“Twelve years ago we couldn’t do it. Today we did. We owe that to the movement, who organized, not agonized and never gave up. The Senate has finally passed important climate and environmental justice legislation. And we’re not stopping here.”  – Senator Ed Markey, on Twitter, August 7, 2022

Dear Friend,

Our nation just made truly historic progress to protect people and the planet.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in the Senate on August 7 and in the House on August 15, is by far the most important action Congress has ever taken to address climate change. President Biden signed this monumental bill into law yesterday.

While this bill has downsides — including provisions that could harm communities near fossil fuel leasing and infrastructure, which we will continue to fight against — it will invest nearly $370 billion in clean energy, energy security, and environmental justice. And it will put our country on a path to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030, giving humanity a real chance to avoid climate catastrophe and create a more sustainable world.

This victory follows more than a decade of LCV’s work to organize, hold leaders accountable, and elect hundreds of environmental champions at all levels of government. This includes, for the last 18 months, a nationwide advocacy and organizing campaign — unmatched in LCV’s 50-year history — to pass climate action in Congress.
 
It’s been a long road to arrive at the passage of this bill that our planet and communities desperately need. For at least 15 years, LCV has been working to press leaders to take bold action on the existential crisis of climate change. We’ve won action from presidential administrations, from state and local governments, and at the ballot box. Yet we have always known that to fully address climate change at the necessary scale and pace, we must win meaningful legislation in Congress. With your support, we did.

Still, there is more to do.

While the Inflation Reduction Act is critical to reaching our climate goals, it also includes potentially detrimental provisions designed to benefit the still-too-powerful fossil fuel industry, which could have particularly harmful impacts on Indigenous communities, communities of color, and other communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. Just as LCV is committed to building the clean energy future that this historic bill makes possible, we are committed to pushing back on more leasing, drilling, pipelines, and other measures that perpetuate environmental racism and fuel the climate crisis. With your support, we will continue this critical fight.

Thank you for investing in LCV’s long-term work to secure policies to build a safer, more equitable climate future for people and the planet. This bill is a beginning, not an end. We have much more to do, and — as this journey shows — together, we will get it done.

Onward,

Gene Karpinski
President, LCV

P.S. To read more detail about how this historic climate victory came about, click here. To view a breakdown of how the climate and clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act measure up to LCV’s priorities, click here.