lead Service Line (LSL) replacement, and to provide Point of Use Filters in all homes and child care centers with LSLs.
• $6 billion for wastewater infrastructure to prevent sewage overflows, prevent flooding, and stop runoff pollution. All of this funding should be in grants, to be spent over the next 18 months, with a 30 percent carve-out for natural/green infrastructure projects.
• At least $5 billion in 2020 to fund emergency relief and a nationwide moratorium on shutoffs of water for the duration of the crisis. This includes funding the costs for utilities to restore and maintain water service for homeowners and renters, tied to provisions that prohibit water shutoffs and establish mandatory safe water reconnections (including for households disconnected prior to the crisis), as well as lenient repayment plans, debt forgiveness, and affordable rate structures. In addition, state water control boards should be directed, with assistance from the Office of Emergency Services, to establish emergency drinking water distribution and delivery programs.
• At least $3 billion in immediate funding for a Low Income Households Drinking Water and Wastewater Assistance Program, modeled after LIHEAP, to help keep struggling households connected to essential water and wastewater service.
• $1.75 billion per year, including $750 million in grants, for 10 years for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Water & Waste Disposal Loan & Grant Program.
• Support communities at risk from toxic PFAS contamination through:
  • $300 million per year for 10 years to the Defense Environmental Restoration account and $100 million per year for 10 years to the BRAC Closure account,

• $50 million per year for 10 years to the Defense Environmental Restoration account to install point- of-entry systems at households located near Department of Defense installations, and
  • Clarifying that PFAS dischargers are subject to limits under the Clean Water Act.

• Five years of annual funding at $1 billion for the School Drinking Fountain Replacement program,

$225 million for the Sewer Overflow Control Grants program, $120 million for the Alaska Native Villages and Rural Communities Water Grant program, $100 million for the U.S.-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure program, and $60 million for the Small & Disadvantaged Communities program.

Outdoors / Lands

• Pass and fully fund at $56 billion over 10 years the Environmental Cleanup Infrastructure Act (S. 1669) to fund cleanup of orphan Superfund sites, abandoned coal mines, and defense and former atomic energy sites. This would support job creation, economic development, and reduction in health and environmental hazards, particularly for communities of color, low income communities, and Indigenous communities. Funding for this legislation would supplement (and expand the reach of) the additional funding outlined below for Superfund cleanup and mine reclamation.
• $20 billion in additional funding over five years for Superfund site cleanup to protect communities from toxic pollution, with funding set aside for workforce training and renewable energy development. This spending will accelerate toxic site cleanup and protect the 53 million people living within three miles of the existing 1,836 Superfund sites. Local impacts of climate change must be included in Superfund site planning and remediation (see the Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act, S. 2893). In addition, the Brownfields program should receive $10 billion in additional funding over five years to clean up contaminated sites in support of community-driven economic development, while protecting against community displacement.
• Pass and fully fund the RECLAIM Act (H.R. 2156) and the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4248) to spur economic development in hard-hit mining communities by restoring land and water resources impacted by coal mining. The existing backlog of AML needs is estimated at over $10 billion. Full funding to address this backlog should be provided over 10 years.
• $10 billion over 10 years to fund the creation of a Stewardship Corps to hire local workers to restore forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems, as outlined in the Climate Stewardship Act (S.2452). In addition, fund the National Park Service’s Outdoor Recreation and Legacy Partnership program at $1 billion over 10 years to support park improvement projects that boost economic competitiveness, job training, and equitable access to the outdoors. Both programs should prioritize projects and hiring in communities facing disproportionate impacts from the COVID-19 crisis or climate change.

**

It didn’t have to be like this. The Trump administration’s mismanagement has driven a prolonged public health crisis that has cost tens of thousands of lives and brought our economy to its knees. This is a plan to get America back to work safely, and to rebuild stronger.

No one should have to choose between their health and their job — between their lives and livelihoods. Right now, as states  reopen without adequate measures in place to contain the deadly coronavirus, millions of Americans are being forced to make that choice. The first step to recover our economy for good must be to put in the necessary measures to stop the virus and prevent as much relapse as we can until the cure is developed. This is how we get America Back To Work Safely.

Then, we must Rebuild Stronger. The economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, and our government’s abject failure to respond, puts a monumental task before us: rebuild our economy and make families, communities, and workers whole. The crisis also reveals clearly to all what was already apparent — that the economy before this crisis was fundamentally broken, and isn’t worth returning to. What’s needed now is not to rebuild that economy, but to build something fundamentally new and more worthy of the greatness of the American people. This is a roadmap for our federal government to mobilize America’s resources to put the country to work through XX million jobs building a more equal, just, healthy, and sustainable economy. 

The hallmark of this plan are two major new governmental initiatives that will guide investment and job creation across the economy: a Resilience and Development Finance Corporation and a National Employment Administration. These investments and jobs will be guided by cross-cutting high performance standards to ensure good jobs and workers rights, equity, and environmental sustainability as they conduct the three major necessary national projects: 1) Investing in Places and Rebuilding Communities, 2) Caring for All People, and 3) Restoring our Land, Air, Water, and Planet.

Components of the Economic Recovery Plan:

Step 1: Back To Work Safely

Rally The Nation: We need clear and strong leadership to rally and direct the American people, state, local, and tribal governments, businesses and business leaders, non-profits, academia, hospitals and more to the central task of defeating the virus. Just like in past war-efforts or national projects we need unified command and a coordinated mobilization of all of society. 

Coronavirus Response Corps: To stop the virus, we must contain it through testing and tracing tens of millions of Americans a week. Success will require hundreds of thousands or more civil servants willing to get to work on this monumental task. With tens of millions of Americans out of work, the country should provide immediate jobs helping to stop the virus through a national service corps. 

Emergency Manufacturing: The final thing needed to stop the virus is to ensure that our first responders, and all Americans, have what they need to execute the mission. This means mass manufacturing of millions of personal protective equipment, tests, ventilators, and more and the expansion of public and community health centers and emergency services.

Step 2: Rebuild Stronger

The Engines of Recovery: New institutions are needed to reorganize the federal government to respond to the existential task in front of us. A Resilience and Development Finance Corporation will help to mobilize the resources of this nation towards the national projects and a National Employment Administration will complement the private sector to ensure a full employment economy while putting people to work on these projects while providing a just transition for workers into new industries.

Cross-Cutting Standards: Our leaders must set high standards for accountability in business, industry, and government to guide all investments and jobs generated from this national renewal across three major areas: Labor Standards and Workers Rights, Equity Standards to Reverse Systemic Injustices, and Climate, Pollution, and Sustainability Standards.

National Projects: The investments will go towards these major national projects

1. Investing in Places and Rebuilding Communities: Rebuilding our homes, offices, factories, transportation and energy networks can be the greatest engine of jobs, access and opportunity that this world has seen in generations, but we need a plan to get busy investing in and rebuilding the places where we live, work, and grow our families. 
2. Caring for All People: The current crisis exposes both the current fragility and vital importance of our communal and public institutions — community health centers, public hospitals, schools, local governments. To heal and strengthen our communities and democracy, we must recommit to investing in public services and guarantee that state and local governments’ budgetary needs are met. 
3. Restoring Land, Air, Water and Planet: We are stewards of the earth for this time, and bear a solemn responsibility to pass it forward whole, healed, and restored for resource dependent communities, future generations, and for all species. For that reason, we include at the heart of our economic vision a plan for environmental restoration. 

Where this plan ends and others begin

The unique contribution of this plan, from a policy standpoint, is its focus on establishing the conditions for a coherent industrial policy through the RDFC and NEA. 

Of course, there are many additional needed reforms across our society that are not covered under the purview of these agencies. These include: moving to a single-payer universal healthcare system that does not tie healthcare to employment, protection, dignity, and a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented — many of whom are the “essential workers” society is relying on in this moment, universal basic income to expand the social safety net and increase the resiliency of the economy, debt and rent relief, the protection of our elections and democracy by expanding reforms like vote-by-mail, and more.

Though we gesture to additional policies when possible, this plan should not be taken as a comprehensive reform agenda for each of the economic sectors named. This plan’s primary focus is in deploying capital resources to create jobs getting the country back to work rebuilding America.

Step 1: Back To Work Safely

Rally The Nation:

We need clear and strong leadership to rally and direct the American people, state, local, and tribal governments, businesses and business leaders, non-profits, academia, hospitals and more to the central task of defeating the virus. Just like in past war-efforts or national projects we need unified command and a coordinated mobilization of all of society. 

• Establish of a Mobilization Council made up of actors across society that will coordinated and direct state and non-state actors to meet the challenge head on
• Establish a Coronavirus commander at the federal and state level to direct the response and be leading public figures and authorities to speak to the American people

Coronavirus Response Corps:

To stop the virus, we must contain it through testing and tracing tens of millions of Americans a week. Success will require hundreds of thousands or more civil servants willing to get to work on this monumental task. With tens of millions of Americans out of work, the country should provide immediate jobs helping to stop the virus through a national service corps. 

• Build upon the existing U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and CDC to establish a Coronavirus Containment Corps to stop the spread of the pandemic and create up to 300,000 jobs in communities across the country. Cross-train workers to staff urgently needed contact tracing. 
• Once people are quarantined, they will need access to food and other basic goods. Corps members can be deputized towards deliveries through a Meals on Wheels style program. 
• In addition, there are many in our society who do not have the normal access to helping that they need right now, like the elderly and disabled. The Response Corps can provide basic support for the individuals

Emergency Manufacturing:

The final thing needed to stop the virus is to ensure that our first responders, and all Americans, have what they need to execute the mission. This means mass manufacturing of millions of personal protective equipment, tests, ventilators, and more and the expansion of public and community health centers and emergency services.

• Give Coronavirus commander, in coordination with Mobilization Council, full authority under the Defense Production Act to manufacture requisite amounts of testing equipment on the scale of tens of millions per week, personal protective equipment (PPE) for all healthcare and other frontline workers, and ventilators. Once PPE is being manufactured at a high enough rate for frontline workers, we should manufacture excess to distribute to society at large. 
• Expand public and community health centers and emergency services like pop-up testing centers, especially in rural areas, to ensure everyone has access to hospital care and testing.

Step 2: Rebuild Stronger

The Engines of Recovery:

At the heart of the {Economic Recovery Plan} are two new signature initiatives of government to drive a better economy. We call on elected leaders in the federal government to place these changes at the heart of your plans for governing and rebuilding our economy in the face of the current crisis.

Resilience and Development Finance Corporation: 

Our society needs large-scale institutional innovation to ensure the means of survival during crises and to correct the systemic misallocation of resources that keeps so many of us from meeting our basic human needs and pursuing fulfilling lives. The Resilience and Development Finance Corporation (RDFC) offers a system of agile, democratic and transparent financial and administrative institutions that transform the Rooseveltian Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the War Production Board to meet the challenges of the 21st century and rectify the injustices of the past. The objectives of the RDFC are:

Resilience: First, to ensure that essential sectors are resilient to shocks. This means, not only ensuring continued operation of essential sectors during times of crisis, but also ensuring universal access to the essential goods and services they provide. Second, to provide a set of financing institutions that can manage bailouts and emergency reliefs in a targeted, just and transparent manner. Third, to establish a governing mechanism that allows a sectorally targeted countercyclical policy that contributes to macroeconomic stability. Fourth, to build long-term resilience by implementing the development objectives below. 

Development: To improve access to the means necessary to live a fulfilling life for all. First, to secure a minimal living standard for survival. The crisis has shown what is essential in this regard: food, shelter, healthcare, utilities, transportation and sanitation. The RDFC will work toward ensuring universal access for all these essential goods and services. Second, to go beyond basic survival, the mission of the RDFC will be to enable a good life by facilitating investments that guarantee access to: non-toxic, nutritious food; living and public built environment that meets environmental and health standards and cultural and community needs; public support for care work; clean water, air and public spaces that meet high-road health standards; primary, secondary and adult education; cultural and community activities and recreational spaces; comprehensive healthcare coverage and services; reliable, clean transportation (local and long-distance); clean, reliable utility and sanitation services; and  safe and  fulfilling work.

The RDFC will pursue resilience and development objectives through three key functions:

1. Directing resources toward priority investments in infrastructure, industry, agriculture, housing, health, education, culture and care. Implementing institutions will include: (i) an Infrastructure Bank and an Industrial Bank, with regional and local counterparts; (ii) a Residential Housing Bank; (iii) a Health and Care Finance Agency, (iv) an Education and Culture Finance Agency; (v) an Agricultural and Land Management Finance Agency; (vi) a Clean Consumer Finance Authority; (vii) an International Development Finance Agency to facilitate the meeting of high-road labor, equity and environmental standards along the supply chain
2. Strategically managing a public inventory and distribution system of essential goods to ensure human and macroeconomic resilience. A Reserve System Coordination Board will coordinate the procurement and distribution of strategic stockpiles accordingly.
3. Engaging directly with industry through public enterprises and stakes in strategic companies. An Asset Management Board will oversee public enterprises and manage ownership stakes in key industries, including all companies receiving financing through the RDFC.

The Board of Governors of the RDFC will be responsible for realizing resilience and development objectives through its implementing institutions. The Board will represent an array of stakeholders, heavily weighted toward labor and frontline groups, and will be bipartisan, transparent and accountable to Congress. The Board will (i) define concrete resilience and development objectives and targets through broad stakeholder engagement, with inputs from its Research Institute and facilitation by its Office of Planning; (ii) name and oversee delegates to the Boards of public enterprises and of companies in which the RDFC holds a public stake; (iii) create public enterprises with diverse stakeholder representation, as needed; (iv) set standards and rules for institutions to operationalize resilience and development objectives; (v) oversee implementing institutions, prepare regular progress reports and prepare annual reports to Congress.

All projects sponsored by the RDFC system will be subject to high-road environmental, equity standards and labor standards (in line with the National Employment Authority) and combined with the support needed to meet those standards along the supply chain (nationally and globally). 

National Employment Administration: 

Tens of millions of Americans are in need of good work, and there is a lot of good work that needs to be done to address the nation’s crises and begin building a new economy. A National Employment Administration (NEA) can compensate for the shortcomings of the private sector to ensure a full employment economy while putting people to work on projects of national importance, all while providing a just transition for workers in sunsetting industries.

The purpose of the NEA is to provide employment for all persons seeking a job, and to perform the work necessary to address our society’s most pressing needs, including rapidly decarbonizing the economy to avert catastrophic global climate change, maintaining and expanding the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, responding to national crises, providing care for our communities, and conducting other important national works projects.

1. Job standards
   1. The NEA will provide universal job coverage for all adult Americans at a minimum annual wage of $27,300 for full-time workers (just above the poverty line for a family of four) and a minimum hourly wage of $15.00. Full-time work would amount to 35 hours a week. The NEA will eliminate poverty wages and benefits throughout the economy by setting an effective floor in the labor market. The minimum wage would be indexed to the inflation rate to ensure that the purchasing power of enrollees is maintained and the wage will vary to allow for some degree of regional variation. To provide a true non-poverty wage and meet the fundamental rights of American citizens, the policy will include health insurance for all full-time workers in the program. The health insurance program should be comparable to that offered to all civil servants and elected federal officials. It will also offer retirement plans, paid family and sick leave, and one week of paid vacation per three months worked. 
2. Program logistics
   1. The NEA would be administered by the Department of Labor and overseen by the Secretary of Labor. The Secretary would administer employment grants to eligible entities, including state, county, local governments and tribal nations to engage in direct employment projects. These projects should be designed to address community needs and provide socially beneficial goods and services to communities and society at large. 
   2. In addition, the Secretary shall work with federal agencies and local communities to identify areas of priority investment in the U.S. economy, including goods (examples: energy efficiency retrofitting, carbon-free public transportation, …..) and services (examples: elder care, child care, job training, education, and health services). If projects at the local, county, and state level are inadequate to maintain full employment in the region, the Secretary shall intervene in the locality to provide adequate employment opportunities. Projects will be designed to assure permanent full employment in all localities. 
   3. Because of the vital role of state and local governments in providing public workers and services, it is essential that federal agencies and the NEA are empowered to work closely with these governments. Local and state governments will be encouraged to develop employment proposals in conjunction with community leaders, local government officials, labor organizations, and local residents.
3. Just Transition 
   1. We know that as we transition to an economy of the future we will let go of some of the industries and jobs of the past. As those industries transition, the NEA will ensure that the workers and communities dependent upon them are kept whole. 
   2. In addition to proactive employment opportunities in impacted communities, as outlined above, the NEA will also provide targeted relief for industries and communities directly impacted by economic transition. This will include five years of wage and benefit guarantees for displaced workers, housing assistance where applicable, job training opportunities,  insurance coverage, pension support, early retirement offerings, and priority job placement for displaced workers. 

The RDFC and NEA will intersect with existing federal, state and local agencies to accomplish their mission. After describing the function and mandate of the RDFC and NEA, the plan details how their work could guide the recovery process throughout different sectors of the economy. In each sector, we describe programs of investment, work to be done, and regulatory mechanisms that ensure all work is safe for workers and good for society.

Cross-cutting Standards: 

Good government sets high standards. In the face of a climate crisis, that means committing to run our economy on 100% clean energy, and guaranteeing that all new infrastructure will be of the highest caliber and built to power a world that moves beyond pollution. In the face of economic injustice, that means fair wages and the right to form a union. In the face of racial and environmental injustice, that means accountability for cumulative impacts, undesigning the redline, and reconstruction of frontline communities.

Labor Standards and Workers Rights: 

Workers are the foundation of our economy. The workers who keep the country fed and healthy deserve protections and respect. 

• Expand the role of workers in workplace governance
  1. Implement a “co-enforcement” approach that brings unions and other worker organizations into a formal role alongside government in ensuring employer compliance with workplace laws.
  2. Use workers’ boards to promote high standards. These panels would be facilitated by the Department of Labor, and allow all organizations representing workers in a sector to negotiate with industry associations to establish wage, benefit and working condition standards that would apply to all firms in a given sector receiving ERP funding.
  3. Require the use of project labor agreements or community workforce agreements to support consistent labor standards, community and worker buy-in across multiple elements of large projects.
  4. For publicly traded companies, reserve 40% of board seats for elected worker representatives.
  5. Require companies to bargain in good faith on any issue or decision taken by employers as employers which workers wish to bargain over

• Protect the right of workers to organize
  1. Enact the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to ban coercive workplace practices, including “captive audience meetings” and retaliation against worker leaders.
  2. Enact the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act to guarantee that every public service employee in every state has the freedom to stand together and negotiate for fair wages and working conditions
  3. Require companies to voluntarily recognize a union as the bargaining representative of workers if a majority of workers sign cards authorizing that union to do so

• Ensure a fair wage, benefits, and safe working conditions
  1. Require that all contracts for ERP funds meet Davis-Bacon prevailing wage standards
  2. Require that all firms receiving ERP funds offer two weeks paid sick leave and family leave to employees
  3. Amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to extend protections to public sector workers in all federal OSHA states and territories. Additionally, current federal law fails to protect many state and local government workers who are at elevated risk of exposure to COVID-19 because their state does not have an approved OSHA state plan covering them. Therefore, Congress must make sure that all state and local government workers who are at elevated risk are also covered by this standard. Finally, ensure OSHA has enough budget to hold employers accountable for workplace health and safety, and require OSHA to expedite its review and update of the existing emergency response and preparedness standards.
  4. Expand access to high-quality jobs by requiring that 15 percent or more of labor hours on large-scale infrastructure projects be performed by apprentices participating in programs that meet federal and state Registered Apprenticeship standards. Require these projects to adopt a targeted-hire initiative that supports access for women, people of color, workers with disabilities, and others. In industries and regions with few such programs, provide funding to develop them.

• Reward good employer behavior and sanction bad actors
• All employer recipients of government contracts, tax benefits, low-interest loans, or other direct financial benefits resulting from the ERP must comply with the above measures to protect workers as well as the equity and pollution standards below.
  1. Update federal vendor requirements to create “preferred” vendor lists that include companies meeting the standards.
  2. Have government contracts and/or other financial benefits revoked if an employer is found to have violated these agreements, and/or any other labor, employment or anti-discrimination laws
  3. Support manufacturing job creation by subjecting all material procurement to Buy America and Hire Local policies

Equity Standards to Reverse Systemic Injustices: 

As we undertake the historic process of building a new society from the ashes of the pandemic, our generation can take the next step in the long national process of healing the wounds of racism and injustice.

• Ensure equitable distribution of investment 
  1. At least 40 percent of investments covered herein should be invested in identified frontline and vulnerable communities, as defined in the Equity Impact Mapping initiative. Within this, investments should be distributed proportionate to and with extra attention towards communities who have been locked out of generational wealth, especially African-American and Native American communities, in order to repair past harm and advance equity.
  2. The share of funding that goes to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories should be at least proportional to the population of these jurisdictions.
• A recovery for all people
  1. All jobs and benefits created under this policy shall be accessible to all, including undocumented immigrants.
  2. All contracts shall require a “ban the box” policy to ensure employment opportunities for returning citizens.
  3. All contracts shall require explicit hiring preferences for low-income workers, women, people of color, people with disabilities, and returning citizens, and contracting preferences for businesses led by women and people of color
• Respect indigenous sovereignty
  1. All investments and programs must obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples.
• Community control of development
  1. Economic transition can be truly just only if frontline and vulnerable communities are involved in building their own solutions. Support local leadership by establishing a multi-agency program building capacity, organizing, developing and implementing sustainability plans led by disadvantaged communities. 
  2. Invest in staff capacity at key federal agencies — including USDA agencies in rural areas, and HUD agencies in urban regions — which work directly with local communities and officials in the construction and implementation of coordinated plans of action.

Climate, Pollution, and Sustainability Standards: 

The recovery period from Covid-19 matches exactly with the time window for urgent action to avert cataclysmic climate change. Recovery investments advance sustainability rather than retrenching the polluting economy of the 20th century.

• Create an Office of Climate Mobilization (OCM) to coordinate efforts
  1. In order to use all the tools of government, to organize every cabinet agency, and align the full resources of the federal budget in collaboration with the RDFC, establish through the executive branch and with the full vocal support of the Presidency an Office of Climate Mobilization. 
  2. Enable a full accounting of environmental costs, benefits and risks of any publicly-funded projects, policies, rules and regulations by establishing a Climate and Environmental Justice Task Force at the Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP) to reform cost-benefit analysis and risk-assessment methodologies and related rules across government institutions
• Make all investments in line with the demands of climate science
  1. All investments and programs must move us towards achieving zero emissions as soon as possible to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. To qualify for funding, all projects must present assessments to demonstrate that the projects will support reduced greenhouse gases, reduced toxic pollution, and/or increased climate resilience in line with the 1.5 deg C goal.
  2. Through the OCM, coordinate ERP investments and set national standards through existing executive authority to move the economy towards 100% clean electricity by 2030, 100% clean new cars by 2030, 100% clean new buildings by 2025, and a strict climate test on all infrastructure projects.
  3. Prohibit any use of ERP funds or programs to support new development of fossil fuel infrastructure.
  4. All materials and parts used in projects financed with public investment should be subject to Buy Clean standards that reduce industrial pollution, climate resilience standards, and energy efficiency standards.
• Collect, utilize, and make public equity data and analysis to direct investments and mitigate disproportionate burdens
  1. Establish a cross-agency Equity Impact Mapping initiative to track geographic distribution of cumulative environmental impacts, pollution hotspots, and income inequality, and vulnerability to various environmental and social risks nationally to the finest grain, such as census blocks, as possible. This equity-mapping data should identify frontline and vulnerable communities across multiple indicators such as environmental and public health risks, economic inequality, climate change vulnerability, and others.
  2. In order to effectively determine equity outcomes of investments and programs, and prevent further concentration of pollution into toxic hot-spots, and minimize inadvertent disproportionate social, economic, and environmental harms of investments and programs, establish an equity screen and scoring assessment of all federal agency operations. This could be accomplished through passing the Climate Equity Act and by strengthening Executive Order 12898. A minimum threshold of an Equity Score on policy proposals should be established to allow programs and investments to proceed. A secondary threshold should be established under which programs unable to meet the second threshold automatically undergo secondary review including a stakeholder engagement and accountability evaluation.

National Projects

Note for reviewers: at this phase of the draft, some sections have a greater level of detail than others. Each section should have a standard format and level of specificity in the final product. This is a live document and we are working to spell out each section as we garner input from experts. Again, please contribute suggestions/feedback in this Google form. 

Investing in Places & Rebuilding Communities: 

Housing & Buildings: 

The Covid-19, economic, and climate crises are converging in American homes. Even before the pandemic, roughly 40 million households were paying over a third of their income on rent or mortgages. Now with Covid-19 devastating the economy, tenants and businesses are skipping rent. Meanwhile, American homes and commercial buildings combined are responsible for 30% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

The {Economic Recovery Plan} invests in more affordable, efficient, and sustainable buildings through retrofits and new construction, creating millions of jobs while lowering costs for households and businesses. 

1. Fully fund the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, to retrofit one million units of public housing to benefit two million residents, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, removing the equivalent of one million cars from the road every year, catalyzing the building retrofit sector, and improving health conditions for residents, while bringing them economic opportunities.

1. Increase funding to the Weatherization Assistance Program to $3 billion per year, until all qualifying low-income homes are retrofitted. Increase the per-unit spending cap by 10 times to $65,000 to permit holistic retrofits that maximize returns on investment, allow full home electrification, allow appliance upgrades (and recycling of old appliances), and maximize economic benefits to the building, construction, and manufacture industries, which would benefit from Buy American provisions.

1. Invest billions of dollars in new funding to support retrofits of Municipal, University, School, and Hospital (MUSH) buildings to support public health, energy efficiency, electrification, climate resilience, and renewable energy.

1. ReBuild America building energy retrofit initiative (Sec. 4.2 of Evergreen Action Plan)

Clean Water for All: 

[Insert introductory rhetoric]

1. Fund the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) at $100 billion over five years for, split evenly between the two SRFs, with at least 20 percent of funding distributed to disadvantaged communities as additional grants (not loans) and at least 20 percent of Clean Water SRF funding set aside for investing in green infrastructure.

1. Replace lead pipes and protect our children and communities from the damaging impacts of toxic lead pollution by funding the Reducing Lead in Drinking Water program at $45 billion over 10 years. All of this funding should be in grants to fund full (not partial) Lead Service Line (LSL) replacement, and to provide Point of Use Filters in all homes and child care centers with LSLs.

1. Prevent sewage overflows, prevent flooding, and stop runoff pollution through $6 billion in grants for wastewater infrastructure. These funds should be spent over the next 18 months, with a 30 percent carve-out for natural/green infrastructure projects

1. Support universal access to water through at least $3 billion in immediate funding for a Low Income Households Drinking Water and Wastewater Assistance Program, modeled after LIHEAP, at least $5 billion to fund emergency relief and a nationwide moratorium on shutoffs of water for the duration of the crisis, and other grant programs to protect clean water access.

Broader Access through Broadband: 

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many pillars of daily life, including education, medical visits, business meetings, family and social gatherings, and worship, to turn digital. In the wake of public health or climate emergencies, Internet access and communications are key. The virus has only further exposed the digital divide. Roughly 1/4 of people living in rural areas and 1/3 of people living on tribal lands lack access to minimum speed broadband. In urban areas, communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately are not covered by broadband services. In total, over 40 million people across the country lack access.

The {Economic Recovery Plan} brings us closer together through a generational investment in broadband access for all Americans.

1. Provide $350 billion in infrastructure grants and technical assistance for municipalities and states to build resilient, affordable, publicly owned high-speed broadband infrastructure, including reliable mobile service, modern technology and hardware. Investments should also be directed to conduct a national broadband census in order to create a comprehensive and accurate map of broadband access, speeds, and prices.

1. Expand funding for the USDA Rural Utility Service, Rural Housing Service, Rural Business Service, Rural Health Support, E-Rate, and Lifeline programs, as well as fully resource the Federal Communication Commission’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy.

Expanding Transportation & Mobility: 

Federal transportation policy is broken, and American communities are suffering as a result. The U.S. transportation system is an enormous source of carbon emissions–producing at least 29% of all CO2 emissions–and a major contributor to inequality–cutting through and dividing communities across the rural-urban continuum. Access to safe, affordable, and reliable transportation is a fundamental American right linked to principles of freedom and security. Yet, the overwhelming majority of federal transportation funding is allocated for roadways, leaving limited funds for more sustainable modes of transit like walking, biking, passenger rail, and buses. As a result, fewer than 10% of Americans live within walking distance of high-service public transit. Now is the time to overhaul America’s transportation systems by removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the sector through zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, manufacturing, and demand-side incentives; and transformational investments in clean, affordable, and frequent public transit. This must include:

1. Provide direct transfers to local transit authorities to ensure they remain solvent, well-maintained, and ready for active service when the pandemic recedes. Local transit agencies are expected to see a $26-38 billion annual shortfall due to social distancing. With Amtrak also experiencing drops in ridership, both public transit and passenger rail will still need additional emergency funding, including increasing operational funding by $50 billion and maintenance funding by $100 billion for public transit to ensure timely, data-driven public health responses, to ensure hygiene and safety measures are in place, and to make up for lost revenues from decreased travel.

1. Create hundreds of thousands of new construction, building, and trades jobs by offering grants and no-interest, no-match loans to state and local governments targeted at completing their backlog of ADA compliance, Complete Streets, and other neighborhood-level transportation projects. Every $1 billion invested in public transit creates more than 50,000 jobs and economic returns of $3.7 billion over 20 years. Congress should create a $4.5 billion annual fund for Complete Streets projects and training for state Departments of Transportation and local agencies to build streets that are safe and economically prosperous. This work should be paired with investments in sanitary sewer upgrades, roadway maintenance, and other projects to minimize disruption and maximize the impact of each dollar invested. 

1. Provide grants and no-interest, no-match loans to state and local governments to fund the purchase of electric schools buses for public schools and fully electrified vehicle fleets in public agencies. These investments must be paired with targeted investments in electric vehicle, bus, and railcar manufacturing in American companies. These investments must be tied to a goal of electrifying all government vehicles by 2030 and all personal vehicles by 2040.

1. Reauthorize and reform the electric vehicle tax credit to stimulate trade-in demand in the private vehicle market. The tax credit should be expanded from $7,500 to $12,500 per purchase, applied only to electric vehicles sold for $40,000 or less, and have the previous cap of 200,000 vehicles removed completely.

Electrify America 

One of the greatest job creation opportunities in the country is transforming our national infrastructure to meet 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean renewable energy. To meet this, we’ll need to electrify our whole society — across transportation, buildings, and more. Doing so will cut national energy consumption in half and produce major savings for consumers and businesses. It will also require a just transition off of our current fossil fuel economy. Here are some major projects that can get us there:

1. Transmission Investment Grants – $150B for transmission development (Sec. 2.5 of EAP or Sec 2 of EEP)
2. Clean Energy Grant Program – $350B for renewable energy and energy storage deployment (see 2.3 of Evergreen Action Plan or Sec. 1 of Inslee Evergreen Economy Plan) 
3. Clean Community Energy Grants – $200B for energy democracy and community-owned renewable energy assets (see Sec. 2.4 of Evergreen Action Plan or Sec. 2 of Inslee Community Climate Justice Plan)
4. Create jobs for wellhead services workers by closing over at least 250,000 orphaned oil and gas wells, which are out of production and risk polluting methane leaks.

Agriculture & food systems:

To respond to the pandemic and rebuild our food chain in a way that is more resilient and doesn’t replicate pre-existing weaknesses will take structural reform, independent family farmers, including livestock producers, must be at the center of any effort. A family-farm centered system, with more farmers on the land, is best suited to revitalize rural communities, produce a healthy and sustainable food supply and respond to — and be resilient to — disruptions such as pandemics like Covid-19 and the effects of climate change. 

Revitalizing Manufacturing:

Some of the communities hardest hit by the COVID pandemic are the same that have long suffered the impacts of deindustrialization, on the one hand, and toxic industrial production, on the other. For many, the decline of manufacturing has meant, not only the loss of quality jobs, but also an attrition of the tax base needed to fund infrastructure and health services that are essential for weathering the crisis. For communities on the fenceline of toxic-emitting industrial plants –the vast majority of which are communities of color– high rates of diseases like asthma and cancer have dramatically increased the vulnerability to diseases like COVID. The systemic effects of industrial pollution, reflected in rising sea levels,  destructive weather patterns, and toxic air, land and water, are already being felt across the country and around the world. These challenges will not be met by our scattered and uncoordinated industrial policy programs, nor by an innovation system currently centered on the military industry. Instead, we need a strategic and ambitious revitalization of our manufacturing sector to build products and technologies to meet pressing human needs, including sharp reductions of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions across industrial production. In other words, we must:

1. Build up our society’s resilience capabilities by creating the RDFC Reserve System Coordination Board to manage the procurement and distribution of strategic stockpiles (including manufactured products like medical equipment), to organize the provision of critical supplies during disasters, and to manage stocks to stabilize price levels.
   1. In the meantime, we must Pass the Medical Supply Chain Emergency Act to require President Trump to implement the Defense Production Act to compel domestic manufacturing of urgently-needed masks, medical equipment and personal protective equipment for health workers on the front lines of the crisis. 
2. Use the RDFC Planning Office to (i) conduct research on priority geographies and industrial sectors for industrial investment; (ii)  implement a nation-wide and regional process of stakeholder engagement to define industrial investment priorities (and concrete implementable targets for sectors), in line with resilience and development objectives; and (iii) create a system of clear and precise high-road labor, equity and environmental standards and selection criteria to be applied to any project or entity that solicits or receives public funds and support.
3. Use RDFC agencies, including the Industrial Bank, to drive industrial investment toward  deindustrialized, underinvested  and environmental justice communities –prioritizing small businesses and cooperatives– to build the products and technologies required for resilience and development. (including products and technologies to build resilient infrastructure, to reduce greenhouse gas and toxic emissions and to improve the sustainable use of resources in industrial production). Possible priority industries to consider include:  
   1. Goods and technologies required to improve community health and systemic economic productivity by building clean, resilient infrastructure for water, transportation, broadband, energy and buildings  (e.g., parts for replacing lead pipes and for the electric grid, clean construction materials, carbon-smart forestry, fossil-fuel-free insulation materials, plant-based building materials made from agricultural wastes and waste fiber streams, such as hempcrete, compressed strawboard, wood fiberboard insulation, which would also support the forestry and agriculture sectors).
   2. Clean energy goods and technologies (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, electric buses, cars and trucks, railroad/subway equipment (locomotives, cars, rails and ties, etc.))
   3. Technologies for  life-cycle (supply chain, production, distribution, and disposal) reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollution, and enhancement of sustainable resource use across industrial production (e.g. ‘zero-waste’,  combined heat and power, and regenerative agriculture technologies)
   4. Alternatives to products, processes and technologies with inherently toxic, highly-polluting or highly resource-depleting production, distribution or disposal processes (e.g. sustainable chemistry to develop alternatives to toxic pesticides that harm agricultural workers and to petrochemical products responsible for the public health crisis in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley)

(For more detail on many of these proposals see the following: The BlueGreen Alliance Legislative Priorities, Sierra Club Letter to Congress; Bernie Sanders’s Presidential Platform; Green Stimulus Call to Action)

1. Use public-private partnerships and public enterprises through the RDFC to expedite and ramp up production of strategic goods and technologies for development and resilience, ensuring diverse stakeholder representation of their Boards.
   1. For example, establish a public enterprise to manage a nationwide materials recycling system to prevent an outsized impact on the environment from harvesting raw materials (for more detail, see Bernie Sanders’s Presidential Platform).
2. Leverage public procurement tools, tax incentives and grants to spur innovation and demand of the goods and technologies that contribute to resilience and development.
   1. Expand federal, state, and local government procurement of strategic goods, while implementing high-road labor, equity and environmental standards in the procurement process
   2. Transfer excess funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to the RDFC Industrial Bank to greatly increase funding for technical assistance and research, development and demonstration for strategic goods and technologies for resilience and development.
   3. Improve and expand grants and tax incentives to retool industry, while providing more pathways into good family-supporting jobs and enhancing labor, environmental and equity impacts (e.g., fund Section 1603 grants in lieu of tax credits for clean technology manufacturing and/or industrial retooling or conversion;  fund Section 132 of the Energy Independence and Security Act (Manufacturing Conversion/Industrial Retooling Grants) to shift or retool facilities to produce clean vehicles or components; enhance grant programs for small- and medium-sized manufacturers to deploy industrial efficiency, repowering, and emissions reduction technology and processes; expand and update the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program;  renew and enhance funding for the Section 48C Manufacturing Tax Credit Program, increase the Section 48 investment tax credit for combined heat and power (CHP) and clarify that waste heat to power is also eligible for this credit; adapt the Section 45M technology production tax credit to fund domestic production (or manufacturer purchase) of strategic clean energy/vehicle component technologies, including batteries, solar cells, and wind components). (The BlueGreen Alliance Legislative Priorities provide greater detail on many of these proposals)

Caring for All People: 

Even before the pandemic and resulting economic crisis, many critical public services that form the backbone of society were already largely under-resourced. Disinvestment in public schools, public health, and other community services is particularly acute in frontline and vulnerable communities, as a result of decades of racist zoning laws. Now, with over 30 million people unemployed and businesses shutting down, state and local governments’ tax revenue is running dry, putting teachers, nurses, bus drivers, firefighters, EMTs and other public employees out of work, decimating pensions and retirement security. Additionally, the US Postal Service, central to transporting essential goods, especially to rural communities, paramount to ensuring democratic elections, and one of the largest employers, especially of veterans, in the country, is on track to run out of revenue completely in a matter of months. To heal and strengthen our communities and democracy, we must recommit to investing in public services and guarantee that state and local governments’ budgetary needs are met. 

Public Health Services: 

The pandemic has made clear that our massive disinvestment in public health is a matter of life or death. It didn’t have to be like this. In 2019, Congress cut the US public health budget by $265 million, and over the past 15 years, the budget has been reduced by 28%. The 2008 recession resulted in a loss of 50,000 public health jobs across the country. With only 2,200 contact tracers currently employed and state and local hospitals and Community Health Centers on the brink of budget collapse, we urgently need a nationwide reinvestment in our public health infrastructure. We can invest in a robust public health workforce to take care of our communities, provide critical contract tracing to stop the spread of coronavirus and future disease, and provide mental health counseling and support services.

1. Fund Community Health Centers (CHCs)
   1. Community Health Centers serve 28 million patients, including over 350,000 veterans, over 8 million children, and 1.4 million homeless patients, in thousands of rural, urban, and frontier communities nationally, and employ more than 220,000 people across the country. However, for years, Congress has let funding for CHCs lapse or has only provided short-term funding. Congress must invest $77.3 billion to provide a long-term, stable source of funding to build, hire and recruit staff, or expand capacity for CHCs. 
2. Reinvest in public hospitals 
   1. Over half of Health Professional Shortage Areas — those lacking adequate staffing of primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, EMTs, and home health aides — exist in rural areas. Over 3,600 additional health professionals are needing to fill the gap in rural regions. Congress must expand funding for the National Health Service Corps to train and place health professionals to fill this gap.

Domestic & Child Care: 

We were already experiencing a care worker shortage before this public health crisis, especially with the aging of the baby boomers. The care worker shortage has only gotten worse with the pandemic, as care workers get sick, are quarantined, and are scared to put their client’s (or their own) health at risk by showing up at work.

1. Enact a universal child care program
   1. Create over a million jobs by doubling the number of educators in early childhood learning programs 
   2. Double the amount of funding for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program which ensures that young children in low-income families have access to support from nurses, mental health professionals, and social workers. 
2. Ensure seniors have the care they need
   1. As the nation ages, we will need many more workers to provide supportive services for seniors to help them age in their homes and communities, which is where they want to be.
3. Care Force: We were already experiencing a care worker shortage before this public health crisis, especially with the aging of the baby boomers. The care worker shortage has only gotten worse with the pandemic, as care workers get sick, are quarantined, and are scared to put their client’s (or their own) health at risk by showing up at work. We need to increase public funding to invest in a care workforce that can be deployed to the communities that need them the most.
4. In particular, the public funding for a care force should invest in child care and home care jobs by:
   1. Improving Job Quality: Increase wages, including hazard/premium pay and benefits of care workers who are already working in the sector and well as those entering the sector for the first time. 
   2. Robust Workforce Development: Recruit and train those entering the occupations for the first time 
      1. Provide funding to states and local and national worker organizations to recruit, train, certify, and safely deploy workers including homecare workers, domestic workers, child care workers, and case managers. 
      2. Increased salary tied to training and certification.
      3. For home care, principles of home and community-based services and consumer direction must be included and preserved in all training

Education:

State and local funds make up about 90% of total K-12 education funding. As we rebuild our public k-12 schools as well as institutions of higher education, we must ensure they are safe and welcoming spaces for our youth to flourish and have adequate resources to provide meaningful, high-quality education. Increasingly, students and families rely on schools for access to health services, meals, and before/after school care. We must invest in the next generation of this country and put the health and wellbeing of students first through commiting to the community school model. Following the pandemic, schools must offer substantial mental health services to address the scars of physical distancing, illness, death, and economic hardship that the virus has had on students’ families and communities. Additionally, we need significantly more staff capacity to sanitize schools thoroughly every day, and new teachers to reduce class sizes and support summer school and extended learning programs to compensate for instructional time lost during spring 2019.

Arts & Culture: 

Arts are vital to our democracy — sharing ideas, uniting communities to process and respond to collective challenges and lifting us out of crisis towards a vision for a better world. Existing public funding towards artistic and cultural work is anemic and inadequate, with the lion’s share going towards private, elite institutions that are largely inaccessible to the majority of people. Additionally, as a result of the pandemic, the overwhelming majority of artists have lost income, many of whom work in community settings already under stress, with no cushion. 

We should establish a national Culture Corps, reviving projects like the Federal Theater Project, Federal Writers’ Project, and Federal Art Project to create XXX jobs strengthening cultural and social fabric and producing publicly enjoyed goods. Culture Corps workers could also run programs in health care facilities, senior homes, summer and afterschool programs, and in correctional institutions.

Other Public Goods:

Postal Service, Parks & Rec Centers, Fire Depts, etc.

Restoring Land, Air, Water & Planet: 

Disaster response & recovery: 

[This introduction needs work] Building resiliency against climate change-related disasters, such as extreme weather, including by leveraging funding and providing investments for community-defined projects and strategies;

1. Create a Resilience Corps, expanding and transforming FEMA’s existing Cadre of On Call and Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) program. In partnership with the National Employment Agency, the Resilience Corps will hire and train millions of people to acquire the skills necessary to respond to immediate disaster-recovery needs, overcoming the labor shortage currently experienced in resilience-related industries, while providing employment opportunities for communities on the frontlines of public health, climate and other disasters. By removing the barriers to employment for immigrants and people with criminal conviction histories that hold our country back from adequately responding to national disasters, the Resilience Corp will also set workers up for a family sustaining careers in construction and related fields. The Resilience Corps will get people back to work rebuilding homes and other structures that remain damaged or destroyed after recent disasters, building and repairing the infrastructure needed to ensure we are resilient to coming disasters, and ensuring the basic needs of every person in the country are met, including access to clean water, electricity, healthcare and food.

Superfund/hazardous waste site clean up

[This introduction needs work] Cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites.

1. Pass and fully fund at $56 billion the Environmental Cleanup Infrastructure Act (S. 1669) to fund cleanup of orphan Superfund sites, abandoned coal mines, and defense and former atomic energy sites

1. Accelerate toxic site cleanup and protect the 53 million people living within three miles of the existing 1,836 Superfund sites by allocating $20 billion in additional funding for Superfund site cleanup, with funding set aside for workforce training and renewable energy development. In addition, the Brownfields program should receive additional funding to clean up contaminated sites in support of community-driven economic development, while protecting against community displacement.

1. Pass and fully fund the RECLAIM Act (H.R. 2156) and the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4248) to spur economic development in hard-hit mining communities by restoring land and water resources impacted by coal mining. The existing backlog of AML needs is estimated to be more than $10 billion.

Ecosystem restoration, conservation & natural infrastructure: 

[This introduction needs work] Restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency. Removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation. 

1. Fund the creation of a Stewardship Corps to hire local workers to restore forests, wetlands, and other protective ecosystems, as outlined in the Climate Stewardship Act (S.2452). 

1. Clean Water Corps: building out alternative stormwater management systems through XXX of $100 billion over five years for Clean Water Revolving Fund for natural infrastructure.

1. Direct and fully fund the National Parks Service, U.S. Forest Service, Army Corps of Engineers, and US Coast Guard to begin planning for the climate crisis and clearing their backlog of authorized projects (current backlog is $12b for NPS alone) with priority given those that respond to sea level rise, wildfires, ecosystem migration, and biodiversity loss.