Duckworth, Markey, Baldwin Introduce Resolution to Designate April as Earth Month
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—founding co-chair of the Senate’s first-ever Environmental Justice Caucus—along with U.S. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the Earth Month resolution to recognize the importance of environmental stewardship and climate action.
“Donald Trump’s decision to gut EPA and shutter environmental justice offices across the country threatens the Earth we all call home and endangers our public health—it’s the opposite of what our government should be doing to secure a cleaner, healthier future for our children and our planet,” said Senator Duckworth. “We can’t afford to ignore the climate crisis and how it’s harming our planet and the American people. During this Earth Month and always, I pledge to keep doing everything in my power to push back against the Trump Administration’s misguided campaign to make our environment and the millions of Americans who are dealing with the effects of legacy pollution—like higher cancer, asthma and death rates—unhealthier by rolling back environmental protections.”
“Planet Earth is our home. Now more than ever, we need stewardship of our home. As the Trump administration is targeting environmental safeguards that ensure we have a livable future, I am doubling down on my commitment to fight back and uplift efforts that promote environmental stewardship and spur even more climate action. Earth Day is our moment to recommit and expand our movement for a just and livable future – a future with clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean land on which to live,” said Senator Markey. “We know environmental pollution and the climate crisis do not affect us all equally. That is why environmental stewardship and climate action must center the most marginalized communities, particularly Black and Indigenous communities who have been overburdened with pollution and the harms of climate change. Using the tenets of a Green New Deal – fighting for environmental justice and climate action while creating good-paying union jobs – we can work together toward a livable future every day, but especially during Earth Month.”
“From the Great Lakes and the rolling hills of the Driftless Region, to the Great Northwoods and Mighty Mississippi, Wisconsin is rich with natural resources that have defined our state and way of life,” said Senator Baldwin. “I’m proud to carry on Wisconsin’s tradition of environmental stewardship and recognize Earth Month as we all do our part to protect and preserve Wisconsin’s wilderness and resources for the next generation.”
Full text of the resolution is available on Senator Duckworth’s website.
As co-chair and co-founder of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, Duckworth has long pushed to strengthen and defend environmental justice efforts across the country. Last month, Duckworth and—along with Senate Environmental Justice Caucus Co-Chair Corey Booker (D-NJ) and U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE)—urged EPA Administrator Zeldin to reopen the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR), which Duckworth and Booker led the charge to create.
Duckworth recently helped introduce legislation that would permanently codify the Office of Environmental Justice within the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) in response to Attorney General Bondi’s order eliminating all environmental justice efforts at the DOJ.
For years, Duckworth has led the charge pushing for her A. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice For All Act—the most comprehensive environmental justice legislation in history—which would help achieve health equity and climate justice for all, particularly in underserved communities and communities of color that have long been disproportionately harmed by environmental injustices and toxic pollutants.
Duckworth worked to help pass the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included her Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (DWWIA)—the most significant federal investment in water infrastructure in history that includes $15 billion for national lead pipe replacement. DWWIA, which focuses on disadvantaged communities, is helping rebuild our nation’s crumbling and dangerous water infrastructure and enable communities to repair and modernize their failing wastewater systems, with many of the provisions to help low-income communities designed specifically for communities like Chicago, Cahokia Heights and East St. Louis.
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