[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 104 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 104
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to implement an agenda
to Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy
(``THRIVE'').
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 5, 2021
Mrs. Dingell (for herself, Mr. Khanna, Mr. Bowman, Ms. Barragan, Ms.
Clarke of New York, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Brendan
F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. McEachin, Ms. Jayapal, and
Ms. DeLauro) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the Committees
on Energy and Commerce, Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural
Resources, and Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined
by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as
fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to implement an agenda
to Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy
(``THRIVE'').
Whereas families and communities throughout the United States share similar
hopes and dreams of a good life that is free from worry about meeting
basic needs, with reliable and fulfilling work, a dignified and healthy
standard of living, and the ability to enjoy time with loved ones;
Whereas the United States faces the stress of multiple, overlapping crises--old
and new--that prevent the achievement of these fundamental human rights
and needs, in which the COVID-19 pandemic has killed over 400,000 United
States residents; more than 10,000,000 United States workers remain
unemployed; rising economic inequality has made working families
vulnerable; tens of millions of individuals do not get the health care
they need; and intensifying climate change increases the threats to our
health, economy, and livelihoods;
Whereas these health, economic, and climate crises have magnified centuries-old
injustices, causing high rates of death and hardship among Black, Brown,
and Indigenous communities due to long-standing systemic racism--a fact
spotlighted by an emerging, multiracial movement to end violence against
Black people;
Whereas these crises are causing the inequitable workloads of women--
particularly women of color--to grow, especially as women of color
overwhelmingly make up the essential workforce, bearing the weight of
the increased care needs of children, the elderly, and the sick;
Whereas, even before the COVID-19 crisis, many rural communities and independent
family farmers suffered from poverty, declining economic opportunity,
and alarming rates of farm bankruptcy, including loss of land from Black
farmers and the exploitation of Black, Brown, and Indigenous farmers
caused by predatory and racist public, private, and governmental
institutions and policies;
Whereas the root of our interlocking economic and environmental crises is
society's historical willingness to treat some communities and workers
as disposable;
Whereas it is necessary to counteract systemic injustice and value the dignity
of all individuals in order to address unemployment, pandemics, or
climate change and ensure the survival of the Nation and the planet;
Whereas the choices made in response to these crises will shape the United
States direction for the 21st century and beyond, offering an
opportunity to reshape our society to provide a good life for each of us
and for our children and grandchildren; and
Whereas the United States has the means to support fulfilling livelihoods for
millions of people--Black, Indigenous, Brown, Latinx, Asian/Pacific
Islander, White, immigrant, urban and rural, old and young, of many
faiths, genders, abilities, and talents--while working to heal harms,
protect communities, and invest in a future that fosters justice, not
crisis: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives
that--
(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to respond to
the crises of racial injustice, mass unemployment, a pandemic,
and climate change with a bold and holistic national
mobilization, an Agenda to Transform, Heal, and Renew by
Investing in a Vibrant Economy (``THRIVE'') (referred to in
this resolving clause as the ``Agenda''), to build a society
that enables--
(A) greater racial, economic, and gender justice;
(B) dignified work;
(C) healthy communities; and
(D) a stable climate; and
(2) such Agenda shall be assessed upon its ability to
uphold its foundational pillars, including--
(A) creating millions of good, safe jobs with
access to unions by--
(i) investing in projects including--
(I) upgrading our broken
infrastructure to expand access to
clean and affordable energy,
transportation, high-speed broadband,
and water, particularly for public
systems;
(II) modernizing and retrofitting
millions of homes, schools, offices,
and industrial buildings to cut
pollution and costs;
(III) investing in public health
and care work, including by increasing
jobs, protections, wages, and benefits
for the historically unpaid and
undervalued work of caring for
children, the elderly, and the sick;
(IV) protecting and restoring
wetlands, forests, and public lands,
and cleaning up pollution in our
communities;
(V) creating opportunities for
family farmers and rural communities,
including by untangling the hyper-
consolidated food supply chain,
bolstering regenerative agriculture,
and investing in local and regional
food systems that support farmers,
agricultural workers, healthy soil, and
climate resilience; and
(VI) developing and transforming
the industrial base of the United
States, while creating high-skill,
high-wage manufacturing jobs across the
country, including by expanding
manufacturing of clean technologies,
reducing industrial pollution, and
prioritizing clean, domestic
manufacturing for the aforementioned
investments;
(ii) prioritizing the mobilization of
direct public investments, while excluding
false solutions that--
(I) increase inequality;
(II) privatize public lands, water,
or nature;
(III) violate human rights;
(IV) expedite the destruction of
ecosystems; or
(V) decrease union density or
membership;
(iii) driving investment toward real full
employment, where every individual who wishes
to work has a viable pathway to a meaningful
and dignified job with the right to form a
union, including by establishing new public
employment programs, as necessary; and
(iv) subjecting each job created under this
Agenda to high-road labor standards that--
(I) require family-sustaining wages
and benefits, including child care
support;
(II) ensure safe workplaces;
(III) protect the rights of workers
to organize; and
(IV) prioritize the hiring of local
workers to ensure wages stay within
communities to stimulate economic
activity;
(B) building the power of workers to fight
inequality by--
(i) reversing the corporate erosion of
workers' organizing rights and bargaining power
so that millions of new clean energy jobs, as
well as millions of existing low-wage jobs
across the economy, become the family-
supporting union jobs that everyone deserves,
including by--
(I) passing the bipartisan
Protecting the Right to Organize Act;
(II) repealing the ban on secondary
boycotts;
(III) requiring employer neutrality
with regard to union organizing;
(IV) ensuring that ``franchising''
and other corporate structures may not
be used to hinder collective bargaining
on a company-wide, regional, or
national basis;
(V) advancing sectoral bargaining
in certain economic sectors; and
(VI) ensuring that no workers are
misclassified as ``independent
contractors;''
(ii) expanding union representation for all
workers; and
(iii) creating ladders of opportunity,
particularly for women and people of color, to
access registered apprenticeship and pre-
apprenticeship programs in communities of all
sizes across the country;
(C) investing in Black, Brown, and Indigenous
communities to build power and counteract racial and
gender injustice by--
(i) directing at least 40 percent of
investments to communities that have been
excluded, oppressed, and harmed by racist and
unjust practices, including--
(I) communities of color;
(II) low-income communities;
(III) deindustrialized communities;
and
(IV) communities facing
environmental injustice;
(ii) ensuring that investments in these
communities enable--
(I) the creation of good jobs with
family-sustaining wages;
(II) economic ownership
opportunities that close the racial
wealth gap;
(III) pollution reduction;
(IV) climate resilience;
(V) small business support;
(VI) economic opportunities for
independent family farmers and
ranchers; and
(VII) the expansion of public
services;
(iii) ensuring that affected communities
have the power to democratically plan,
implement, and administer these projects;
(iv) prioritizing local and equitable
hiring and contracting that creates
opportunities for--
(I) people of color;
(II) immigrants, regardless of
immigration status;
(III) formerly incarcerated
individuals;
(IV) women;
(V) LGBTQIAP+ individuals;
(VI) disabled and chronically ill
individuals; and
(VII) marginalized communities; and
(v) providing access to quality workforce
training, including through registered
apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships to
ensure real pathways to good careers, including
those that have historically been inaccessible;
(D) strengthening and healing the nation-to-nation
relationship with sovereign Native Nations, including
by--
(i) making systemic changes in Federal
policies to honor the environmental and social
trust responsibilities to Native Nations and
their Peoples, which are essential to tackling
society's economic, environmental, and health
crises;
(ii) strengthening Tribal sovereignty and
enforcing Indian treaty rights by moving
towards greater recognition and support of the
inherent self-governance and sovereignty of
these nations and their members; and
(iii) promulgating specific initiatives
that reflect the nuanced relationships between
the Native Nations, including--
(I) the confirmation by Congress
that Tribal nations can exercise their
full and inherent civil regulatory and
adjudicatory authority over their own
citizens, lands, and resources, and
over activities within their Tribal
lands;
(II) the codification of Free,
Prior, and Informed Consent as it
relates to Tribal consultation; and
(III) the implementation of the
United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, without
qualification;
(E) combating environmental injustice and ensuring
healthy lives for all, including by--
(i) curtailing air, water, and land
pollution from all sources;
(ii) removing health hazards from
communities;
(iii) replacing lead pipes to ensure clean
water is available to all;
(iv) remediating the cumulative health and
environmental impacts of toxic pollution and
climate change;
(v) ensuring that affected communities have
equitable access to public health resources
that have been systemically denied, which
includes--
(I) upgrading unhealthy and
overcrowded homes, public schools, and
public hospitals;
(II) ensuring access to healthy
food, mental health support, and
restorative justice; and
(III) investing in universal
childcare, care for individuals with
disabilities, senior care, and a robust
care workforce; and
(vi) focusing these initiatives in Black,
Brown, and Indigenous communities that have
endured disproportionately high death rates
from COVID-19 due to higher exposure to air
pollution and other cumulative health hazards
as a result of decades of environmental racism;
(F) averting climate and environmental catastrophe,
including by--
(i) contributing to a livable climate and
environment for today and for future
generations, including by--
(I) staying below 1.5 degrees
Celsius of global warming;
(II) building climate resilience to
keep communities safe; and
(III) ensuring sustainable resource
use;
(ii) deploying investments and standards in
the electricity, transportation, buildings,
manufacturing, lands, and agricultural sectors
to spur the largest expansion in history of
clean, renewable energy, emissions reductions,
climate resilience, and sustainable resource
use;
(iii) transforming the power sector in
order to move the country, by not later than
2035, to carbon pollution-free electricity that
passes an environmental justice screen to
prevent concentrating pollution in Black,
Brown, and Indigenous communities;
(iv) prioritizing materials and parts that
meet high labor, environmental, and human
rights standards throughout the supply chain;
(v) supporting sustainable, domestic
production of healthy, nutritious food that
pays independent farmers and ranchers a fair
price for their land stewardship; and
(vi) ensuring that funding under this
Agenda goes to workers and communities affected
by the economic and environmental crises, not
to corporate fossil fuel polluters;
(G) ensuring fairness for workers and communities
affected by economic transitions by--
(i) guaranteeing that workers and
communities in industries and regions in
economic transition due to COVID-19, climate
change, and other economic shocks receive--
(I) stable wages and benefits,
including full pension and health care;
(II) early retirement offerings;
(III) crisis and trauma support;
and
(IV) equitable job placement; and
(ii) investing in transitioning areas to
support--
(I) economic diversification;
(II) high quality job creation;
(III) community reinvestment;
(IV) retooling and conversion;
(V) reclamation and remediation of
closed and abandoned facilities and
sites;
(VI) child and adult care
infrastructure; and
(VII) funding to shore up budget
shortfalls in local and State
governments; and
(H) reinvesting in public sector institutions that
enable workers and communities to thrive by--
(i) rebuilding vital public services and
strengthening social infrastructure in cities
and counties, health care systems, schools, the
postal service, and other services;
(ii) investing in equitable public
education opportunities, including career and
technical education pathways that prepare
youth--especially girls; Black, Brown, and
Indigenous students; students with
disabilities; students from low-income
families; and other students from marginalized
groups--for high-quality jobs of the future,
and state of the art technology and schools, so
that from the beginning students are prepared
to transform society and preserve democracy;
(iii) investing in the workers who provide
care to children, the elderly, and communities
burdened by neglect;
(iv) creating new public institutions,
inspired by and improving upon New Deal-era
institutions, to ensure universal access to
critical resources and to strategically and
coherently mobilize and channel investments, in
line with the above priorities, at the scale
and pace that these times require; and
(v) coupling this institutional renewal
with democratic governance and accountability
to correct the systemic misallocation of
resources and representation that prevents
families and communities from meeting
fundamental human needs and pursuing fulfilling
lives.
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