Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY unveiled the Green New Deal on Tuesday at a press conference, focusing on improving public housing and making it more climate-friendly.
The bill is called the Green New Deal of Public Housing and is an arm of the larger Green New Deal (GND) package. It’s an updated version of the bill of the same name that the lawmakers introduced in 2019 to create jobs, retrofit public housing to be more energy-efficient, and use clean energy to power the buildings.
On Tuesday Cortez said, “We decided to come together in sweeping legislation that not only rejects that notion but creates a plan for 20 million Union jobs in the United States of America, to rebuild our infrastructure to restore public housing to make sure that we expand our access not only to infrastructure but mass transit everything from coast to coast chargers to making sure that we have an Amtrak that is resilient, infrastructure to the New York City subway system.”
“The Green New Deal also importantly recognizes the systemic cause of climate change because while climate change is a planetary crisis, it is not caused by an environmental or random. It does not have a random or environmental genetic list. It’s not just human caused. It’s societally caused,” blasted Cortez.
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs tweeted out, “Proud to join my colleagues today as an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. Now is the time to take action — to protect our planet and our future and to build a more just and livable society for everyone.”
This bill is supposed to address efficiency and workforce development in the context of public housing.
Specifically, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) must award grants to public housing agencies (PHAs) and other eligible entities under a variety of new programs, including programs for
- facilitating workforce development and high-income employment transition;
- conducting physical needs assessments and subsequent energy efficiency retrofits; and
- making upgrades, replacements, and improvements for energy efficiency, building electrification, and water quality upgrades.
Recipients of these grants must provide relocation assistance for residents who are displaced during construction and must ensure that they can return to their homes once retrofitting is completed.
A certain percentage of the employment positions generated by these grant programs and other specified federal grant programs must be filled by low-income individuals, and a specified percentage of certain contracts associated with these programs must be awarded to businesses owned by residents of public housing.
The bill also repeals a provision that prohibits a PHA from using HUD funds to construct or operate new public housing units if doing so would result in the PHA owning or operating more units than it did on October 1, 1999.
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