Albany, NY — More than 80 New York advocacy and grassroots groups joined more than 500 national organizations in releasing a letter to Congress yesterday calling for a truly clean, renewable energy standard as part of the evolving infrastructure package.
To meet its new climate goals, the Biden administration is expected to back a national Clean Energy Standard (CES), which some advocates argue can pass under existing budget reconciliation rules.
But the groups releasing the letter — including Food & Water Watch, New York Communities for Change, Riverkeeper, the Long Island Progressive Coalition, New York Youth Climate Leaders, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and 350Brooklyn — are critical of current CES plans that qualify fracked gas, carbon capture and storage, factory farm biogas and offsets schemes as forms of clean energy. They point out that these technologies either do not effectively reduce emissions, or create pollution burdens in environmental justice communities, “perpetuating the deep racial, social and ecological injustices of our current fossil-fueled energy system.”