The Policy Platform

About the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal (GND) was introduced through House Resolution 109 on February 7, 2019, by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey. The Green New Deal’s core priorities include aggressive cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, widespread green job creation, and addressing inequalities of race and class. The resolution explicitly calls for direct green investment in frontline communities as a way to achieve these goals in the short term.

The GND calls for mobilizing every aspect of American society to 100% clean and renewable energy, guarantee living-wage jobs for anyone who needs one, and a just transition for both workers and frontline communities—all in the next 10 years.

About the Green New Deal for Public Housing

The Green New Deal for Public Housing is the first federal legislation proposed for implementing the Green New Deal resolution. The GND for Public Housing (GND4PH) was introduced through S.2876 – Green New Deal for Public Housing Act on November 11, 2019 by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The legislation establishes seven federal grant programs to rehabilitate, upgrade, innovate, and transition public housing into zero-carbon homes:

  1. Grants for Community Workforce Development

  2. Grants for Deep Energy Retrofits

  3. Grants for Energy Efficiency, Building, Electrification, and Water Quality Upgrades

  4. Grants for Community Energy Generation

  5. Grants for Recycling and Zero-Waste Programs

  6. Grants for Community Resiliency and Sustainability

  7. Grants for Climate Adaptation and Emergency Disaster Response

The grants will be established through HUD and require recipients to:

  • Support US manufacturing

  • Ensure High-Road Labor Standards

  • Guarantee Local Resident and Community Engagement

  • Transition All Public Housing to Zero-Carbon Homes

  • Protect from Price-Gauging

Public housing agencies will weave grant programs together with resident opportunity and empowerment tools to enhance and maximize hiring and contracting opportunities at the local level:

  • Section 3 Hiring and Contracting requirements

  • Family Self-Sufficiency Program

  • Resident Council

  • Improved Architectural Design in Affordable Housing

  • Repeal of Faircloth Amendment

Purpose

  1. to stimulate, gather, and develop the workforce capacity, tools, financing, and materials needed to rehabilitate, upgrade, modernize, and transition public housing;

  2. to rehabilitate public housing that is severely distressed and causing residents to be exposed to unhealthy and unsafe environments;

  3. to upgrade and equip all public housing with cutting-edge materials, infrastructure, and all-electric appliances made in the United States in order to improve energy efficiency, water quality, and material living standards in public housing and to support United States manufacturing;

  4. to modernize public housing laws in order to maximize tenant participation and management by low- and very low-income individuals in the rehabilitation, upgrade, and transition of public housing through education, training, and jobs; and

  5. to transition the entire public housing stock of the United States, as swiftly and seamlessly as possible, into highly energy-efficient homes that produce on-site, or procure, enough carbon-free renewable energy to meet total energy consumption annually

Read the resolution at Congress.gov…

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