Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is back with a brand new plan.
On Tuesday, the 2020 presidential candidate rolled out a massive policy proposal outlining how she intends to combat "environmental racism" while transitioning the U.S. to a "green energy economy." It includes tackling how climate change disproportionately affects poorer communities of color, and addressing the needs of fossil fuel workers who will be displaced in this transition.
Warren starts her plan by highlighting instances of environmental racism across the country. Detroit's 48217 zip code is 80 percent black and is the most polluted zip code in the U.S., and the Isle de Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, living on the sinking edge of Louisiana, has become "the country's first climate refugees," the plan says. These examples show how environmental justice "must be at the center of our response to climate change," and how current environmental policies don't address that reality, the proposal continues.
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To tackle these and other environmental injustices, Warren brings up the Green New Deal, promising to funnel at least $1 trillion to communities amid or at risk of a climate disaster. Trillions more dollars will go into "mitigating environmental harm" by expanding health care and raising wages for those in polluted areas, seeing as they were often forced there by redlining and other discriminatory policies. Warren also acknowledges fossil fuel workers will lose their jobs in a zero-emission economy, saying she'll provide them "job training and guaranteed wage and benefit parity" or "full financial security" for those who choose to retire.
Warren had previously unveiled two other climate-related policy proposals: A whole climate change plan, and one specifically regarding the military. Find her whole environmental justice plan here.
