We Won Build Public Renewables
After four years of ordinary New Yorkers fighting for an unapologetically ecosocialist vision of the future, the Build Public Renewables Act is now the law of the land.
The Build Public Renewables Act, also known as BPRA, empowers the publicly-owned New York Power Authority to build and own the renewable energy we need for a beautiful, livable future for all. But it is also so much more than that.
As the biggest Green New Deal program in US history, the law embodies the principles of a just transition, with gold-standard labor language that protects union jobs while training workers for new jobs in renewables, and the funding and authority to make it happen. BPRA also brings down skyrocketing energy bills for those who need it most, and finally sets a timeline for phasing out many of the dirty smokestacks that blight Black and brown communities like the Bronx.
This unabashedly ecosocialist vision for a better future was won by socialists organizing a movement of unions, scientists, climate activists, legislators, and working-class New Yorkers with enough mass power to shake the foundations of Albany and threaten the Governor and her half-million worth of fossil fuel money.
It was won by the work of thousands of volunteers who gave up their free time to knock doors, call, email, and text for candidates who ran on a promise to pass our bill. Of hundreds holding confrontational direct actions where dozens, including organizers and lawmakers, were arrested demanding the bill.
It was won by making climate an election issue that beat a million dollar campaign in Queens. Electing the first socialist in the Hudson Valley over a 26-year incumbent. It was won by always speaking the truth: whether that’s revealing the plague of fossil fuel donations among key lawmakers, or always centering the life or death stakes of the climate fight by telling the Governor that it’s “Build or Burn.”
It was won by us.
Our work is not done. Passing the BPRA is only the first step. Fossil fuel and energy company lobbyists are circling the wagons, and the establishment still controls the levers of power. But we’ve beaten them already and we won’t settle for anything less than the full vision.
For anyone who believes our future is more important than private profit, that we must take real transformative action to win our freedom to think about the future and feel good about it: join us. We said the Green New Deal would start here in New York, and today, we made it happen. Now help us keep it going.
The Green New Deal starts here
