Climate change
The party states that:
– climate change is a global emergency, and that there is no time to waste in taking action to protect Americans’ lives and futures; that the US must lead the world in taking on the climate crisis, and not deny the science and accelerate the damage
– recent years have seen record-breaking storms, devastating wildfires, and historic floods
– during its term in office, the administration has rejoined the Parish Agreement and taken bold action to reduce climate pollution across every sector of the economy, protecting more than 26 million acres of lands and waters, and restoring the vital role of science in guiding Federal decision-making, including:
– signing the largest investment in climate action ever with the Inflation Reduction Act—resulting in 210,000 new clean energy jobs created by clean energy
– bold executive action to cut emissions across the economy, including final standards to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas operations
– putting United States on a path toward cutting carbon pollution in half from 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050, including use of the Justice40 Initiative to embed environmental justice into clean energy and climate programs
– launch of the American Climate Corps initiative to mobilize a new, diverse generation of clean energy, conservation, and resilience workers to tackle the climate crisis

The party advocates:
– achieving zero-emissions as soon as possible, and not later than 2050
– eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035
– requiring net zero emissions for all new buildings by 2030
– dramatic expansion of solar and wind energy through community-based and utility-scale systems, including installation of 500 million solar panels and 60,000 wind turbines within 5 years
– investment in clean energy, clean transportation, energy efficiency, and advanced manufacturing
– providing energy-efficiency upgrades to up to 2 million low-income homes and affordable & public housing projects
– transitioning the entire US fleet of 500,000 school buses to zero-emission vehicles within 5 years
– installation of 500,000 public charging stations for electric vehicles
– reversing rollbacks of climate and environmental protections
– rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement
– reducing harmful methane and carbon pollution from the energy sector
– investing to create millions of jobs in clean tech, energy efficiency, clean transportation, and sustainable agriculture
– requiring companies to report polluters in their operations and supply chains

Energy & Resources
The party states that:
– during its current term in office the administration has taken action to bring gas prices down—since their peak, average gas prices have come down more than $1.60 per gallon
– the administrations Inflation Reduction Act is directly investing in communities and spurring hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector investment in wind, solar, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles

The party’s 2025 budget advocates:
– allocating $142 million, an increase of $31 million above the 2023 enacted level, to continue progress in deploying clean energy on public lands and waters
– leasing, planning, and permitting of solar, wind, and geothermal energy projects, and associated transmission infrastructure that would help mitigate the impacts of climate change and support the Administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 25 gigawatts of clean energy capacity on public lands by 2025
– allocating $10.7 billion for DOE, NASA, NSF, DOD, and other agencies to support innovation in commercial clean energy products, including in areas such as: offshore wind; industrial heat; sustainable aviation fuel; and grid infrastructure.
– allocating an additional $2.2 billion to acquire low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which coupled with a long-term ban on imports of LEU and HALEU from Russia, would prompt sufficient private sector investment to reinvigorate U.S. uranium enrichment and reduce America’s current dependence on Russian enriched uranium imports
– allocating $300 million to safeguard the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to protect consumers in times of emergency oil shortages

Conservation & Sustainable Development
The party advocates:
– protecting wildlife habitats and biodiversity, and growing natural carbon sinks by conserving 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030
– zero-emissions agriculture and aquaculture
– investment in sustainable, low-carbon and organic agriculture and aquaculture
– historic investments in cleanup of legacy pollution sites
– increased support for wetlands restoration

To assist families while improving the efficiency of buildings, the party advocates:
– budgeting $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), to help families access home energy and weatherization assistance
– following expiration of the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program at the end of 2023, allowing States to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households
– in addition to $13 billion provided in Inflation Reduction Act for rural development programs at the Department of Agriculture to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, and create good jobs in rural America, providing $1 billion for loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and rural small businesses, and $6.5 billion in authority for rural electric loans to support additional clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects
– providing an additional $53 million in zero-interest loans for the Rural Energy Savings Program, to help rural Americans implement durable cost-effective energy efficiency measures in their homes

To ensure that Western communities have access to a resilient and reliable water supply by investing in rural water projects, allocating $1.7 billion water conservation for development of desalination technologies, and water recycling and reuse projects

Species, Diversity & Wildlife
The party has released no official statement concerning its policies on species diversity and wildlife

Stewardship of Creation
The party states, among its ten key principles, that:
– human societies must function with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature
– the human community is an element of the Earth community. All human endeavors are situated within the dynamics of the biosphere. If we wish to have sustainable institutions and enterprises, they must fit well with the processes of the Earth.
– the nation must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet
– it supports a sustainable society that utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation
– to these ends the nation must practice agriculture that replenishes the soil, move to an energy-efficient economy, and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems
– social actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals, seeking to protect valuable natural resources and safely disposing of or ‘unmaking’ all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival
– the nation’s economy must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions
– the quality of all lives, rather than open-ended economic growth, should be the focus of future thinking and policy

Ecosocialist New Deal
The party advocates an Ecosocialist Green New Deal to achieve 100% clean energy, zero greenhouse gas emissions, and economic security for all within a decade. The Green New Deal will:
– continue to work toward negative emissions to bring the atmospheric greenhouse gases back into the climate safety and stability zone by the end of the 21st century. That safety zone is at most 350 ppm CO2. The world reached over 420 ppm in 2021, the highest level in the 3.6 million years since temperatures were 4°C (7°F) hotter and sea levels were 24 meters (78 feet) higher than today
– call for a World War II-scale mobilization to carry through this emergency climate program. During World War II, the federal government took over a quarter of US manufacturing capacity in order to turn industry on a dime into what President Roosevelt called the “Arsenal of Democracy” to defeat the fascist powers. We need to do nothing less through the public sector to defeat climate change.
– because it is too late for public incentives to private industry such as tax breaks, subsidies, and contracts to make the clean energy transition as proposed by other parties, call for social ownership and democratic planning in order to make a rapid coordinated transition to 100% clean energy and zero-to-negative greenhouse gas emissions, socializing key productive sectors, notably energy production, power distribution, broadband, railroads and automobiles, a greatly expanded public housing sector, and a domestic manufacturing sector to be rebuilt on an ecological basis of clean power and zero waste.
– include an Economic Bill of Rights that guarantees living-wage jobs, incomes above poverty, affordable housing, quality health care, lifelong public education, and a secure retirement.
– contribute to the goals of the Economic Bill of Rights by providing tens of millions of high-quality jobs, and profoundly increase the overall power of working people by virtually eliminating unemployment, underemployment, and poverty incomes. Because these publicly-created jobs will be union jobs, it will also contribute to the workers’ power by radically increasing the proportion of unionized workers in the economy.

Specifically, the party advocates:
– a presidential declaration of the climate crisis as a national emergency, to give the president powers under existing laws to take many immediate steps to address the climate crisis without needing congressional legislation
– creation of a cabinet-level Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate all federal agencies and economic planning to meet climate safety and justice goals
– congressional legislation to implement the Ecosocialist Green New Deal

The party’s Green New Deal includes:
– halting all new fossil fuel infrastructure (fracking, oil and gas pipelines, gas-fired power plants). Existing infrastructure is more than sufficient to deliver fossil fuels during the transition as they are phased out. The halt would include so-called “low carbon” dirty energy industries; fossil fuel carbon capture and sequestration; waste incinerators; large-scale biofuels such as factory farm biogas, landfill gas, and wood pellets; hydrogen from fossil fuels; large-scale ecosystem-altering hydropower; and market-based accounting systems like carbon offsets. Clean energy includes solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, and small-scale hydro
– socializing all power generation and distribution utilities and private energy corporations into a public energy system in order to rapidly implement the transition to 100% clean energy generation and distribution. The public energy system will operate at cost for public benefit rather than cost-plus-profit for owners. For-profit private utilities will not build the smart grid necessary to incorporate the distributed nature of renewables and to implement energy conservation and efficiency in energy use because the private utilities are more profitable continuing to use the servo-mechanical grid based on centralized power plants. The public energy system should be governed from the bottom-up by a decentralized federation of elected local/regional public energy districts that in turn elect state and federal boards for state and federal coordination
– socializing the railroad and automotive industries into a public transportation system to rapidly electrify transportation powered by clean energy sources. The public transportation system should be governed from the bottom up by a decentralized federation of elected local/regional public transportation districts that in turn elect state and federal boards for state and federal coordination. Intra-city mass transit and inter-city freight rails and high-speed passenger rails should move energy- and resource-inefficient personal vehicles and freight trucking on roads onto electrified passenger and freight rails. Urban planning should encourage walkable and bikeable neighborhoods through pedestrian and bike lanes on roads and rezoning single-family residence zones into mixed use zones
– building a public manufacturing system on the basis of clean energy and zero waste. The public manufacturing system will prioritize developing publicly-owned companies for clean energy and zero waste in key industries, such as zero-carbon cement manufacturing and replacing coke ovens with electric arc furnaces and green-hydrogen blast furnaces for steel production. Policy should require that manufacturing products are returned to their manufacturer when used up to be reused and recycled into the next generation of products. This zero-waste approach includes a rapid phase-out of petrochemical plastics and their replacement by biodegradable and inert packaging and product parts, including paper and glass. The public manufacturing system should have a training program that enables the workers in these publicly-owned companies if they so choose to lease the factories from the public energy system and manage them as worker cooperatives.
– replacing agricultural pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and large-scale industrialized factory farms based on monocropping and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations with regenerative organic agroecology by working farmers on small and medium-sized farms, including banning ban absentee and corporate ownership of farms and ranches, subsidizing the transition of farmers to organic production, and providing community-owned farmland to enable farmers to stay on farms where land prices rise too high. It will provide parity pricing and supply management to insure all working farmers have a decent income above their costs of production. In coordination with the public manufacturing system, it will provide ecological farm machinery and regional food and fiber processing and manufacturing in farming districts. Regenerative agriculture will be a major contributor to carbon drawdown by rebuilding carbon-rich living soil and integrating the agro-ecologies of farms into surrounding ecosystems.
– expanding public housing until every person has an affordable housing option, and ensuring that new and existing public housing is powered by clean energy. Public housing will be open to anyone so that low-income, working-class, and middle-class people live in the same developments and reduce race and class segregation. Priority placement should be given to low-income people as the expanded public housing sector is built out in order to house the homeless as soon as possible. Coordinate the rehabilitation of existing and the building of new public housing with public transportation and the placement of ecological manufacturing in order to transform urban landscapes into walkable, bikeable communities. The public housing system should be governed from the bottom up by a decentralized federation of elected local/regional public housing authorities that in turn elect state and federal boards for state and federal coordination. Develop organic urban farms and farm belts around cities and towns to increase access to fresh food and employment options in agriculture.
– building a public broadband system providing free internet to all and public ‘cloud’ systems that allow individuals, government, and organizations to construct public alternatives to near-monopolies like Amazon Web Services and Facebook. Universal internet is necessary for equal educational opportunity and access to information as well as implementation of a smart grid for the efficient use of renewable energy sources. The public broadband system should be governed from the bottom up by a decentralized federation of elected local/regional broadband utility boards that in turn elect state and federal boards for state and federal coordination.
– to build negative emissions programs, creating a Civilian Conservation Corps employing several million people in natural carbon sequestration projects that restore biospheric carbon sinks, including forests, soils, wetlands, and mangroves in the U.S. and around the world. The corps should also work to restore and enhance public recreation and park infrastructure and to clean up hazardous waste sites.
– to keep climate warming below the acknowledged 1.5ºC rise, exceeding which will increase the potential onset of tipping points leading to catastrophic climate change with impacts far worse than are now witnessed, implementing near-future radical reduction of global fossil fuel consumption coupled with negative carbon emissions will be imperative. Further, the 2021 6th IPCC Report emphasizes that curbing methane emissions will have significant benefits in slowing down global warming. Climate security requires negative greenhouse gas emissions and not the “net zero” goal now promoted. Net zero is a cover for unaccountable carbon offsets and corporate land grabbing, especially in the global South. “Net zero” is an excuse to prolong consumption of fossil fuels and emissions of CO2. Negative carbon emissions should be the goal.
– researching and developing other ways of drawing carbon out of the atmosphere in order to return to the climate safety zone. Biospheric carbon sequestration may have to be augmented by geospheric carbon sequestration. Greens call for research and development of a solar-powered industrial acceleration of weathering that fixes carbon in the Earth’s crust in the natural geological carbon cycle. Demonstration projects have already shown it is feasible to combine water and CO2 to react chemically in basalt rock formations to create carbonates that fix carbon to the rocks in the Earth’s crust for geological time scales.
– acknowledging and paying the climate and ecological debt the U.S. has incurred as the world’s largest historical carbon emitter and destroyer of carbon-storing forests, wetlands, and soils. The U.S. climate debt is not only due to its historical emissions. It is part of a broader ecological debt from the destruction of carbon-storing forests, soils, and wetlands by the resource-extracting foreign corporations of the Global North that have expropriated the resources, destroyed the biodiversity, and impoverished the people of the Global South. We in the U.S. are linked to this destruction of biodiversity by the globalization of supply chains and trade. This ecologically unequal exchange exploits the rainforests, agricultural lands, and fisheries of the Global South to provide wood, palm oil, and other food and fiber products to the rich countries. The U.S. is the world’s biggest importer of the tropical products of the Global South, which means the U.S. is the top destroyer of carbon-storing and ecosystem-stabilizing biodiversity. Paying this climate and ecological debt would not only be reparations to the Global South to help those countries make the transition to sustainable clean energy economies. Paying this debt is also an investment in the habitability of the planet for everyone.
– enacting a Just Transition program that guarantees that workers and communities affected by the transition to clean energy are kept whole during the transition. The Just Transition program will guarantee workers up to five years of their current wages and benefits, or a good pension for early retirement for those who choose it or can no longer work. Communities that lose tax revenues due the closure of power and manufacturing plants will receive equal revenues until new Green New Deal plants make up the loss.
– an Economic Bill of Rights (see section “An Economy to Serve People”)

Climate Change
The party states that:
– climate change is the gravest environmental, social and economic peril that humanity has ever met. Across the world, it is causing vanishing polar ice, melting glaciers, growing deserts, stronger storms, rising oceans, less biodiversity, deepening droughts, as well as more disease, hunger, strife and human misery
– greenhouse gases warm the Earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Much of that heat is initially absorbed by the ocean, creating roughly a 30-year delay in the impact of that heat at the surface of the planet. Practically speaking, that means that the melting glaciers and expanding deserts of 2009 were the result of greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere in the late 1970s, when the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was below 350 parts per million (ppm). To return to a safe level of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, we must reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases as quickly as possible to levels that existed before 1980, to 350ppm carbon dioxide.

The party advocates:
– reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least 40% by 2020 and 95% by 2050, over 1990 levels
– science-based policies to curb climate change by expending maximum effort to preserve a planet friendly to life as we know it by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
– enactment of an emergency Green New Deal to turn the tide on climate change, revive the economy and make wars for oil obsolete
– a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history
– creation of 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, conservation and restoration of critical infrastructure, including ecosystems
– implementation of a Just Transition that empowers those communities and workers most impacted by climate change and the transition to a green economy
– supporting workers displaced by the shift away from fossil fuels with full income and benefits as they transition to alternative work
– community and worker ownership of our energy system
– treat energy as a human right
building of a nationwide smart electricity grid that can pool and store power from a diversity of renewable sources, giving the nation clean, democratically-controlled, energy
– ending destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, natural gas pipelines, and uranium mines
– halting any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas, and phase out all fossil fuel power plants
– phasing out nuclear power and end nuclear subsidies
– a Fee & Dividend system on fossil fuels to enable the free market to include the environmental costs of their extraction and use. These fees shall be applied as far upstream as possible, either when fuel passes from extraction to refining, distribution or consumption; or when it first enters the United States’ jurisdiction. The carbon fee will initially be small, a dime per kilogram of carbon, to avoid creating a shock to the economy. The fee will be increased by 10% each year that global atmospheric carbon dioxide content is greater than 350 ppm, decreased 10% each year it’s less than 300 ppm, and repealed entirely when it falls below 250 ppm
– strict, comprehensive compliance with the Clean Air Act. State and local clean air initiatives should advance and improve national efforts; for example, moving forward with stricter clean air and fuel efficiency standards, and with vehicle and fleet conversions
– further research on the damaging effects of hydrofluorocarbons and very short-lived substances (VSLS) on the ozone layer, and replacement o those causing destruction of ozone
– amendments to update the Montreal Protocol of 1987 to keep it consistent with current scientific findings regarding threats to the ozone layer

International Climate Treaty
The party states that:
– the climate treaty reached in Paris in December, 2015 is inadequate to address the climate change crisis. The 195 nations involved pledged to reduce greenhouse gases. The pledges are not mandatory, however. The treaty does not require the phase out of fossil fuels, and it delays higher aid levels for poorer nations until 2025

The party advocates:
– legally binding commitments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 and a 95% reduction by 2030 over 1990 levels

Repaying Climate Debt
The party advocates:
– paying for adaptation to climate change in countries with less responsibility for climate change, e.g., providing a carbon neutral development path for those countries that can no longer be permitted to develop by burning cheap fossil fuels

Conservation
The party states that:
– it is appalled by the country’s withdrawal from serious efforts to limit greenhouse gases that are contributing mightily to global climate disruption
– land use policies must promote sustainable development and respect ecology
– land use practices must be founded on stewardship of the Earth, to honor the interconnected and interdependent nature of all life, to respect ecosystems and other species, while at the same time providing for human needs in a responsible and sustainable way

The party advocates:
– adoption of organic agriculture and the careful tending of our nation’s precious remaining topsoil
– planetary efforts to slow the ever-increasing numbers of humans pressuring the ecosystems
– reduction of consumption of the world’s raw materials by the industrialized Northern Hemisphere
– adopting a national zero waste policy. The less we consume and throw away, the less we will need to produce and replace
– to remove carbon from the atmosphere and stabilize the climate, use of ecological restoration techniques such as restoration of forests, grasslands, and farmlands by planting trees, reforestation and afforestation of public lands, and revegetation of grasslands with native species to prevent desertification and improve climate resilience
– encouraging regenerative agricultural techniques
– restoring ecosystems on privately-owned lands by providing incentives to landowners
– acknowledgement that every property right has an implied responsibility to provide for the common good of people, places and the planet
– formation and operation of cooperatives, non-profits, land trusts, co-housing, and other forms of communal and public interest management of land and resources
– promotion of livable urban environments to minimize urban sprawl
– matching urban populations with the carrying capacities of the bioregions in which our cities are located
– preservation and expansion of rural land use patterns that promote open space, healthy ecosystems, wildlife corridors and the ecologically sustainable agriculture, and of large continuous tracts of public and private land for wildlife habitat and biological diversity, to permit healthy, self-managing wildlife populations to exist in a natural state, and to promote complete ecosystems
– transition of rural communities into sustainable relationships with ranching, agriculture, forestry and mining
– rewards for farmers and ranchers for the ecosystem services they provide on private and public lands
– promotion of small-scale farmers and ranchers over large-scale corporate agriculture and ranching
– reforms of mining law and practice to better balance mining with other important public land uses; providing a fair financial return to taxpayers for resources extracted, and creating a fund for clean up of abandoned mines
– strict curbs on mercury emissions from metal mines
– elimination o public subsidies for livestock grazing on public lands
– ending sale of any portion our national parks, forests or coastlines

Water
The party states that:
– according to the United Nations, more than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water
– if current trends persist, by 2025 as much as two-thirds of the world’s population will be living with a serious scarcity of water
– multinational corporations recognize these trends and are moving fast to monopolize water supplies around the world. They argue that privatizing water is the best way to allocate this valuable resource, and they are scheming to have water declared a human need so that it can be commodified and sold on the open market ensuring that the allocation of water will be based on principles of scarcity and profit maximization
– governments are signing away their control over their domestic water supplies by participating in trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and in institutions such as the World Trade Organization
– the World Bank recently adopted a policy of water privatization and full-cost water pricing

The party advocates:
– because water is essential to all forms of life, an international declaration that water belongs to the Earth and all of its species
– leadership by the U.S. Government declaring water a fundamental human right and preventing efforts to privatize, export, and sell it for profit
– strong national and international laws to promote conservation, reclaim polluted water systems, develop water-supply restrictions, ban toxic and pesticide dumping, control or ban corporate farming, and curb transnational corporations that pollute water systems, including severe restriction of polluting mines
– banning privatization of water
– re-prioritization of policies achieve a truly sustainable water policy
– application of the principle of bioregionalism (living within the means of a region’s natural resources) to future water policies
– mandating water efficient appliances and fixtures be used in all new construction, and promote retrofitting of older buildings
– promoting use of native landscaping and other drought resistant/ climate-appropriate plants, in order to reduce the need for irrigation
– promotion of drip irrigation systems where irrigation is necessary
– education citizens and enforcement of laws to end storm water pollution of water resources
– promoting appropriate reuse of “gray” and “black” waters we produce, e.g., for lawn watering and similar purposes
– promoting use of passive and natural systems (such as wetlands) for water and wastewater treatment
– upgrading and phasing out aging municipal sewage systems and treatment plants

Forestry
The party states that:
– forests are indispensable to human and animal life and must be protected. Globally, the planet has already lost 50% of our pre-colonial forests and the plant and animal communities they supported. Our rapidly increasing numbers, high-consumption rates, and profit incentives have resulted in massive forest destruction due to logging and development, and the Earth’s remaining rain forests are being destroyed and transformed into cattle pastures or mono-crops for bio-fuels production
– tree mortality rates of 0.5 to 0.7% per year are natural. We are now witnessing local tree die-offs of 30 to 40% and even higher!
– forestry practices such as clearcutting also destroy the mycorrhizal fungi with which trees have a symbiotic relationship, and regeneration is slowed or impossible

To protect our forests, the party advocates:
– overhauling of state and U.S. Forest Service rules, and reform and restructuring of federal and state land-use policies to make our use environmentally sustainable, while allowing forests to provide a continuing supply of high quality wood products
– banning the harvest of Ancient Forests
– banning the export of raw logs and other minimally processed forest products (pulp, chips, carts, slabs, etc.), which causes American job loss
– subsidies for local watershed-based mills, to maximize employment opportunities through value-added processing, and promote sustainability and worker control
– using work projects, goats, and other sustainable methods to control undergrowth rather than spraying herbicides, especially near communities
– cultivation of hemp as a plentiful and renewable resource for the manufacture of paper and other forest products
.- requiring all U.S. Government offices to use 100% post-consumer waste paper processed chlorine free, and that any new fiber necessary to the process come from alternative sources such as hemp or kenaf

Oceans
The party states that:
– the world’s oceans, which are essential to life on Earth, are threatened by climate change, pollution, whaling, over fishing, factory fishing, bottom trawling, by catch, pirate fishing and fish farming. Yet simple, strong policy changes can rejuvenate the health of our oceans and planet

The party advocates:
– protection of 40% of the world’s oceans as marine preserves, especially near shore coastal habitats, including determination of protected zones through a democratic process involving all stakeholders
– banning of offshore oil drilling and the siting of liquefied natural gas facilities off the U.S. coast
– ending use of once-through cooling process in and near coastal waters
– requiring secondary treatment of waste effluent before release
– the ban on international commercial whaling as well as other international efforts to protect endangered marine species
– banning of drift-net fishing and long-line fishing and phase out of factory trawling, and importation of fish and fish products caught by drift-nets and other illegal means
– mapping of undersea toxic dump sites, and investigation of methods of rendering them harmless
– banning importation of coral products and destruction of breakwaters. 13. Support the Law of the Sea Treaty that establishes the global sharing of ocean resources. 14. Support complete cleanup of existing and past oil spills. Cost of cleanups and compensation for affected communities should be paid by the corporations responsible for the spills.

Species, Diversity & Wildlife
The party states that:
– we humans have a moral responsibility to all of our natural relations of other species, many of which are facing extinction because we carelessly and permanently halt their long evolutionary journey
– continuing destruction of animal habitats threatens an ever-growing number of species with extinction, not only depriving these species of their existence, but future human generations of the enrichment of having these species on the Earth

The party advocates:
– reformulation of all policies concerning human settlement, food, energy, natural resources, water, coastal development, and industrialization to prevent further disruption of the non-human ecosystems’ ability to maintain themselves
– promotion of and public access to seed banks and seed collections that emphasize traditional and heirloom seeds, and opposition to monopolistic production of high-tech hybrid seeds, which relies on non-sustainable methods such as single crop varieties bred with industrial traits and grown with high input of energy, chemicals, and pesticides and has led to a massive loss of biodiversity
– opposition of international trade agreements (NAFTA, GATT and the WTO in particular) that have precedent-setting provisions protecting transnational, corporate control of the intellectual property of genetic material, hybrid seeds, and proprietary products
– since the mark of a humane and civilized society lies in how we treat the least protected among us, extension of rights to other sentient, living beings, and an intelligent, compassionate approach to the treatment of animals
– in order to protect the health of continental ecosystems, a halt to the destruction of habitats, which are being sacrificed to unqualified economic expansion.

Energy & Resources
The party states that:
– the nation’s houses and buildings, manufacturing processes, and industrial agriculture were all designed with the assumption of an endless supply of cheap and readily available fossil fuels, without thought for pollution and despoiling the land
– it is optimistic about the alternatives that now exist and that could be encouraged through tax policy and the market incentives of fuel efficiency
– it is committed to extending the greening of waste management by encouraging the spread of such practices as reduce, return, reuse, and recycle
– it strongly opposes recent attempts to roll back the federal environmental protection laws that safeguard our air, water, and soil

The party advocates:
– treating energy as a human right
– a nationwide smart electricity grid that can pool and store power from a diversity of renewable sources, giving the nation clean, democratically-controlled, energy
– ending destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, natural gas pipelines, and uranium mines
– halting any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas, and phase out all fossil fuel power plants
– phasing out nuclear power and end nuclear subsidies
– adopting energy efficiency standards that reduce energy demand economy-wide by 50% over the next 20–30 years, as the U.S. needs no additional power, rather it can make massive reductions in its energy use through a combination of conservation and efficiency measures

Sustainable Development

The party states that:
– a waste-free society is essential to public health and the integrity and sustainability of the biosphere
– natural ecosystems are self-sustaining and generate no waste. We humans are a part of these ecosystems, and while we obtain resources from them, we have a responsibility to return only those things that can be re-absorbed without detriment
– waste is not an inevitable part of production and consumption, as it is viewed in the current economic model

The party advocates:
– shifting the nation toward clean production and principles of zero waste
– phasing out all avoidable production and sale of toxic metals, persistent organic pollutants, persistent bio-accumulative toxins, synthetic petrochemicals, and halogenated chemicals, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives
– making manufacturers responsible for the full life cycle of their products by requiring them to take back used products and packaging for remanufacturing, reuse, or recycling
– support for and implementation of the principle: “When an activity threatens harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically; placing the burden of proof on the proponent of the activity, rather than the public
– strengthen right-to-know laws so that everyone can discover what toxic or potentially toxic chemicals are used and released in their communities, and in products that they might purchase or use
– strict liability for the consequences of the pollution produced by corporations
– ending the use of incineration as a cleanup technology, and ensuring that “cleanups” don’t simply relocate toxins to chemical waste dumps in poor communities of color
– shut down existing waste incinerators, imposing a moratorium on new waste incinerators, and phasing out landfills
– prohibition of shipping of toxic, hazardous, or radioactive wastes across national borders, and the shipment of such wastes without strict regulation across any political borders
– safe, secure, above ground storage for existing nuclear waste
– closure, clean up, and remediation of national labs devoted to nuclear energy and weapons development and operations
– independent, transparent radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities
– replacement of chemical safety testing on animals with alternatives that do not use animals, wherever such alternative tests or testing strategies are available

(FOR REFERENCE ONLY.  THE CAMPAIGN HAS ANNOUNCED ITS SUSPENSION AND MOVED TO WITHDRAW FROM BALLOTS.  CHECK LOCAL CANDIDATE LISTING AND CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES BEFORE GOING TO THE POLL.)

Stewardship of the Environment
Candidate Kennedy states that:
– “I don’t want my children growing up in a world where there are no commercial fishermen, and where we’ve lost touch with the seasons and tides and things the connect us to 10,000 generations of human beings that were here before laptops, and that connect us ultimately to God. God communicates with us through many vectors, none more than creation.”

The campaign states that:
– Candidate Kennedy spent most of his career as an environmental lawyer, suing big polluters and government agencies that failed to enforce the law. Time Magazine named him “Hero for the Planet.” Kennedy sued Mobil Oil to reverse its pollution of the Hudson River; DuPont, Mitsubishi, and Ford, to force them to clean up chemical spills; Monsanto on behalf of farm workers and families who developed cancer from toxic pesticides
– the organization Kennedy founded, Waterkeeper Alliance, is now the largest clean water organization in the world, protecting 2.7 million miles of waterways in 47 countries. Throughout his career, Kennedy has stoodamong the leadership of the environmental movement crafting sensible, free-market solutions to environmental challenges.
– Candidate Kennedy’s success came from uniting liberal environmentalists with conservative rod-and-gun folks who shared a desire for a clean, healthy environment. He intends to bring the same commitment and coalition-building to address the most pressing environmental problems, domestically and beyond
– the campaign’s environmental plan will unite Americans around broadly shared values and commonsense priorities to protect air, water, natural resources and sacred places. Being independent, it can break through the divisive political arguments that keep us distracted while Republicans and Democrats allow corporate interests to strip-mine our natural heritage
– recent years have seen an increase in environmental disasters: floods and droughts, fires, and toxic spills. Soils are depleted, the weather is wacky, trees are dying, and the water in many places is toxic. Chronic disease is at an all-time high
– Candidate Kennedy undertakes in all his policies to put people and places first. In recent years, climate change has made the environment a divisive issue, but there are many policies that make sense to skeptics and activists alike. It intends to emphasize those, and rebuild a broad environmental coalition to clean up the country

The campaign advocates addressing problems at their root causes, including:
– unravelling corporate influence in environmental regulatory agencies, including the EPA, USDA, DOI, DOE, USFWS, and USFS, by replacing corporate-linked agency leaders with honest public servants

Sustainable Development; Species, Diversity & Wildlife

Reducing toxic chemical pollution and plastic waste
The campaign states that toxic industrial chemicals, largely from plastic (especially single-use plastics), are now so pervasive that most Americans are exposed to them at unsafe levels. Of the more than 13,000 chemicals used in plastics, only a few have been adequately tested. Many commonly used chemicals are known to increase the risk of cancer, reproductive health problems, obesity, and other serious health concerns.
– the nation’s oceans, lakes, and rivers are now burdened with more than 200 million tons of plastic pollution. Plastic is killing birds, turtles, whales, and other species, and harming human health.
– dangerous chemicals leach into our food directly from plastic packaging. We eat, drink, and inhale microplastics by the millions.
– during each of the two most recent administrations, the plastic industry’s footprint has continued to grow, even though the vast majority of American voters want to cut plastic pollution. During these administrations, petrochemical companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in new facilities to turn fracked natural gas liquids (NGLs) into plastics, which will dramatically expand the amount of plastic waste generated over the next several decades
– petrochemicals, primarily for plastics, are estimated to drive 45% of global oil demand growth by 2050

The campaign advocates:
– support for an ambitious international plastics treaty
– implementation of safety regulations and restrictions on hazardous chemicals to prevent accidents like the one in East Palestine
– passage of a national bottle bill (also called a container deposit return law)
– coordination of a national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system so that corporate producers of plastic packaging remain responsible for their waste
– modernizing recycling facilities and strengthening closed-loop recycling systems; and ending subsidies for plastic producers
– limiting construction and expansion of plastic facilities
– holding fracking and petrochemical companies accountable for pollution

Protecting forests, rivers, fisheries, and wildlife habitats from corporate abuse
The campaign states that:
– the heart and soul of U.S. environmentalism is protecting America the Beautiful. This is not a “blue” or “red” issue. Since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, “hook and bullet” conservationists have worked to protect their fishing and hunting grounds from corporate developers and extractive industries
– candidate Kennedy worked with hook and bullet groups and commercial fishermen, as well as more environmental activists, to clean up the Hudson River. Yet somehow today, divisive political forces have set the public arguing against each other as corporate interests keep stripping away what we love

To prevent big industries from turning all living creatures and natural ecosystems into commodities, the campaign advocates:
– staffing federal agencies with people who are not beholden to corporate interests, and enabling them to enforce US laws such as the Endangered Species Act, to make more success stories like the recovery of the once-endangered American bald eagle possible
– safeguarding America’s old-growth forests, and leading international efforts to end deforestation around the world
– expanding on candidate Kennedy’ experience cleaning up the Hudson River to restore America’s major rivers, wetlands, and coastal environments, and responsibly managing our natural resources, fisheries, hunting grounds, wildlands, and marine habitats

Restoring corporate-abused landscapes and keeping communities safe
The campaign states that:
– the wildfire that swept through Lahaina, Hawaii in August 2023 was the deadliest blaze in modern U.S. history. In California and other western states including Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Texas, millions of acres have burned in recent years, claiming far too many lives and homes. Western wildfires have covered large swathes of the country in smoke

The campaign advocates:
– implementing comprehensive federal wildfire management policies and supporting robust wildfire and emergency-response policies in communities at risk, to reduce fire disasters and deaths, such policies including managing forests, wildlands, and wildland-urban interfaces (places where people’s homes and infrastructure come into contact with wildlands) by addressing all of the factors that contribute to major wildfires.
– stopping corporate interests from abusing landscapes and making them more susceptible to fire
– unravelling corporate capture in the five federal agencies responsible for wildland fire management — theForest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service
– restoring and regenerating degraded lands
– maintaining ecologically healthy, resilient, and fire-resistant forests and grasslands
– protecting the nation’s remaining old-growth forests, which are more resistant to fire, and revamp forest management
– keeping combustible materials at manageable levels using controlled burns and other methods
– utilizing firebreaks and managing potential fuels in wildland-urban interfaces
– creating community fire resilience zones in at-risk urban areas
– cleaning up toxic chemicals released by materials burned in urban fires
– establishing better wildfire emergency response protocols
– providing more support for wildfire victims
– shifting agricultural subsidies so as to encourage regenerative practices. Today, a new generation of farmers and ranchers is building soil, replenishing groundwater, and detoxifying land, all while producing just as much food as conventional farmers and earning a decent livelihood
– incentivizing the transition of industry to zero-waste cycles and clean energy sources, and forging agreements with other countries to implement these policies throughout the global supply chain. These first two policies will vastly reduce the toxic waste, industrial poisons, and harmful pesticides
– protecting wild lands from further development, by curbing mining, logging, oil drilling, and suburban sprawl, and becoming a global advocate for rainforest preservation and marine restoration

Environment
The party states that:
– competitive free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources
– governments are unaccountable for damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection
– protecting the environment requires a clear definition and enforcement of individual rights and responsibilities regarding resources like land, water, air, and wildlife. Where damages can be proven and quantified in a court of law, restitution to the injured parties must be required

Energy and Resources
The party states that:
– while energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. It opposes all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production

Care for Creation|
The party advocates:
– canceling the electric vehicle mandate and cutting costly burdensome regulations

Climate Change
The party’s 2024 platform comprises no statement concerning its policies on climate change.
 

Energy & Resources
To make America once again energy independent, and then energy dominant, the party advocates:
– increasing energy production across the board, including streamlining the permitting process and ending market-distorting restrictions on oil, natural gas, and coal, lowering energy prices even below the record lows achieved during its prior term of administration. 

Conservation & Sustainable Development
The party’s 2024 platform comprises no statement concerning its policies on conservation or sustainable development.
 

Species, Diversity & Wildlife
The party’s 2024 platform comprises no statement concerning its policies on species, diversity, or wildlife.