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I have to admit that for a few days I felt really angry and depressed about the outcome of the Democratic Party Platform Committee meeting in Orlando. Despite a letter from more than 200 party delegates calling for a ban on fracking in the platform, more than 100,000 public petitions demanding the same and a recent Gallup poll showing that a vast majority of Democrats (not to mention a clear majority of Americans at large) are opposed to fracking, the committee failed to stand up to the corporate power of the oil and gas industry. In the end, the fracking ban proposal wasn’t even allowed to come up for a vote.
Whatever #DemPlatform says, we must #BanFracking and #StoptheTPP We'll call for both on July 24 #SeeYouInPhilly https://t.co/IGqe3y4X6w
— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater) July 10, 2016
Although this is disappointing, our work doesn’t change. We must organize, organize, organize and build a grassroots movement so strong and diverse we are able to elect national leaders that reflect our progressive ideals and will fight for worthy policies. And of course we must then hold these individuals accountable.
In the meantime, progress is being made. Democratic Platform Committee members voted in favor of an historic amendment categorizing climate change as a global emergency requiring a World War II-scale mobilization. It’s our job to keep fighting for policies that will keep fossil fuels in the ground and end the fracking nightmare. It will be up to each of us to keep demanding that those in power—regardless of political party—take the needed steps to seriously address our impending climate crisis.
To be clear, here’s what the Democratic Party platform needed to do that it didn’t do:
- Call for a national ban on fracking, the dangerous method of oil and natural gas extraction responsible for a majority of American fossil fuel production.
- Call for rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a disastrous trade deal that would undermine domestic environmental regulations and encourage more fracking.
- Call for a halt to construction of gas-fired power plants, which burn fracked gas and contribute to climate change.
- Call for a halt to the construction of oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure that is scarring the country, impacting land, waterways and communities.
- Call for a stop to the use of fracked oil “bomb trains,” which facilitate more fracking and pose highly explosive risk to communities they pass through.
- Call for a halt to all fossil fuel extraction on federal lands—to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground—in order to avoid the biggest impacts of climate change.
- Call for challenging corporate power. The committee rejected several amendments that would have addressed this critical issue including one amendment that would stop the revolving door between industry and government employment.
These Democratic Party failures clearly explain why I will be marching in the streets of Philadelphia on July 24, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, to raise up clear, bold, urgent demands—demands that must be met if we are to avoid the worst and most disruptive climate consequences. We want fracking banned, fossil fuels left in the ground, the TPP rejected, environmental justice for all and a quick, just transition to 100 percent renewable energy.
That’s what the Clean Energy Revolution requires and we demand that it happen now. Join me in Philadelphia.
