MEMO: The Work We Have Ahead to Ensure a Just and Equitable Recovery

Tonight, President Joe Biden will give his first joint address to Congress. In his first 100 days in office, President Biden has taken significant, bold action, including a number of executive actions and orders on the climate crisis and the pandemic -- actions made even more critical by the failed previous administration. Since being sworn in, Biden rejected Keystone XL, rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement and set a new and ambitious National Determined Climate commitment, regranted California’s Clean Air Act waiver to implement stronger protections from car emissions, repeatedly paused onshore and offshore fossil fuel leases, and signed the American Rescue Plan  into law. And the President continues the work in addressing the interconnected crises of climate change, racial injustice, economic inequality, and the pandemic.   

As we face these interconnected crises, we must use every tool at our disposal to address them. In just the past few weeks, we’ve seen leaders in Washington move to do just that, with responses ranging from the continued push for an infrastructure package as bold in scale and rooted in justice as the THRIVE Act to Senator Wyden’s legislation to advance clean energy and remove wasteful fossil fuel subsidies, and President Biden’s continued focus on using executive action and rulemaking to clean up toxic pollution, protect our public lands, and invest in and grow a clean energy future. Each of these avenues play a critical role in the federal government’s response to the climate crisis, and all must be carried out in order to build America back better to a just and equitable society. 

As President Biden marks his 100th day in office, he and his administration have accomplished nearly countless actions that will address the crises we face, but much more work remains. Below is a partial list of the work that lies ahead, and which we look forward to partnering with the Biden administration and our champions in Congress to usher into reality.

• Pass an infrastructure package as bold in scale and rooted in justice as the THRIVE Act, which congressional leaders plan to introduce this week. 

• Scale: Economic modeling shows that we need economy-wide investments of $1 trillion per year for a decade to: 1) Create 15 million good jobs and deliver full employment, 2) Cut climate pollution nearly in half by 2030, and 3) Curb racial, economic, gender, and environmental injustice. The THRIVE Act, which is backed by dozens of leading members of Congress and over 100 union, racial justice, and climate groups, calls for this scale of investments. 

• Scope: The THRIVE Act highlights the need for investments across the economy to counter unemployment, pollution and injustice wherever we find it. That includes: creating over 5 million jobs to upgrade our infrastructure -- replacing every lead pipe in the country, building clean and affordable public transit, and ensuring a reliable electric grid; over 4 million jobs in clean energy -- to expand access to wind and solar power, electric vehicles, and clean and healthy buildings; 4 million jobs to protect our wetlands and forests and invest in family farmers; and over 2 million jobs to invest in care for children and the elderly. 

• Standards: Job quality and job access matter just as much as job quantity.  That’s why the THRIVE Act calls for all of these investments to be paired with strong labor, equity, and environmental standards to build a more just economy instead of reinforcing the unjust status quo. The latest labor data show that without such standards, we’d create millions of mostly mediocre, non-union jobs for predominantly white men. Instead, the infrastructure package should direct at least half of investments to frontline communities and require strong wage and benefit standards, access to unions, and equitable hiring that favors women and people of color. 

• Put the energy industry to work plugging orphan oil and gas wells.

• Hundreds of thousands of former orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mines pose serious safety hazards, while also causing ongoing air, water, and other environmental damage. Many of these old wells and mines are located in rural communities in Appalachia and elsewhere that have suffered from years of disinvestment. 

• President Biden’s plan includes an immediate up-front investment of $16 billion to put hundreds of thousands to work in union jobs plugging oil and gas wells and restoring and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock, and uranium mines. In addition to creating good jobs in hard-hit communities, this investment will reduce the methane and brine that leaks from these wells, just as we invest in reducing leaks from other sources like aging pipes and distribution systems.

• Ramp up clean economy investment and eliminate wasteful fossil fuel subsidies

• The Sierra Club endorses Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden’s Clean Energy for America Act, landmark legislation to create a new emissions-based incentive program to spur growth in clean power plants, buildings, and transportation. This is a big, bold bill designed to build out the blueprint provided in President Biden’s American Jobs Plan through unprecedented investments in clean energy and clean transportation while eliminating wasteful subsidies for the fossil fuel and nuclear industry. 

• Along with these solar, on- and off-shore wind, storage, transmission, energy efficiency & building electrification, and electric vehicle incentives, critical equity, labor, and climate benchmarks ensure that these investments will create more than 600,000 good paying jobs a year, tackle the climate crisis, and put us on the path to an equitable and just 100% clean energy economy. 

• Eliminate Tax Preferences for Fossil Fuels and Ensure Polluting Industries Pay for Environmental Clean Up. 

• The current tax code includes billions of dollars in subsidies, loopholes, and special foreign tax credits for the fossil fuel industry. As part of the President’s commitment to put the country on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, his tax reform proposal will eliminate all these special preferences. The President is also proposing to restore payments from polluters into the Superfund Trust Fund so that polluting industries help fairly cover the cost of cleanups.

• The 20 largest fossil fuel companies account for more than a third of global greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era, all while raking in absurd profits, American taxpayers today pay $15 billion per year in direct federal subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. In 2020, the oil, gas, and coal industry spent more than $115 million lobbying Congress in defense of these giveaways for an over 13,000% return on investment. 

• That’s why Sierra Club has endorsed Senator Sanders and Representative Omar’s End Polluter Welfare Act, which repeals the billions in special interest subsidies that disproportionately benefit the oil, gas, and coal industries. 

• 100% Clean electricity grid by 2035 and 80% by 2030

• President Biden has asked Congress to pass an Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity (EECES) Standard, and polling shows strong public support for the policy. A clean grid is necessary to combat climate change, clean up our air and water, protect public health and fenceline communities, and advance electrification economy-wide, including in the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors.

• Sierra Club proposes a CES designed to achieve an at least 80% clean, carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2030, and 100% by 2035. Strong environmental, justice and labor provisions should be pillars of the proposal here and are outlined here. 

• Electrify and modernize our transportation infrastructure.

• The President’s plan proposes a $174b investment to win the EV market. The plan will enable automakers to spur domestic supply chains from raw materials to parts, retool factories to compete globally, and support American workers to make batteries and EVs. It will give consumers point of sale rebates and tax incentives to buy American-made EVs, while ensuring that these vehicles are affordable for all families and manufactured by workers with good jobs. It will establish grant and incentive programs for state and local governments and the private sector to build a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030, while promoting strong labor, training, and installation standards. 

• His plan also will replace 50,000 diesel transit vehicles and electrify at least 20 percent of our yellow school bus fleet, as well as electrifying the federal fleet, including United States Postal Service vehicles

• Investing $17 billion in inland waterways, coastal ports, and ferries, which are all essential for the freight industry. This includes a Healthy Ports program to mitigate the cumulative impacts of air pollution on neighborhoods near ports, often communities of color.

• Redressing historic inequities and building the future of transportation infrastructure. The plan includes $20b for a new program to reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments.

• Investing $85b to modernize existing transit and expand local systems to meet rider demand

• Unlike highways and transit, rail lacks a multi-year funding, the plan will invest $80 billion to address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernize the high traffic Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors and connect new city pairs; and boost grant and loan programs that support passenger and freight rail safety, efficiency, and electrification.

• Protect 30% of our public lands and waters by 2030 and 50% by 2050

• Nearly one quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels mined and drilled on national public lands. In addition, one of the easiest and most cost effective means of reducing carbon pollution is the conservation and restoration of our old growth forests across land ownerships. 

• It’s time to ensure that our ecosystems, communities, and wildlife are protected and resilient in the face of the climate crisis by partnering with Native and frontline communities to protect 30% of nature by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

• In addition to establishing a civilian climate conservation corps to help maintain and restore parks and public lands, the Sierra Club has outlined some key next steps for the Biden administration and Congress here.

• Block new oil and natural gas leases and permits on public lands or in offshore waters

• As part of the ban on new permits, the Biden Administration has stopped proposed seismic testing and exploratory drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is considered ‘the sacred place where life begins’ by the Gwich’in people, and should be permanently off limits to oil and gas drilling and development.

• The Bureau of Land Management halted all lease sales on federal lands in the 2nd quarter.  This ban should be made permanent, as our public lands should NOT contribute to the climate crisis by being a source of coal, oil and natural gas.

• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is not planning any new lease sales for offshore drilling in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.  Our beaches and coastlines should be protected, and our oceans should not contribute to the climate crisis.

• The Secretary of the Interior is conducting a review to determine the potential climate and other impacts associated with oil and gas activities on public lands or in offshore waters. The Sierra Club believes that drilling and mining are incompatible with the ambitious climate goals outlined by the Biden Administration. 

Additionally, President Biden is expected to unveil his American Families Plan, which will play a significant role in further creating a just and equitable recovery. Critical pieces include:

• Add, at least four years of free public education, close equity gaps, and make college more affordable. President Biden is calling for a national partnership with states to offer free, high-quality, accessible, and inclusive preschool to all three-and four-year-olds, benefitting five million children and saving the average family $13,000, when fully implemented.

• Create a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program, which will ensure workers receive partial wage replacement to take time to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill loved one, deal with a loved one’s military deployment, find safety from sexual assault, stalking, or domestic violence, heal from their own serious illness, or take time to deal with the death of a loved one.

• Make the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion for Childless Workers permanent, and extend the Child Tax Credits increases in the American Rescue Plan for another five years.

• The pandemic has added urgency to the issue of nutrition insecurity, which disproportionately affects low-income families and families of color, which is why the President is proposing expanded school meal programs and the summer EBT to all eligible children nationwide.