If there is anything that the wildfires this summer have taught us, it is that climate change has arrived at our doorstep in Washington and we are running out of time to take substantive action on an issue that is having disproportionate impacts on our communities. No matter your race, class, creed, or political party, we all have a stake in ensuring that Washington is a healthy, sustainable, and equitable place to live for this and all future generations.
We believe that by making our urban areas affordable and accessible to all through bold affordable housing policy, preventing disproportionate impacts of local pollution on communities of color, and ensuring that cities and counties are planning for climate change, we have the opportunity to transform the lives of Washingtonians and the natural environment around us.
We have only a brief window to make big changes to the GMA before Washington’s cities and counties embark on their next comprehensive plan updates, which will lock in policy for the next decade.
We can’t wait another ten years to make sure our cities and counties are planning for climate change and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
We can’t wait another ten years to ensure our communities have housing available for people no matter their income level.
And we certainly cannot wait any longer to ensure that future planning invests in and protects the well-being of Washington’s overburdened communities, who are all too often communities of color.
Join us in taking action to ensure that Washington's largest cities and counties are planning for a future that protects our climate, our environment and our communities. If you can help this week by sharing one of these actions, it may just push us over the hurdle! We are running up to the halfway point of the legislative session and pressing up against a deadline – March 9th – to get all three bills (SB 5042, HB 1099, and HB 1220) passed out of their houses of origin. Because of the virtual session it has been difficult to get a vote count to allow these bills to move forward so we need as much support as possible.
Email your grassroots supporters to ask them to contact their legislators about these bills. Use/modify this form email. This includes links to targeted actions for each bill. If you would rather make your own action alerts, you can use this language:
Make posts to your social media accounts this week to urge folks to take action!
Email our WA legislators on behalf of your organization to vote ‘YES’ on these bills.