Progressive Groups Urge Senate Passage and Strengthening of Moving Forward Act

In response to a 233-188 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday evening to send the Moving Forward Act to the U.S. Senate for approval, a broad coalition of progressive organizations including Indivisible, Sunrise Movement, Climate Justice Alliance, People's Action, Working Families Party, 32BJ SEIU, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Greenpeace USA issued the following statement:

"We're glad to see House Democrats spearhead a response to the coronavirus crisis that creates millions of new good-paying jobs while aiming for bold action to combat the crisis of climate change. Our nation is in crisis, with 43 million Americans having lost their jobs to the economic recession resulting from a world-historic pandemic. Not since the Great Depression has our country seen anything like the rapid displacement of workers we're living through right now, and the crisis is certain to only get worse in the weeks and months to come. Because of incompetence from the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans' total failure of courage, millions more workers in the restaurant industry, service industry, agriculture industry, and across every sector of our economy stand to lose their livelihoods and their health insurance, as an unprecedented disease continues killing thousands from coast to coast. At the same time, we are facing the intersecting crises of systemic racism, economic inequality and climate change.

"Yesterday's vote is a step in the right direction towards solving those massive crises. The Moving Forward Act's approach of putting millions of people back to work by upgrading our nation's transportation infrastructure and simultaneously tackling the urgent crisis of climate change is the kind of policy struggling communities need. That being said, we believe this bill does not go far enough to transition our economy off of fossil fuels. To rebuild our surface transportation and renewable energy infrastructure, and address the systemic racial inequality that's been so starkly highlighted over the past few months, we need a much larger bill that places environmental justice and workers at the very center. $1.5 trillion simply doesn't match the enormity of the crises we're facing. Through addressing climate change at the scale science and justice demand, we have a historic opportunity to lift our country out of economic recession and tackle systemic racial inequalities, which have subjected Black, Brown, and Indigenous nations and communities to disproportionate levels of air pollution and other environmental injustices, leading to higher rates of asthma and higher fatality rates from COVID-19.

"As the bill moves to the Senate, we urge every single Senator to stand strong, reject false solutions and right-wing smears about the Green New Deal, and take the bold action we know is needed to secure people's livelihoods and protect our towns from the urgent crises of climate change and economic dislocation."