OP-ED: How Wisconsin Lawmakers Can Honor Earth Day All Year Long

As Wisconsinites celebrate Earth Day and continue into Earth Week, we must keep pushing our elected officials from Washington D.C. to our state Capitol to pass legislation that will support a healthy and sustainable future.

All of us in Wisconsin deserve to live safe and healthy lives, which starts with the air we breathe, the water we drink, and keeping our natural resources healthy. That’s why Democratic state legislators in 2023 introduced the Forward on Climate package, a group of bills that would not only keep our air and water clean but would create new, family-supporting jobs across the state.

However, the GOP majority in the legislature ended the legislative session months early without taking up the Forward on Climate Package.

More recently, Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bad-faith bill that would have let corporate polluters off the hook for contaminating Wisconsinites’ water, and called a special meeting of the Finance Committee to release $125 million in funds to mitigate PFAS levels in our water supply.

Republicans on the committee refused to show up to that meeting, leaving the already-approved funds sitting at the Capitol where it isn’t helping anyone.

At the federal level, President Joe Biden was able to sign into law some of the largest ever investments in climate health with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, but not without having to first overcome opposition from Wisconsin Republicans in D.C.

Every Republican member of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation voted against passage of President Biden’s Affordable Clean Energy Plan.

Call your state legislators (1-800-362-9472) and federal lawmakers (202-224-3121) today and remind them that in order to make a sustainable future for our climate, clean air to breathe, and safe water to drink, we need Republicans to end the obstruction and work together with their Democratic colleagues in passing climate conscious legislation, on Earth Day and every day.