This resolution would express the non-binding sense of Congress the House that it’s the federal government’s duty to create a Green New Deal that aims to combat climate change and income inequality over the course of a decade. The Green New Deal would aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, require all U.S. power demand to be met through renewable sources, upgrade all existing buildings in the U.S. to maximize energy efficiency standards that’d also apply to new buildings, and promote “justice and equity” for certain groups of people. A breakdown of the policies the resolution would support including in a Green New Deal can be found below.

The Green New Deal mobilization would aim to accomplish a number of goals within a 10-year timeframe:

• Meeting 100% of U.S. power demand through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources by expanding and upgrading existing renewable power and deploying new capacity.

• Upgrading all existing buildings in the U.S. and requiring all new buildings to meet standards maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability (including through electrification).

• Eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector as much as technologically possible by supporting family farming, investing in sustainable land use practices, and building a “more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food”.

• Eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as technologically possible by investing in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure & manufacturing, public transportation, and high-speed rail.

• Upgrading infrastructure by guaranteeing universal access to clean water, reducing risks posed by flooding, and ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by Congress addresses climate change.

• Building resilience against climate-change related disasters by leveraging funding for community-defined projects and strategies, in addition to developing smart power grids and ensuring affordable access to electricity.

The resolution would call for the Green New Deal to be developed through “transparent and inclusive consultation with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses.” Further, the resolution adds that a Green New Deal mobilization would require the following projects and goals to be achieved:

• Leveraging capital, technical expertise, supporting policies, and other forms of assistance to community organizations, government agencies at the federal, state, and local level, and businesses involved in the mobilization.

• Ensuring the federal government takes into account the complete environmental and social costs and impacts of policies.

• Providing “resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United State, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities”.

• Guaranteeing a job “with a family sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the U.S.”;

• Ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates “high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition”.

• Strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors.

• Making a public investment in the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies and industries.

• Ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization.

Among the frontline and vulnerable communities this bill would seek to protect against “exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices” are: “indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth”.

As a joint resolution, this legislation could be considered by both chambers of Congress and be signed into law.