While I was leading the RePowerLA work, and since its inception in 2011, we focused on creating good green family-sustaining jobs for LA’s frontline communities, ensuring equitable access to utilities, and investments in energy efficiency. Over the last 15 years, we’ve supported LADWP’s commitment to clean energy via a community solar program, worked with IBEW 18 and SCOPE to launch LADWP’s apprenticeship pathway called UPCT, and banned utility shutoffs during extreme weather conditions, among other big victories at our public utility.
The Water Justice LA coalition focused on equitable access to clean and sustainable water, especially for low-income communities and communities of color, as well as good union jobs and public control of this public good. Alongside our coalition partners, we won Measure W in 2018, which funds infrastructure to capture and clean storm water across Los Angeles County, making the region more resilient to climate change. We’ve helped secure statewide funding and union job standards for sustainable water supply projects. And working together, Water Justice LA and RePower LA secured millions in utility debt relief for LADWP customers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The work of the RePower LA and Water Justice LA coalitions will help shape AIRE’s path forward. Together, we seek to achieve a union-made renewable energy and water secure future for Los Angeles that invests in equitable access, green family-sustaining jobs, and community benefits for frontline communities.
AIRE will partner with the Los Angeles & Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council and IBEW Locals 11 and 18, and continue our legacy of collaboration with partners like SCOPE, NRDC, CBE, Sierra Club, and Pacoima Beautiful. We’re also proud to continue to work with newer allies such as LA Waterkeeper, Heal The Bay, TreePeople, PSR-LA, and the Living Schoolyards Coalition to realize our vision for the future.
I hope you can continue supporting AIRE by following us on Instagram and X, as we continue moving towards a greener LA!
