IPL President Rev. Susan Hendershot and AL IPL Executive Director Rev. Michael Malcom at the 100 Faith Leader for 100% Clean Energy Event Last week (photo: CCAN Action Fund)
By Tiffany Hartung, Field Director
This week IPL and our partners delivered a letter to Congress from more than 3,400 other faith leaders across the United States calling on Congress to support President Biden’s American Jobs Plan.
In the letter, faith leaders wrote “It is the moral responsibility of our nation, and our sacred task as people of faith, to care for our neighbors, our common home, and protect our children’s future. We must work for environmental justice and public health, and address the climate crisis.”
They emphasized that leaders from many diverse faith traditions are united in their call for a bold economic recovery and an infrastructure package that creates family- and community-sustaining jobs while caring for this sacred earth.
From historic wildfires to record-breaking extreme weather, climate change is devastating our health and destroying our environment. Links between climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have put low-wealth communities and communities of color at far greater health risks than others. COVID-19 has also exposed long-standing health care disparities, environmental injustices, and economic inequities in the United States.
The American public is calling for bold action to reduce the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change and to accelerate the transition to pollution-free renewable energy, and so are faith leaders.
The American Jobs Plan would transform American infrastructure, rebuild the economy, create good-paying jobs, jumpstart clean energy development, and fight climate change in the process. It also commits 40% of the benefits of these investments to communities which have historically borne the brunt of pollution and environmental injustices.
But right now, a bipartisan group of Senators is attempting to negotiate a deal on an infrastructure package with the White House. It’s critical that the Senate hears the message that we need a bold and comprehensive infrastructure package and that people of faith and conscience are standing behind the American Jobs Plan.
Help us amplify the multi-faith call on Congress. Make a phone call to your Senators today. You can find a sample script and the phone number to call here.
We need Congress to deliver economic recovery and infrastructure legislation that includes historic levels of investment to safeguard Creation and to address the harms of climate change and pollution caused by fossil fuel extraction and related industries. The legislation must include climate to fulfill our moral obligation to leave a thriving world for our children and future generations.
