Clean Energy Caucus Co-chairs Sen. Eldridge and Rep. Owens Urge President Biden to Declare Climate Emergency
Letter signed by 27 legislators requests bold action from the White House to combat climate crisis
Boston, MA – Senator Eldridge and Representative Owens, co-chairs of the MA Clean Energy Caucus, led a letter to President Biden regarding the climate emergency — requesting bold, aggressive action to combat the growing climate crisis. The letter was signed by 27 MA state legislators. On Sunday September 17th, 70,000+ Americans marched in New York, demanding climate action.
The legislators emphasized their appreciation of actions taken by the White House so far, specifically in President Biden’s efforts to reduce climate pollution and increase resilience against climate impacts by setting an ambitious, 1.5°C-aligned goal of reducing emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. However, in the face of a worsening climate emergency — evidenced by widespread impact of Canadian wildfires in the US, the hottest June-August period on record, and a recent UN report which showed that the world is far off track from their 2015 pledges — the legislators asked for the President to deliver more.
The legislators called for the President to earn a place for the US at the September Climate Ambition Summit by declaring a climate emergency to reinstate a ban on crude oil exports, phasing out fossil fuel production on public lands and waters, denying all permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure, and upholding and strengthening environmental protections in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA). Additionally, the legislators called for the President to comprehensively implement the Justice40 Initiative, and to represent the US at the upcoming September UN Climate Summit in New York City.
“The White House has made an effort to combat climate change, but it needs to do more,” said State Senator Jamie Eldridge (D-Marlborough), Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Caucus. “Specifically, the President must use the powers at his disposal to take decisive action to curb our reliance on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels and their associated projects and infrastructure worsen the climate emergency, and have a decisively unequal impact — functionally designating specific regions, populated by Indigenous, Black, Brown, and poor communities, as ‘sacrifice zones.’ This has to stop, and now.”
“The scale of the disruption brought about by climate change demands a bold response,” said State Representative Steve Owens (D-Cambridge), Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Caucus. “We can either declare a climate emergency now or continue along the path that is exacerbating every other emergency, whether fires, floods, storms, heat waves or droughts – each made worse by rising global temperatures. We are calling on the President and his administration to take the long overdue step of phasing out fossil fuel production on public lands and waters and ending the approval of new fossil fuel projects.”
"We applaud Senator Eldridge and Representative Steve Owens and the other legislators who signed this letter to President Biden for their leadership in this fight and committment to being a partner in changing the direction of energy use in Massachusetts, the USA, and the world,” said Russell Freedman, Massachusetts state coordinator of Progressive Democrats of America.
For more information about the Massachusetts Clean Energy Caucus, click here.
###
