Here’s how clean energy can help Texas bounce back from COVID-19 recession

Our nation is at a turning point. The COVID-19 pandemic is surging in many parts of the country, and millions remain unemployed, with communities of color facing the brunt of these crises. In Tarrant County, hundreds have died and thousands are still out of work.

Regardless of political affiliation, all Texans want a safer and healthier state with a growing economy. And we have a chance to rebuild a better America than we had before, to save lives and create conditions in which all people can thrive.

While we make investments to build a stronger and more inclusive economy, we should focus on the industries that show the greatest potential for growth to help families recover. We know that clean-energy investments will work to rebuild a better economy because they produced results a decade ago. The investments Congress made in clean energy during the Great Recession helped create hundreds of new American businesses and nearly one million jobs.

Before the coronavirus took down the economy, clean energy was one of the nation’s strongest sectors, growing 70 percent faster than the economy as a whole.

Clean energy makes people healthier, too. Very few things are as fundamental to good health as the air we breathe. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, around the world nine out of 10 people breathe unhealthy air.

Air pollution is now the biggest environmental risk for early death, responsible for as many as 5 million premature deaths each year from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and respiratory diseases. That’s more than the deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

Children, the elderly, people living with diseases, and minority and low-income communities are particularly vulnerable to adverse health outcomes and economic impacts, such as missed work days, from exposure to air pollution.

Research suggests that long-term exposure to some pollutants increases the risk of emphysema more than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Recently, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released a detailed plan that will put people back to work, promote public health, and address the ongoing climate crisis.

This plan emphasizes many points of bipartisan agreement, such as creating incentives to spur innovative investments, stirring up demand for new business and manufacturing, and rewarding job creators who help lead us toward a 100% clean-energy future.

Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, is one of the leaders who understands what is at stake. We have an opportunity to rebuild better by creating a new generation of good-paying jobs, while also addressing the ongoing climate crisis that is threatening our health and way of life.

It is time for our elected leaders to turn this plan into legislative action and provide our country with the opportunity to emerge from this challenge stronger, healthier, and safer.

Workers in every sector of the economy need support, especially low-income and people of color who have been hit hardest by this crisis and may have been struggling beforehand.

Rebuilding better starts with strong leadership and proven policies. The coronavirus has been devastating, but as we look to elected officials to lead us to recovery, let’s rebuild better, healthier, stronger, and safer for all Americans.

And let’s do so by prioritizing the policies that are gaining traction on Capitol Hill and empowering the rapidly growing clean energy economy to rebuild a better America.