Written Testimony Submitted to the Connecticut General Assembly Labor and Public Employees Committee in Support of Senate Bill 999: An Act Concerning a Just Transition to Climate-Protective Energy Production and Community Investment.
March 10, 2021
To the Honorable Senator Kushner, the Honorable Representative Porter, Vice-Chairs, Ranking Members, and distinguished members of the Labor and Public Employees Committee:
We write from the Collaborative Center for Justice, a Hartford-based social justice organization sponsored by six communities of Catholic women religious across Connecticut. We advocate for systemic change and educate individuals about justice issues in order to improve the lives of low-income and marginalized people. We wish to express our strong support for S.B. 999.
As people of faith, we take our call to care for creation seriously. We believe that access to clean air, water, and land for all people is critically important. Climate change is not just an environmental problem, but also a problem that significantly impacts human health, livelihoods, and safety. We are concerned about the climate crisis and protecting residents, particularly the most vulnerable communities, from experiencing devastating impacts related to climate change.
We are particularly supportive of the workforce development components of this bill. We urge you to keep provisions that will prioritize individuals from disadvantaged communities, individuals with barriers to employment, and people who have been historically underrepresented in fields related to these projects. Additionally, creating good jobs and protecting workers and communities that may lose employment in the transition to clean energy must be key components of a just transition. We appreciate that the legislation includes robust provisions related to ensuring safe and healthy working conditions and providing strong protections for workers.
Given the economic devastation brought on by the pandemic, and the racially unequal ways in which that devastation has been spread across our state and country, we wish to emphasize the critical nature of a robust jobs program with the priority categories listed in the bill. At a time when our shared economic future depends on getting as many people back to work as possible, we urge your support for a clean energy workforce development program.
This bill would make significant strides in moving Connecticut away from continued reliance on fossil fuels, and towards a low carbon economy by providing state economic assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Financial investment by the state is critical to achieve the scale and pace that is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and to protect public health. We advocate that investments in low-income communities and communities of color should be prioritized. Many of these communities bear the burden of decades of policy decisions to construct polluting power plants, toxic waste sites, and complex highway systems in their neighborhoods. These communities continue to suffer from the health, financial, and social impacts of pollution, environmental degradation, and environmental racism. Many of these communities are already facing impacts from climate change, and are the most vulnerable to continued adverse impacts if we fail to take meaningful action on climate change and environmental justice.
Investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects will create good-paying, local jobs, will improve public health and will have important economic and climate benefits. In the face of what we know about climate change, it would be immoral to not take action to protect our planet and people, particularly the most vulnerable, from further harm.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Respectfully,
Dwayne David Paul – Director
Rachel Lea Scott, MSW – Associate Director
