Tom in the News — October 22, 2020

From clean energy to recovery from the pandemic, this election is all about justice.

While our country continues to battle a confluence of crises, Tom explained how these issues are intertwined — and how injustice is at the core of all of them. When we talk about the COVID-19 pandemic, the youth vote, or clean energy jobs, it’s all centered on the fight for an equitable economic recovery, a sustainable future, and a healthy, prosperous nation. Take a look.

• Tom Steyer thinks business is missing a big opportunity on the green economy — Fortune
  “I did two studies five or six years ago with Hank Paulson and Mike Bloomberg with the support of American CEOs and policy leaders called ‘risky business’ to show that moving to clean energy creates faster growth, more and better-paying jobs, and better health while avoiding the climate disaster. It is a win, win, win. Clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy. Trump either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he’s lying. Those are the only possibilities.” Read more here.
• Tom Steyer discusses the climate policy solutions for the economy and pandemic — Reuters
  “When you look at a really deep issue like climate, there’s no way to separate it in your solution from the interconnected and overlapping issues like job creation, economic growth, prosperity, and also health.” Read more here.
• Tom Steyer on starting NextGen America — The Future of Activism with Joe Hobbs
  “I really got into activism through a lens of climate, and through a lens of justice. I started NextGen — I quit my job. I left the company I started and walked away from it because I felt as if there’s no way to succeed in this part-time. You have to give your heart and soul to it, if you’re going to succeed. And so I wanted to be part of the group of people pushing our society to address a huge issue about justice, and a huge issue about safety and health for Americans across the board.” Listen here.
• Tom Steyer discusses Biden-Harris climate plan, which creates millions of union jobs — MSNBC
  “The Biden campaign, and Joe Biden personally, have a very strong climate plan. It directly addresses our climate crisis. And in doing so, it creates $2 trillion of federal spending over four years that are going to create the millions of good-paying, union jobs that Senator Harris was referring to. It also specifically addresses environmental justice, cleaning up the air pollution, water pollution toxins in underserved Black and brown communities…We can see right now in the marketplace, the biggest American financial institutions coming around to support exactly the kinds of ideas that the Biden Build Back Better plan is in favor of…What we can see in Joe Biden’s very aggressive and absolutely necessary plan that he understands and believes in is something that is going to catalyze growth, and in particular job growth, at a time when we have very high unemployment. There is a plan here that is very well-crafted, that Joe Biden deeply understands and believes in, and it’s going to happen very early in this administration, and not just address climate, but also address systemic racism, and unemployment, and the need to create good-paying union jobs.” Watch here.