Conference here in washington, d. C. [ applause ]. I am a counselor with the center for American Progress and i am excited to moderate this discussion on the Climate Crisis and our response to it. This past year has shown we are in the thick of it. The sort of ground us on this, i want to read a quick paragraph that struck me in a recent New York Times magazine piece. It is describing the impact of wildfires in the northwest. Here is a quick description. The sun turned blood red always all but plotted out. Disappearing along the city skyline. The sky turned green or scipio or nearly tangerine. Sometimes there were weeks where you were advised not to open your windows or exercise outside. Sometimes there were long stretches when you were not supposed to breathe the outside air at all. So, we are in the thick of this crisis and we are also in the thick of a start of a response to it. As folks have mentioned it several times today, last Year Congress passed the largest investment in addressing the, Climate Crisis that any government in the world has ever taken. Applause for that. [ applause ]. It took an Unprecedented Coalition of labor leaders and Environmental Justice activist and other organizations and leadership to get that done. That is why am excited about todays panel. It is that same that got the government to act at this scale and will be on the forefront of not only responding to the crisis but helping to meet the challenge. The panel today includes the president of allied painters and trades. The honorable Harold Mitchell from South Carolina. And jane gilbert, the chief heat officer for Miamidade County. As you can tell, the conversation is going to capture one thing i hope everyone is left with today that to me this moment really requires all of us. We will hear about the challenges and opportunities and how it touches different communities in different ways. I tried to ground us in the different experiences. There are different impacts but it is still severe and your part of the country in south florida and in miami. Sure. First, it is an honor to be here. What great work this organization does. The whole country is experiencing climate impacts but in florida we have been the tip of the spear and experiencing it for some time. We have heard had hurricane risks that are becoming more intense and more frequent. We have been responding. We have the strongest hurricane window codes in the country. We have topnotch emergency room preparedness and response teams. We have prepared. The next wave of impacts with the Sea Level Rises and the storm surge. I was the first chief resilience officer for the city of miami and started working on the Sea Level Rise and flood risk issues then. Three years ago a coalition of Community Based organizations did surveys and focus groups and low income communities throughout south florida and Miamidade County. Interestingly, Sea Level Rise was not a top concern for climate change. Nor was hurricanes, it was extreme heat and the rising extreme heat because that is what they were experiencing every day. Some of our 300,000 outdoor workers who can no longer afford their electric bill or their aca runs out in july and they cannot afford to repair it and the heat index is 105 and it is hotter in their rented apartment. Or they have to walk and waited a bus stop too long. I have had emergency room doctors tell me that they have patients come in who were 911 calls from the bus stop. Extreme heat is something we are feeling here today and this was an unprecedentedly hot summer through much of the country. You have been in this fight from Environmental Justice looking at the communities in South Carolina that we are dealing with more traditional pollutants and pollution is getting worse and a lot of these communities. Speak to the impacts of the Climate Crisis worsening in terms of the communities you work with and represent. Most of the communities i represent and grew up in myself with the legacy impact. We saw during the pandemic that most of these communities are in and around places where access to healthcare and we saw during the impact of the pandemic that those people were dying the quickest because they had illnesses that were untreated. So the effect of the pandemic and those impacts of those legacy polluting sites are ones we are still feeling the effects of post covid, now. I think we talked before hand that we should try to keep this one third down and two thirds optimistic and i will try to pivot to the Positive Side which is the response. I mentioned earlier not only the Inflation Reduction Act infrastructure bill which provides the opportunity to not only respond to the Climate Crisis and to ensure it results in good paying union jobs, how have these investments impacted your 140,000 members . What is the role it is playing in this moment . It is good to be the positive. First off it is a pleasure to be here. Any time, you have the c team here of labor leaders. We dont often give ourselves enough credit when we are winning. The Inflation Reduction Act, our membership has had the opportunity to work. There are the next 10 years on massive projects funded by the federal government. For the first time in my lifetime, the federal government got it right by the time and labor standards to the investments. Plus. We have an opportunity for true truly changing the way generations work in this country for the future. Unions are cool again among the young people again which is a great thing. We have the opportunity to provide jobs for people who in the past did not have access to good paying jobs. The crisis of climate adversely affects people of color. It adversely affects people at the lowest income levels. The labor is a solution to income inequality as well. Putting this together for life changing opportunities for folks to work in an industry with high paying jobs, good healthcare, high wages and Health Care System networks. That is huge for the american working class. Its about being Solutions Oriented and not just raising the issues. Continuing the fight. Rhetorically, things are happening that are starting to come along. You see should projects off the shores of the east coast with more to come. You see the investment and new energy solutions. Fixing some of the Building Supply and those are construction jobs and we are at the heart of it and it is exciting. Im going to stay with you a second. President biden says when he thinks of the Climate Crisis, he thinks of one word, jobs. You are right about the policy. Im curious, do your members see it that way . Are people actually doing the work and seeing the opportunity that exists in addressing the Climate Crisis . What work needs to be done on that front . A lot of work. They are used to working in the Energy Sector and they are fearful of the unknown. Having difficult questions with our members about preparing them for a transition away from way they are currently working to what the future holds, it means everything to them. When you work your whole career and oil refinery or your whole career producing energy from a coal plant or things like that. Where the conversation is around shutting them down and creating new energy sources, there is fear among the membership. Deeply educating the membership on what actually took place this past year with the federal legislation is one of the key priorities. To explain to them the investments are tied to labor standards and you will have opportunities to work. It is not easy. These are Difficult Conversations we have to have with our membership. In addition, this is something that held the coalition together with strong labor standards. There is actually a commitment for communities that have been underserved. Justice 40 to make sure 40 of the resources are committed. That is something you are involved with. Speak to what that means to the communities you are involved with them how you are making sure people note that this exists . I will say the old phrase, put your money where your mouth is is something that i would say is real, now. We saw President Biden putting his money to the commitment of environmental economy and justice in the economy. I have been working with the equitably Just National climate platform. It is for environmental organizations including a major leader there. It was influential in driving a lot of the decisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. Some of the Lessons Learned from the obama administrations which is kind of like right now to challenge members and statehouses across the country. They cannot make decisions and wont invest those resources in the right places. We saw a number one being allowed to let local communities make these investments. When you talk about creating jobs with the pipe replacement program. To replace 100 year old led types. Those are jobs to replace the infrastructure and a lot of legacy sites we have seen that local governments have not had their resources to address or remediator cleanup. So the 66 billion and the Inflation Reduction Act, that is something that local governments will be able to apply directly with communities to remove these sites and put some green industry back in play. One of the things we are seeing what we did the cleanup at the brownfield site, the company came to us and they were looking for it at the brownfield site because of the Inflation Reduction Act to come into the community. Its a win win when you look at the local level. That is where the key partnerships and coalitions moving forward will take place. Let me follow up on that. A lot of cynicism exists on the role of government and the burden that communities face with government funded projects in the government historically turning a blind eye. How are you educating through the members of those groups that there is a new approach where government is actually engaging in construction with longstanding problems. It is creative. Working with local governments and communities matching programs with projects in the community. After the for the first time giving the local governments the opportunities to apply that made all the difference. This is one of the things that connecting the dots of the programs is huge. When you have programs and there is no money behind it, there is real resources right now and the thing we need to do is there is a lot of projects that are out there right now that people need to see the successes. Its like the tree in the forest, when it falls, who is there to hear it . People need to see how the investments are working on the ground in front line communities. Let me come at you with the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill. With the regional tech hub on resilience which is another investment addressing these challenges. As a local official, how are you leveraging them to address this challenge and start to turn the ship . What is exciting about this is the Biden Administration really got how to integrate across. We talked resilience in all things and they got that at the federal level. Not only at the labor standards or Environmental Justice, which is critical but making sure whether this department of transportation, doe, hud or the Commerce Department that they are climate forward. So, we have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in our transit system. We will have the largest bus fleet in the country. We are electrified our port which is the largest cruise capital certainly in the country if not the world. We are also cleaning our freight in between. There is investments in 32,000 Affordable Housing units coming on line and all of them have to be built of high efficient standards and be solar ready and ev ready. We are in the housing piece and finally in my world we are doubling down on our Green Infrastructure which is the tree canopy in our area. We have zip codes in Miamidade County that have over five times the amount of heat related illnesses of the top factors are high poverty rates and high service temperatures. This has allowed us to take funding that we had started to direct toward weatherization and now with this 10 million, we will be able to accelerate it. These are local jobs and there is also workforce development. We just got partnered and this is where the Biden Administration also got it right. Encouraging if not prioritizing grants and partnering with the communities where we are engaging them and making them part of the solution. And partnering with the Nonprofit Organization to build a pipeline of jobs both in our urban tree canopy enhancement efforts but also in our housing retrofits and efficiency. Sort of an energy core and a green core. We are moving toward that future ready economy. With this climate tech hub you mentioned from the u. S. Department of commerce that was Just Announced on monday, it is also driving the private Sector Investment and working with the private sector to give it a leg up in the direction we need to go as a community. Thats fantastic. And a political question that you touched on. The priorities of the Environmental Community have been at odds with the priorities of the labor community. Both of you have been advocates for trying to overcome those barriers. Maybe share some thoughts on what it has taken to overcome those challenges and where did you see the fragility of how this pulls together moving forward. I will go first. As leaders of our organizations, we cannot be closed minded to working in a coalition. I think it will always be missy when you deal with real life. When i talked about our membership being fearful about the future, whenever you try to create progress to grow and move toward the future, it can be messy. I think the coalitions that push the Inflation Reduction Act across the finish line, it is a model for us to be able to continue to work toward the future at the lower level. It is nice to come together federally but there is so much work at the local level where the dollars are spent in the jobs are created. That is the model we need to take into the future. Continuing to Work Together and continuing to challenge one another and continuing to think outside the box because that is what creates progress. I think too, the money is on the table and its implementation time. The coalition working together to get the Historic Resources to deploy and its like all hands on deck now for implementation. This is where the foundations and everybody has got to get involved at this point. Building capacity at that lower level, this is something people have never done before. Because of the legislation and the language, it is forcing local governments to work with communities. There is a trust factor people of never seen before. The capacity, especially the nonprofit level, they dont have the capacity to do what some of the National Organizations have been able to do. With the resources connecting the dots and providing these opportunities like i say, there are people coming into the south looking for the old legacy sites to do the cleanups and to bring new industry in. It is all in those same impacted front line communities. Who gets the benefit . We did a cleanup on a textile mill which was 700,000 and now there is 88 million. It is unreal. The old phrase that the sky is the limit, but we have to stay vigilant and to keep each other honest as we move in this historic time. Thats good followup for all of you. We had a historic victory and thank you for reminding us of the very big win and we should not lose sight of that. But its the scale and the challenge and how much more it is going to take. When he is contagious. From each of your perspectives, what is most important over the next couple of years to keep the public Political Support wanting to do more because we no we need to do more . We need tangible examples. If you see tangible examples when you talk about 4 trillion changing and impacting the Fort Lauderdale communities, theyve got to see it. If they dont see it, its a solution they dont believe. Right now there are best practices that people dont no and have not heard and have not seen. If they see how these investments are impacting the communities and creating real jobs and changing the faces of the communities. This is what people need to see. Then, you can create the movement. We cant do anything about the folks trying to find out if they have a speaker or not. In 2024, i hope folks are off enough that we can change in the 2024 cycle. Especially this administration and others so we dont have to keep going through the crap that we are seeing now. And to continue to build momentum . I can only build on what harold said. We are trying to accelerate as fast as we can do showed demonstrable results for jobs and Business Opportunities and quality of life changes. Real Health Benefits for families out there. It is getting the real change happening and telling the story and connecting the dots back to what this Inflation Reduction Act is really doing. It is not just look at these great things in our community. Its because of this investment that happened. I started on a gloomy note and this is obviously a weighty issue and we are running out of time here. What about in terms of our response that is giving hope . I will jump in here. I have a ton of hope for the future and a ton of hope for future generations. We have so much more to do and i am hopeful that into the future we will see people make a living in this industry that will be lifechanging. People in the past did not have opportunities and we are seeing that within our organization. We are seeing what we have never seen before. Telling the story, we cannot go backwards and we have to continue to move forward. Is there anything you want to add in terms of hope . I think the Climate Crisis and the solutions to the Climate Crisis are really about building the future communities that we really want anyway. The economy we really want anyway. If you can show that, it is a winwin win for everybody. I will close. I was reminded of a quote by einstein that in the midst of every crisis lies great upper to the. Hopefully this conversation in this issue captures that we are in the midst of an ongoing crisis that will continue to rear its head. Communities face this every single day. It is also an unprecedented opportunity. There is nothing that we cant do we solve problems together. We have been meeting this moment. Thank you all for your leadership in getting us to this moment and for everything you will do moving forward. Thank you for this conversation. Inspections by the house transportation subcommittee hearing is about three hours. [background noises] is