CAMPAIGN 03 - Legislative Advocacy

We are working in partnership with other local legislative advocacy organizations to press for laws that accelerate our society's transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, while at the same time prioritizing benefits and employment for the communities that are most vulnerable. We call this a "just transition." It is crucial that we transition rapidly away from fossil fuels to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. It is also crucial that we transition in a way that doesn't leave low income communities, union workers, and other labor behind.

The global transition to clean energy is actually a huge opportunity, if we do it right, to remake housing stock, communities, and employment in a way that is more just and where power is more evenly distributed.

In order to do this, the market cannot be left to its own devices - we need laws to guide the transition in equitable ways, so as to bring healing and empowerment to places that have been victims of historic disinvestment and oppression by American society. Pressing for these changes is upstream work - it's work designed to change the systemic patterns that have led to unregulated carbon pollution, climate degradation, and the sacrificing of communities with less power in order to benefit those with more.

Our regional organizer works in partnership with two local advocacy coalitions: HERE4CJ and POWER Interfaith.

HERE4CJ (Housing Equity Repair and Electrification 4 Climate Justice) is a climate-oriented housing justice solutions coalition that is an initiative of Green Building United. Our regional organizer is part of the steering committee and the coalition development team for this coalition. In 2021-2022, we drafted and had approved a new governmental structure for HERE4CJ. 2022-2023 was spent mostly determining priorities and campaigns using this new structure. In 2022, we were involved in the public support effort for turning the Whole Home Repair Bill into law. The law provides a great deal of public money for low income home repair and weatherization work around the state, and is working to make families more healthy, help them save money, and ultimately reduce regional emissions through increased energy efficiency. You can learn about the Whole Home Repair Bill here. Most recently, we ran a campaign to pressure Philadelphia City Council to add $5M of funding for the Built to Last Program in Mayor Parker's FY '24-'25 budget. We succeeded, which means that there will be funding in the year for 400 additional low income homes to be repaired, weatherized, and solarized. This was a big win - and we are currently strategizing as to what our next campaign will be.

POWER Interfaith is engaged in a wide range of advocacy campaigns. While HERE4CJ is our primary legislative advocacy partner, we are in occasional partnership with POWER Interfaith in their Climate Justice and Jobs campaign, with a specific focus on their PGW Just Transition sub-campaign. In this campaign, we are working to press Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), Philadelphia's publicly-owned gas utility, to transition away from natural gas to a clean energy heating and cooling model using a technology known as networked geothermal. (You can learn more about networked geothermal here.) We have been present at numerous hearings, testifying and pressing lawmakers, gas commission officials, and PGW representatives themselves, to make this transition. A relatively recent victory secured a $500,000 networked geothermal pilot project, as well as upcoming improvements in public accountability. This fight, however, is a tough one - and we know nothing will come easily.