A Green New Deal for Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is suffering from a triple crisis of economic inequality, ecological devastation and climate change, and public disinvestment. Our wages have stagnated, and many communities suffer from deep poverty and despair. The climate crisis threatens the futures of people all over Pennsylvania—none more so than frontline vulnerable communities and young people. On top of that our state government’s dramatic disinvestment in public services has led to toxic schools, unaffordable college, and crumbling physical infrastructure—all while working people across Pennsylvania shoulder the burden.

Pennsylvanians need a Green New Deal.

A Green New Deal is the path to realize our basic human rights: to clean air, clean water, clean infrastructure, healthy food, renewable natural resources, and a stable and livable climate. The Green New Deal is not a specific policy, but a recognition that our three crises are inseparable, and a commitment to addressing them all at once. We can do this by creating jobs and empowering workers, halting climate change, reversing environmental injustice, caring for the natural world, and investing in public goods and services that working people need to thrive.

I will:

Expand access to public transit by increasing frequency of service, lowering the price to $1 per ride, and investing in a transition to electric vehicles for all public transit by 2030.
Propose a clean energy plan that transitions Pennsylvania to 100% clean renewable energy from primarily wind and solar by 2035 or as soon as possible with benchmarks for emissions reductions, job growth, and equity.
Demand we clean up every toxic site in Philadelphia left by fossil fuels and increase funding for community green space to return toxic industrial spaces to community controlled public lands.
Call for a complete ban on fracking in Pennsylvania and keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Support a just transition for workers by investing funds in training for renewable energy industries and ensuring those jobs are good union jobs. We also support the creation of a pension fund for workers who are transitioning out of the fossil fuel industry and will not pursue training.
Support urban agriculture and expanding community gardens and farms which can be centers of community resilience where Philadelphians care for each other and the natural world.