John – Welcome back to another edition of BNC Insider, your weekly recap of everything that’s happening in the world of Brand New Congress.

In this issue:

• Our final primary
• New legislation from Cori Bush
• Rashida protests high electric bills
• Ways to take action

Get ready to dive in.

The final BNC primaries are happening TOMORROW in New York and Florida, where polls open in less than 24 hours

Polls open in New York and Florida in:

Five BNC candidates, including three of our elected incumbents, will be on the ballot next week.

There’s still time to help turn out the vote for AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Brittany Ramos-DeBarros, Melanie D’Arrigo, and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. Look under Take Action below and sign up to make phone calls or send texts.

New environmental justice bill from Cori Bush

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last week includes a host of important climate policies. One of the key pieces that hasn’t gotten much attention is Cori Bush’s Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act.

This bill, also sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey, targets funding directly to the communities most affected by environmental injustice.

The bill creates and funds an interagency committee to develop detailed neighborhood maps of environmental risk factors including air quality, fossil fuel infrastructure, and police violence. This data will help ensure marginalized communities receive the climate investment they need.

One of the biggest barriers to meaningful climate action has been the collection and maintenance of data necessary to make swift and impactful policy changes. Cori’s new bill aims to change that and help the communities that have been harmed the most by industrial pollution and poor infrastructure.

This is one more step forward in the fight for a Green New Deal, and we won’t stop until we’ve won it.

You can join that fight by signing up for a monthly sustaining donation to Brand New Congress to help us elect more climate champions in just over 11 weeks from now!

BNC Rep protests high energy bills
 
Last Friday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib joined protesters in Detroit outside the headquarters of DTE Energy to speak out against skyrocketing electric bills that are impacting working families the hardest. DTE is planning to roll out an 8.8% rate hike on residential customers, citing the utility’s critical infrastructure failures, air pollution and dark money spending.

In her statement on Twitter, Rashida said:
 
“When DTE is not shutting people off or failing to fix outages, they are jacking up our rates. Since 2015, DTE rate increases generated $774 million, the 2nd highest rate increase of any investor-owned utility in the country.  An 8.8% hike in rates is unjustified.” - Rashida Tlaib

The Inflation Reduction Act just signed into law includes measures to control high energy costs for consumers, but DTE’s planned rate hike proves this is a matter of urgency and will likely require further interventions from the Biden Administration.

Volunteer

Our last primaries are tomorrow and five BNC candidates need your help for the final push.

Sign up to volunteer directly with a campaign and help BNC turn out the vote:

→ Volunteer for Melanie D’Arrigo
→ Volunteer for Brittany Ramos DeBarros
→ Volunteer for AOC
→ Volunteer for Jamaal Bowman
→ Volunteer for Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick

Or volunteer with Brand New Congress to support ALL of our candidates!

Thanks for reading our BNC Insider! 💜 Watch for this update every Monday to stay on top of what’s happening in the world of BNC.

Until next week,

The entire team at Brand New Congress

P.S. If you appreciate this content, please consider signing up for a monthly recurring contribution to sustain our work.