Thursday, June 3, 2021
CONTACT: Ryan Billingham, Communications Director, Wisconsin Conservation Voters, 608-208-1129 (office), 608-213-6972 (mobile/text), or ryan@conservationvoters.org
Rep. Moore supports American Jobs Plan, stands with labor, environment, community
MILWAUKEE – On Wednesday, June 2, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore joined clean energy advocates, elected officials, labor organizations, and community members to speak about her support of initiatives to increase energy efficiency in schools, clean energy buses, investments in Milwaukee’s BRT bus program, and the American Jobs Plan.
At the Milwaukee School of Engineering, Rep. Gwen Moore; Ariana Hones, Southeast Organizer, Wisconsin Conservation Voters; Ryan Clancy, Milwaukee County Board Supervisor, owner of Bounce MKE; Ted Kraig, member of the Milwaukee City/County Task Force on Climate Change and Economic Equity; Richard Diaz, BlueGreen Alliance; and Donnell Shorter, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998, Executive Board Member, all spoke to opportunities for committing to a clean energy future.
Click here for video of the event.
Excerpts from speeches included:
Rep. Gwen Moore: “Our children deserve to be in environments that provide the proper ventilation so they don’t spread diseases, but also green environments on their school buses and on their public buses. Especially children in our low income inner city communities – what we have noticed is that those people who rely on our public transportation for work or for school is that if you’re a person of color you’re probably six times as likely to rely on bus service than if you’re not.”
Ariana Hones, Southeast Organizer for Wisconsin Conservation Voters: “We’re calling on congress to invest at least 50 billion dollars in the adoption of electric buses for transit and school bus fleets. Electrifying transit and school busses will not only boost the emerging electric bus industry, these vehicles have no tailpipe emissions and will thus protect the health of drivers, riders, and people who live along the routes.”
Ryan Clancy, Milwaukee County Board Supervisor and owner of Bounce MKE: “I come here today as a father and a husband. In 2011 we got our first electric vehicle and it was in large part because our child who is now 12 has asthma. It’s triggered by a particulate matter in the air and we knew that getting an electric vehicle was a small way of making a small contribution to changing that impact on our environment.”
Ted Kraig, Chair of Transportation Committee for the City/County Task Force on Climate Change and Economic Equity: “The other end of this, which is really important for Milwaukee is that the investments that we need to make to solve the climate problem are investments that will create jobs and economic prosperity. Especially if we do it right, they can rectify some of the horrific racial injustice and racial inequality that we’ve had in our metro area for quite a long time.”
Richard Diaz, BlueGreen Alliance: “Milwaukee is a different town than it was 50 years ago when we had big manufacturing giants employing thousands of Milwaukeeans and you didn’t see people gravitating towards jobs that weren’t livable wage jobs because the opportunity to earn a honest dollar and to have a path to upward mobility was so accessible. The American Jobs Plan provides that opportunity for us as people of color, as working class people across the nation to have that path to upward mobility.”
Donnell Shorter, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998, Executive Board Member: “Some of the benefits of electric buses would be that some of our drivers wouldn’t have to walk to a warehouse with a hundred buses with diesel smoke in the air.”
For more information contact Ryan Billingham at ryan@conservationvoters.org.
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