FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2020
Washington, DC — This afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act, the emergency stimulus bill released in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Carroll Muffett, President of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), issued the following statement:
“The Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act critically focuses on increasing the federal government’s capacity to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and provides essential support where the country needs it most: health care, education, food security, extended unemployment and sick leave benefits, support for small business, and retraining for dislocated workers. It is a necessary action to ensure that economic relief will go to the workers, families and communities hardest hit by the crisis, rather than shareholders and corporate executives.
CIEL supports the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act as the first substantial legislative step to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the social and economic turmoil it has precipitated.
While the Act is a first step towards recognizing that responses to the crisis should be investments in the future not in the unsustainable past, it is only that—a first step. As written, the Act requires airlines who receive money from the stimulus package to reduce their CO2 emissions 25% by 2035 and 50% by 2050. This is a valuable start, but it should in no way be construed as the endpoint. To meet the challenge of the climate crisis, the United States and the world must reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Achieving this will require a rapid and complete transition away from the fossil fuel-based economy.
Diverting hundreds of millions of dollars to biofuels and waste-to-fuel processes will not help us achieve those goals—this is a wasteful distraction that detracts from a significant, necessary and vital legislative response to the current crisis.
We call upon the House and the Senate to quickly pass legislation and provide relief for workers today. We cannot afford to wait until they return from recess.”
###
Contact:
- Cate Bonacini, Communications Manager, CIEL: cbonacini@ciel.org, 510-520-9109