Every election season the Democratic Party acknowledges human-caused climate change and says we must address this crisis for “future generations”…yet they haven’t come close to meeting the scale, scope and urgency of the climate & energy crisis.

They have not mustered the political will in large part because they accept campaign contributions from and create laws on behalf of oil & coal companies as well as other industries that produce massive carbon emissions, water contamination, and industrial waste. This allows these companies to operate with impunity, while also preventing solutions that thousands of climate scientists agree are needed to protect our planet. Most of Congress continues to vote for bloated military budgets, which has led to the U.S. military becoming the largest institutional source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

As a result of their inaction, Chicago area children experience asthma at a much higher rate than the national average. Too often, factories with the worst pollution rates are located in minority neighborhoods, and the residents suffer from health problems as a result. Infrastructure is neglected, and the air and water is unsafe. This happens all over the country as well. Look at South Memphis where the NAACP had to sue XAi (owned by Elon Musk) for running diesel generators 24/7 for months, blanketing the town in heavy exhaust fumes. Our health is being sacrificed for profit.
 
I do not and will not accept contributions from any industry, corporation or individual that harms the health and well being of U.S. residents. I am untethered to polluters and in Congress I will:: 

• Increase the use of next generation nuclear energy and small modular reactors. The US Navy has built and deployed 1-2 SMRs on submarines & battleships every year for the past 70yrs with a perfect safety record. We must lean on their expertise to build out this incredibly clean & dense energy source. 

• Co-sponsor the Green New Deal to rapidly expand clean, renewable energy that creates local jobs and lowers energy bills. 

• Include provisions in legislation that forbid companies from polluting marginalized communities and also provide oversight for environmental justice

• Propose a national moratorium on new data centers. Data centers are causing electricity prices to skyrocket while they use enormous amounts of our fresh water. 

• Provide funding to fulfill international climate change pledges made at the United Nations COP.

• Ban extraction on federal public lands and offshore drilling.

• Protect the right to protest for climate activists and whistleblowers from meritless lawsuits and criminalization.

• Phase out fossil fuels that contribute to climate change and pollute our air and water

I’m not sitting around waiting until I’m in Congress to protect families neighboring our district. In early February of this year, I went to Naperville City Hall to speak on behalf of residents, and we successfully blocked a company from installing a data center that would have polluted nearby neighborhoods and caused our utility bills to skyrocket.

This is the kind of action that you can expect from me day in and day out when I’m your representative in Congress. 

Finally, I would like to point out that we are not alone in this fight for a livable, beautiful planet. Look at how the Republican base reacted when they were faced with the threat of pieces of land in National Parks being sold for commercial development. We can leverage the respect for nature & maintaining a balanced ecosystem that many Republicans have for our beautiful country to work together and pass legislation. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie reached across the aisle to get the Epstein files released. That’s certainly a higher bar than energy reform and national parks funding.