Political task forces Joe Biden formed with onetime rival Bernie Sanders to solidify support among the Democratic Party’s progressive wing recommended Wednesday that the former vice president embrace major proposals to combat climate change and institutional racism while expanding health care coverage and rebuilding a coronavirus-ravaged economy. The groups, formed in May to tackle health care, immigration, education, criminal justice reform, climate change and the economy, sought to hammer out a policy road map to best defeat President Donald Trump.
Their 110 pages of recommendations should help shape the policy platform Democrats will adopt during their national convention next month — even though the entire party platform adopted in 2016 ran only about 50 pages.
The task forces sought to help Biden, a center-left establishment candidate, engage skeptical progressives who’d backed other 2020 candidates, especially Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is under consideration for Biden’s running mate.
Biden hoped the groups would promote party unity and help him avoid a repeat of 2016, when many Sanders supporters remained disillusioned enough that they stayed home rather than support Hillary Clinton against Trump. They recommend that Biden commit to moving the U.S. to being fully powered by renewable energy, and meeting other key environmental benchmarks, by 2035.
That’s far more ambitious than the 2050 deadline he embraced during the primary. They also call for a 100-day moratorium on deportations and a series of steps to overhaul the economy in an effort to reduce economic and racial inequality.
“While Joe Biden and I, and our supporters, have strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country, we also understand that we must come together in order to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history,” Sanders, a Vermont senator, said in a statement.
Biden thanked Sanders for “working together to unite our party, and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come. ”Still, the recommendations don’t include a ban on hydraulic fracturing that could hurt Biden in the energy-producing swing state of Pennsylvania. There’s also no endorsement for Medicare for All, which dominated debate during the Democratic presidential primary but could alienate voters afraid of losing their current, employer-based private health coverage.
Instead, the recommendations list ways to expand health insurance coverage by building on the Obama administration’s signature law. “We still believe that Medicare for All is the right way to go and we’re still going to continue to fight for that,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who co-led the health care task force. “But this was a situation where Joe Biden had already put a stake in the sand on the Affordable Care Act and it was part of his legacy with President Obama.”
Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, served on the environmental advisory group and said she was encouraged by the finished product. She noted that it does not include specific recommendations on how many new jobs Biden hopes to create in the sector or spell out how much money he would commit to making his promises a reality.
Also omitted is the Green New Deal, the comprehensive anti-climate change plan that Prakash’s group champions. Still, Prakash said Biden making the recommendations a centerpiece of his campaign can help bolster his support among young people, Latinos and working class voters.
“If Joe Biden takes this plan that he has signed off on and campaigns really, really hard on it, if he understands the economic opportunity that exists in tackling the climate crisis, if he can speak to the level of urgency and the level of swift, scalable action that we need to be taking, he will appeal to so many of the voters that he needs to unite,” Prakash said. Their conclusions come as Biden and Democratic Party officials enter the main phase of writing the platform.
The campaign’s and the party’s entire policy apparatus acquired added weight after the pandemic, resulting economic collapse and national reckoning on systemic racism spurred Biden to start talking in bolder tones about the need to “rewrite the economy.” Biden plans to travel Thursday to Pennsylvania, where he will begin detailing an economic package that his aides pitch as a direct preview of the policies he would pursue should he win.
Progressives who have been in contact with Biden’s campaign noted that he’s consulted with Sanders and Warren while devising it. Biden is expected to emphasize American manufacturing and labor policies, including how government can aim its buying power to bolster U.S. manufacturing. That will likely include an emphasis on ratcheting up government purchases of medical supplies that would address the pandemic. “This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and R&D (research and development) since World War II, and that’s just a part of the plan,” said senior adviser Jake Sullivan.
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BIDEN-SANDERS UNITY TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS COMBATING THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND PURSUING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Climate change is a global emergency. We have no time to waste in taking action to protect Americans’ lives and futures. From Houston, Texas, to Paradise, California; from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Davenport, Iowa, the last four years have seen record-breaking storms, devastating wildfires, and historic floods. Urban and rural communities alike have suffered tens of billions of dollars in economic losses.
Dams have failed catastrophically in Michigan. Neighborhoods have been all but wiped off the map in Florida. Farmers’ crops have been drowned in their fields across the Midwest. Thousands of Americans have died. And President Trump still callously and willfully denies the science that explains why so many are suffering. Like so many crises facing the United States, the impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed in our society or our economy.
Communities of color, low-income families, and indigenous communities have long suffered disproportionate and cumulative harm from air pollution, water pollution, and toxic sites. Highways have been built to enforce racial segregation in our cities, with federal dollars and federal policy support. Coal companies have been allowed to reduce or ignore their obligations to fund retirees’ promised health care benefits and pensions.
From Flint, Michigan, to the Navajo Nation, to Lowndes County, Alabama, millions of Americans have been denied access to clean, safe drinking water and even the most basic wastewater infrastructure. And although the youngest generations of Americans have contributed the least to this calamity, they stand to lose the most as they suffer from the impacts of runaway carbon pollution for decades to come.
Scientists inform us we must achieve net-zero carbon emissions across our economy as quickly as possible in order to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. The United States— and the world—is currently heading well over the remaining carbon budget allowed to achieve that goal.
Democrats believe there is a better way. We can and must build a thriving, equitable, and globally competitive clean energy economy that puts workers and communities first and leaves no one behind. We will help rebuild our economy from the COVID-19 pandemic and President Trump’s recession by mobilizing historic, transformative public and private investments to launch a clean energy revolution.
We will use federal resources and authorities across all agencies to accelerate development of a clean energy economy and deploy proven clean energy solutions; create millions of family-supporting and union jobs; upgrade and make resilient our energy, water, wastewater, and transportation infrastructure; and develop and manufacture nextgeneration technologies to address the climate crisis right here in the United States.
And we will do all this with an eye to equity, access, benefits, and ownership opportunities for frontline communities—because Democrats believe we must embed environmental justice and climate justice at the heart of our policy and governing agenda. We will take immediate action to reverse the Trump Administration’s dangerous and destructive rollbacks of critical climate and environmental protections.
We will rejoin the Paris Climate 2 Agreement and, on Day One, seek higher ambition from nations around the world, putting the United States back in the position of global leadership where we belong. We will restore protections for irreplaceable public lands and waters, from Bears Ears National Monument to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
We will follow science and the law by reducing harmful methane and carbon pollution from the energy sector. Democrats will make investments to create millions of family-supporting and union jobs in clean energy generation, energy efficiency, clean transportation, advanced manufacturing, and sustainable agriculture across America.
We believe that federal investments in infrastructure should help cut carbon pollution, build resilience and protect communities from the impacts of climate change, promote racial equity and sustainable economic development, and come with livable wages and robust labor protections that empower workers.
All jobs in the clean energy economy should provide an opportunity to join a union. Democrats will restore and protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. We will build a diverse pipeline of talent in the clean energy economy by increasing access to industry-based credentialing programs and registered apprenticeships. The clean energy economy must represent the diversity of America.
We will invest in the education and training of underrepresented groups, including people of color, low-income Americans, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and unemployed energy workers for jobs in clean energy-related industries. Democrats will also mobilize a diverse new generation of young workers through a corps and cohort challenged to conserve our public lands; deliver new clean energy, including to lowincome communities and communities of color; and address the changing climate, including through pre-apprenticeship opportunities, joint labor-management registered apprenticeships for training, and direct-hire programs that put good-paying and union jobs within reach for more Americans.
We agree with scientists and public health experts that the United States—and the world—must achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, and no later than 2050. To reach net-zero emissions as rapidly as possible, Democrats commit to eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 through technology-neutral standards for clean energy and energy efficiency. We will dramatically expand solar and wind energy deployment through community-based and utility-scale systems.
Within five years, we will install 500 million solar panels, including eight million solar roofs and community solar energy systems, and 60,000 made-in-America wind turbines. Democrats believe that any clean energy infrastructure project financed with federal support, including through the tax code, should come with robust wage and labor requirements.
We will build a modern electric grid by investing in interstate transmission projects and advanced, 21st century grid technologies to power communities with clean electricity, including federal support to build sustainable and resilient energy grids in rural America and in tribal areas lacking energy infrastructure. We will reduce methane pollution through robust federal standards and targeted 3 support for repairing and replacing aging distribution systems, which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, including for the same pipefitters, insulators, and other workers who built the systems in the first place and who know best how to protect our communities from methane pollution.
Democrats will lower families’ energy bills by making energy-saving upgrades to up to two million low-income households and affordable and public housing units within five years, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and promoting safe, healthy and efficient homes. To address the nationwide shortage of affordable housing, we will supercharge investment through the Housing Trust Fund to greatly increase the number of energy-efficient affordable housing units on the market and create jobs.
We will address barriers and increase funding for programs that enable energy efficiency improvements for low-income families in urban and rural areas, including through the Weatherization Assistance Program and the Rural Utilities Service. We will set a bold, national goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for all new buildings by 2030, on the pathway to creating a 100 percent clean building sector.
Within five years, we will incentivize tens of billions of dollars in private-sector investment to retrofit four million buildings, including helping local governments save money and cut pollution by weatherizing and upgrading energy systems in hospitals, schools, public housing, and municipal buildings.
Democrats will encourage states and cities to adopt energy-efficient building codes and address barriers to energy efficiency upgrades, and leverage the federal footprint to model net-zero and 100 percent clean energy building solutions.
Democrats affirm California’s statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own emissions standards for cars and trucks. We will immediately convene California and other states with labor, auto industry, and environmental leaders to inform ambitious executive actions that will enable the United States to lead the way in building a clean, 21st-century transportation system and stronger domestic manufacturing base powered by accessible, high-wage, union jobs.
Democrats will move quickly to reestablish strong standards for clean cars and trucks that consider the most recent advances in technology, and accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles in the United States while reclaiming market share for domestically-produced vehicles. We will reduce harmful air pollution and protect our children’s health by transitioning the entire fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives within five years.
We will lead by example in the public sector by transitioning the 3 million vehicles in the federal, state, and local fleets to zero-emission vehicles. Democrats will additionally support private adoption of affordable low-pollution and zero-emission vehicles by partnering with state and local governments to install at least 500,000 public charging stations from coast to coast.
We will increase investments in public transportation, understanding that the United States currently lags behind many other developed countries in the quality and availability of clean, efficient, accessible public transportation. We will recommit America to the task of protecting our citizens from dangerous pollution and work to clean our air, our water, and eliminate toxins emitted from port facilities, which disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities of color.
Democrats believe we can build the clean energy infrastructure of the future using Americanmade materials. We will support measures to build a clean, equitable, and globally competitive manufacturing sector, including national Buy Clean and Buy America standards to incentivize production of low-carbon building and construction materials, like steel and cement, here in the United States.
Democrats will partner with farmers to make the American agriculture sector the first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions, opening up new sources of income for farmers in the process. We will expand federal programs to help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners pursue high-productivity, lower-emission, and regenerative agricultural practices in order to help build more resilient, vibrant, local and regional food systems.
We will substantially increase investments in voluntary conservation programs, which generate economic and environmental benefits for farmers and their surrounding communities. We will support healthy coastal communities and marine ecosystems to sustain and enhance our economic well-being, including in the fishing, tourism and clean energy industries.
Every American has the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live without fear of exposure to toxic waste. And all Americans should benefit from the clean energy economy— especially those who have been left out and left behind for generations.
Democrats will create an environmental justice fund to make historic investments across federal agencies aimed at eliminating legacy pollution, which disproportionately causes illness and premature death in communities of color, low-income communities, and indigenous communities, including protecting children’s health by replacing lead service lines and remediating lead paint in homes and schools; remediating Superfund and other contaminated sites; and ensuring housing and schools have adequate plumbing and safe wastewater disposal systems.
Democrats will work with affected frontline communities to develop a screening and mapping tool to ensure racial and socioeconomic equity in federal climate, energy, and infrastructure programs. We will support locally-driven economic development and commit to directing a significant portion of clean energy and sustainable infrastructure investments to historically marginalized communities to help create local jobs and reduce energy poverty, install clean energy technologies including community solar, build resilience to climate change impacts, expand access to green space and outdoor recreation opportunities, improve public health, and restore ecosystems.
Democrats recognize the historic wrongs that have been perpetrated against Native American tribes and communities, including with respect to infrastructure permitting decisions. We commit to managing federal actions and federal undertakings in a manner that honors the trust responsibility; respects the nation-to-nation relationship and sovereignty of tribes; and protects treaty and other reserved rights, natural and cultural resources, and sacred sites of federally recognized Indian tribes.
We commit to upholding leasing and rights-of-way regulations that strengthen tribal sovereignty and ensure tribal consent on projects involving land in which tribes own even a fractional interest. We additionally commit to creating a more robust and meaningful consultation process that is consistent across all federal agencies.
Democrats commit to early and ongoing consultation with tribes to identify and work to appropriately mitigate or address concerns regarding major infrastructure projects. Already, the impacts of climate change are being felt in communities across the country, and the American people are paying the price.
Democrats commit to reducing climate risks and building back better after disasters and climate-fueled catastrophes in a resilient, green and just manner. In doing so, we will prioritize disproportionately exposed, frontline and vulnerable communities and rectify the inequities and inefficiencies of disaster response, including transparent and timely reporting and oversight.
We will empower local communities to become more resilient to the impacts of the climate crisis. We will partner with states and local communities to make smart investments to avoid the loss of life and property, prevent flooding, mitigate disaster risks and adapt to costly, growing climate impacts.
Democrats will empower and stand with workers and communities who have put their health and lives on the line and who have been impacted by the changing energy market, including by fighting to protect retirees’ health and pension benefits, shoring up the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, and increasing funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission to support locally-driven economic development priorities.
We will hold fossil fuel companies accountable for cleaning up abandoned mine lands, oil and gas wells, and industrial sites, so these facilities no longer pollute local environments and can be safely repurposed to support new economic activity, including in the heart of coal country.
Democrats will support the most historically far reaching public investments, in addition to private sector incentives, for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of nextgeneration technologies, once again making the United States the world’s leader in innovation.
We will challenge the best and brightest scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs in the world to pursue breakthrough opportunities in energy storage, heavy-duty trucking and freight solutions, sustainable aviation fuels, and direct air capture and net-negative emissions technologies.
We will advance innovative technologies that create cost-effective pathways for industries to decarbonize, including carbon capture and sequestration that permanently stores greenhouse gases and advanced nuclear that eliminates risks associated with conventional nuclear technology, while ensuring environmental justice and other overburdened communities are protected from increases in cumulative pollution.
All of these investments will create jobs for blue-collar workers, including in fenceline communities, help decarbonize American industries, and create valuable new exports to help mitigate climate change around the world. America’s system of national parks and monuments, public lands, and marine protected areas are treasures that should be held in trust for future generations.
Democrats will immediately reverse the Trump Administration’s harmful rollbacks of protections for national monuments like Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
Democrats will protect wildlife habitats and biodiversity, slow extinction rates, and grow America’s natural carbon sinks by ensuring 30 percent of our lands and waters are conserved by 2030. We support fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund to increase resources for conserving public lands and waters and incentivizing voluntary conservation efforts on private lands.
Finally, Democrats recognize that the United States does not stand alone in the fight against climate change and global environmental degradation. Beyond immediately rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, including the Green Climate Fund, and encouraging our partners and allies to increase their ambition to reduce their own carbon pollution, Democrats will work to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol and move expeditiously to phase out super-polluting hydrofluorocarbons in the United States.
We will restore U.S. global climate leadership by working with world leaders to catalyze increased global investments in clean energy solutions and climate resilience, including to help low-income countries move along a more sustainable development path.
Democrats will also ensure that America’s service missions abroad, including those through the Peace Corps, F ulbright fellowships, and USAID, expand their calls to action to include reducing carbon pollution, safeguarding vulnerable populations from climate impacts, and ensuring a sustainable planet for all.
Fmr. Sec. of State John Kerry, Co-chair Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Co-chair Rep. Kathy Castor Kerry Duggan Catherine Flowers
Rep. Conor Lamb Gina McCarthy Rep. Donald McEachin Varshini Prak
PROTECTING COMMUNITIES BY REFORMING OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Our criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safe—and failing to deliver justice. America is the land of the free, and yet more of our people are behind bars, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Instead of making evidence-based investments in education, jobs, health care, and housing that are proven to keep communities safe and prevent crime from occurring in the first place, our system has criminalized poverty, overpoliced and underserved Black and brown communities, and cut public services.
Instead of offering the incarcerated the opportunity to turn their lives around, our prisons are overcrowded and continue to rely on inhumane methods of punishment. Instead of treating those who have served their time as full citizens upon their return to society, too many of our laws continue to punish the formerly incarcerated, erecting barriers to housing, employment, education and voting rights for millions of Americans.
PROVIDING A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION IN EVERY ZIP CODE
The United States today is beset by multiple, overlapping crises, including runaway income and wealth inequality, the worst global pandemic in a century, and the scourge of anti-Black racism. Democrats believe we must meet this moment by making vital investments that will enable our children and future generations to thrive and achieve their full human potential.
Education is the key to addressing the challenges before us—to growing our economy, maintaining American competitiveness on the world stage, and building a more just, equitable, civically engaged, and socially conscientious nation. As Democrats, we believe that education is a critical public good—not a commodity—and that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that every child, everywhere, is able to receive a world-class education that enables them to lead meaningful lives, no matter their race, ZIP code, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or household income.
ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL, AFFORDABLE, QUALITY HEATH CARE
Democrats also support increasing funding for research into health disparities by race, gender,age, geographic area, and socioeconomic status, with a particular focus on how the social determinants of health contribute to differences in health outcomes. Democrats will take steps to increase the diversity of principal investigators receiving federal grants, as well as of participants In federally-supported clinical trials, to improve the quality and applicability of our medical research. We will also build on the foundation of the Obama-Biden Administration’s Cancer Moonshot to accelerate research into cancer and cancer treatments.
The Trump Administration’s systematic efforts to undermine, discredit, dismiss, fire, dis-empower, and diminish the contributions of scientists, in health science and other disciplines, have weakened our public institutions, slowed the pace of scientific inquiry, and profoundly damaged America’s standing in the world. Democrats will protect the independence and intellectual freedom of scientists, whether they are employed by the federal government or
receiving federal grants in support of their research, and take steps to shield our scientific research agencies from future political interference.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Co-chairVivek Murthy, Co-chairDonald BerwickAbdul El-SayedSherry GliedMary Kay HenryChris Jennings
Rep. Robin Kelly
BUILDING STRONGER, FAIRER, ECONOMY
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
The extreme gap in household wealth and income between people of color, especially Black Americans, and white families is hurting our working class and holding our country back. Democrats are committed to a comprehensive agenda to achieve racial equity. That means improving economic mobility for people of color, including by addressing the racial wealth gap.
In addition to expanding access to credit, working to boost homeownership and build more affordable housing, and supporting minority-owned small businesses, Democrats recognize that racial wealth gaps are rooted in longstanding discrimination and unjust policies that continue to depress the economic and social prosperity of people of color. To provide more Americans the right to enjoy the economic and social benefits of wealth-building, we will equalize established pathways for building wealth while exploring innovative approaches to closing racial wealth gaps, including policies that provide seed capital in order to access the economic security of asset ownership.
The Black unemployment rate is persistently higher than the national average, which is why Democrats support making racial equity part of the mandate of the Federal Reserve. Specifically, we will work with Congress to direct the Chair of the Federal Reserve to report on the extent of racial employment and wage gaps, and how the central bank is countering them, in addition to monitoring, reporting on, and responding to macroeconomic conditions in general.
Democrats commit to the important first step of supporting H.R. 40, which would establish a commission to examine how the legacy of 246 years of slavery and another century of Jim Crow segregation continues to impact the economic prospects of Black Americans today, and to recommend remedies.
Building A Fair System of International Trade
For too long, the global trading system has failed to keep its promises to American workers. Too many corporations have rushed to outsource jobs, and too many countries have broken their promises to be honest and transparent partners.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the risks of relying too heavily on global supply chains, as shutdowns and shortages have created chaos for workers and consumers and made our public health response even more challenging. And the Trump Administration has failed time after time to deliver for the American people on this
crucial issue, launching a trade war with China that they have no plan for winning— creating incredible hardship for American farmers and workers in the process.
Democrats will pursue a trade policy that puts workers first. We will negotiate strong and binding standards for labor, human rights, and the environment in the core text of our trade deals, including enforcement, because having fair trade means that no trading partners should be able to capture market share by undermining our product, consumer, environmental, or labor standards.
We will eliminate trade and tax policies that promote the offshoring of pharmaceutical manufacturing and raise prices on medications for American patients. We will use all tools at our disposal to take action against countries that manipulate their currencies to get an unfair advantage in international markets.
And we will take immediate action to repair the damage President Trump’s reckless policies have done to American farmers, by working with our allies to stand up to China and negotiate from the strongest possible position.
Tackling Runaway Corporate Concentration
Democrats are concerned about the increase in mega-mergers and corporate concentration across a wide range of industries, from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to agribusiness and retail chains. We will direct federal regulators to review a subset of the mergers and acquisitions that have taken place since President Trump took office, prioritizing the pharmaceutical, health care, and agricultural industries, to assess whether any have increased market concentration, raised consumer prices, demonstrably harmed workers, increased racial inequality, or reduced competition, and assign appropriate remedies.
Democrats will direct regulators to consider potential effects of future mergers on the labor market, on low-income and racially marginalized communities, and on racial equity. And as a last resort, regulators should consider breaking up corporations if they find they are using their market power to engage in anti-competitive activities.
CREATING A 21ST CENTURY IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
Out of many, we are one. That bedrock American idea has animated our country from its earliest days, inspiring people from every corner of the earth to participate in our great democratic experiment. The Trump Administration has repudiated that idea and abandoned our values as a diverse, compassionate, and welcoming country. Instead of pursuing a sensible, humane, and responsible approach to immigration that strengthens the United States, the Trump Administration has been callous, cruel, and reckless in the extreme. President Trump’s immigration policies have made our communities less safe, undermined our economy, and tarnished our image around the world.
This Administration’s cruelty and dehumanization of immigrants stretches the imagination and shocks the conscience: forcibly separating families and putting children in cages; deporting veterans who have fought to defend our freedoms; conducting militarized raids on our workplaces; endangering lives by denying COVID-19 testing and treatment based on immigration status, including to essential workers at the forefront of the pandemic response; banning people from traveling to the United States based on their faith or their country of origin; and turning away refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution.
Democrats believe America can do better. Indeed, we must. The truth is that our immigration system was broken long before President Trump came into office, and his departure alone won’t fix it. Immigrants are essential to our society and our economy. Immigrants are part of our families. They enrich our culture. They grow our food, care for our loved ones, serve in our armed forces, and provide critical health care services.
Immigrants make America stronger. Not only do immigrants support us—immigrants are us. Our families and our communities, our congregations and our schools, our businesses large and small have been built and sustained through the inclusion of immigrants. That’s why Democrats commit to building a 21st century immigration system that reflects our values, repairs past harms, heals our communities, rebuilds our economy, and renews our global leadership.
We will start by righting the wrongs of the Trump Administration. Democrats will rescind President Trump’s fabricated “National Emergency,” which siphonsfunding away from our men and women in uniform to construct an unnecessary, wasteful, and ineffective wall on the southern border. We will immediately terminate the Trump Administration’s discriminatory travel and immigration bans that disproportionately impact Muslim and African people, and invite thosewhose visas have been denied under these xenophobic and un-American policies to re-apply to
come to the United States.
We will reinstate, expand, and streamline protections for Dreamers and the parents of American citizen children to keep families together in the communities they have long called home.
Transportation
The Unity Task Force supports measures to greatly reduce greenhouse gas pollution from the transportation sector, create good jobs, including union jobs in EV manufacturing and infrastructure construction in America, and make public transportation more efficient and widely
available.
● Strong Standards for Cars and Trucks: Immediately convene California, due to its unique authority, and other states with labor, auto industry, and environmental leaders to inform ambitious actions that will enable the United States to lead the way in building a clean, 21st century vehicle fleet and stronger domestic manufacturing base powered by high- wage, union jobs. Move quickly to reestablish strong standards for clean cars and trucks and the charging infrastructure needed to fuel them that consider the most recent advances in technology, and accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles in the United States while reclaiming market share for domestically-produced vehicles.
● Invest in Clean Cars and Buses: Reduce harmful air pollution and protect our children’s health by transitioning the entire fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives within five years. Lead by example in the public sector by transitioning the 3 million vehicles in the federal, state, and local fleets to zero-emission vehicles. Support private adoption of affordable low-pollution and zero-emission vehicles by partnering with state and local governments to install at least 500,000 public charging stations from coast to coast. Make charging infrastructure accessible, with strong labor, training and installation standards, through federal grants to states and localities.
.
● Accelerate the Adoption of Zero Emission Vehicles: Support “cash-for-clunkers” style approaches to incentivize accelerated adoption of zero-emission passenger vehicles.Provide incentives for manufacturers to build new factories or retool existing factories in the United States to assemble zero-emission vehicles or manufacture charging equipment.
● Domestic Transportation Manufacturing: Expand grant programs and/or loan guarantees to U.S. companies, including the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM program, to construct new or retool existing U.S. facilities to manufacture electric vehicles, including heavy duty trucks, school buses, transit buses, aircraft, and more. Tie investments to high quality training programs like the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP).
● Mass Transit: Encourage states to prioritize allocation of transportation funds for public mass transit, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and ensure transportation options and infrastructure meet the needs of tribal, rural, and urban communities to fully participate in zero-emissions transport. Make major improvements to public transit and ight rail. Preserve and grow the union workforce within the rail, transit and maritime sectors.
● Ports: Upgrade ports to reduce emissions from dirty equipment, including in communities that experience a disproportionate amount of pollution, while preserving
the existing workforce and creating new good paying jobs.
● Rail: Invest in high speed passenger and freight rail systems, while reducing pollution, helping connect workers to quality jobs with shorter commutes, and spurring investment in communities more efficiently connected to major metropolitan areas and unlocking new, affordable access for every American.
Manufacturing and R&D
The Unity Task Force supports measures to revitalize American manufacturing, create good- paying and union jobs in our industrial cities, and make them clean energy manufacturing capitals of the world. The Unity Task Force further supports increasing investment into research, development, demonstration, and deployment of advanced clean energy technologies, and manufacturing those technologies here in America.
This very important documents of 110 pages is a modern version of the Communist Manifesto. This is what the Marxist Biden regime in doing to implement a communist totalitarian system in America. Read it to learn how the communists Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, AOL, Barack Hussein Obama, and others are implementing in our beloved America. Pray to God daily to save America and the world from a totalitarian one-world government.
Regards,
Frank de Varona
