Category: NewsFlash

The $1 trillion infrastructure plan that now goes to President Joe Biden to sign into law has money for roads, bridges, buses, electric vehicle charging, rail transit, airports, the power grid, and more. 

The House passed the bipartisan plan Friday night and Biden said Saturday he will hold a signing ceremony when lawmakers return from a week’s recess.

Here’s a breakdown of the transportation investments in the plan: 

ROADS AND BRIDGES

The bill would provide $110 billion to repair the nation’s aging highways, bridges and roads. According to the White House, 173,000 total miles or nearly 280,000 kilometers of America’s highways and major roads and 45,000 bridges are in poor condition. And the almost $40 billion for bridges is the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the national highway system, according to the Biden administration. 

PUBLIC TRANSIT 

The $39 billion for public transit in the legislation would expand transportation systems, improve accessibility for people with disabilities and provide dollars to state and local governments to buy zero-emission and low-emission buses. The Transportation Department estimates that the current repair backlog is more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations and thousands of miles of track and power systems. 

PASSENGER AND FREIGHT RAIL

To reduce Amtrak’s maintenance backlog, which has worsened since Superstorm Sandy nine years ago, the bill would provide $66 billion to improve the rail service’s Northeast Corridor (457 miles, 735 km), as well as other routes. It’s less than the $80 billion Biden — who famously rode Amtrak from Delaware to Washington during his time in the Senate — originally asked for, but it would be the largest federal investment in passenger rail service since Amtrak was founded 50 years ago.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES 

The bill would spend $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, which the administration says are critical to accelerating the use of electric vehicles to curb climate change. It would also provide $5 billion for the purchase of electric school buses and hybrids, reducing reliance on school buses that run on diesel fuel. 

MODERNIZING THE ELECTRIC GRID 

To protect against the power outages that have become more frequent in recent years, the bill would spend $65 billion to improve the reliability and resiliency of the power grid. It would also boost carbon capture technologies and more environmentally friendly electricity sources like clean hydrogen.

AIRPORTS

The bill would spend $25 billion to improve runways, gates and taxiways at airports and to improve terminals. It would also improve aging air traffic control towers.  

-Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe, Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Gina McCarthy, former EPA Secretary under Obama, expected to serve as White House adviser on climate change. Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan, to lead the Department of Energy. EPA Secretary named.  

This week President-elect Joe Biden made a few big decisions regarding who will be leading the nation in climate, energy, and transportation policy.

Biden is expected to pick Gina McCarthy, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama and the architect of some of his most far-reaching regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, to serve as the White House Climate Coordinator. In her new role, she would be in charge of coordinating domestic climate change policies across the federal government. McCarthy is currently the president and chief executive officer of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 

Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan and a longtime champion of renewable energy development, has been chosen to lead the Department of Energy. The agency is expected to play an enlarged role in the battle against climate change. The Biden administration is expected to restart the department’s energy efficiency standard shop, which ground to a halt under Trump, as well as reinvigorate the agency’s loan programs which hold billions of dollars in loan authority for clean energy projects.

President-elect Joe Biden will choose to nominate Michael S. Regan, who heads the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, as the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator, according to two individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not yet been formally announced. While Mary Nichols was Biden’s top choice for Environmental Protection Agency Secretary, pushback from environmental justice groups led to her likely not being selected. 

Pete Buttigieg named DOT Secretary, has new plans for the gas tax.  

President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has selected former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mr. Buttigieg is expected to play a prominent role in the incoming Biden administration’s push to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges. Mr. Biden issued a statement that said he had chosen Mr. Buttigieg “because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us. Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT.”

Mr. Buttigieg campaigned on an infrastructure plan that would cut 50% of the backlog of critical road repairs and repair 50% of structurally deficient bridges by 2030. Selected over former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to receive the nomination, he was one of the few 2020 presidential contenders to promote replacing the gas tax with a vehicle-miles-traveled alternative that would tax drivers based on their road mileage. Mr. Buttigieg has said that the gas tax is “not a viable long-term funding mechanism for our highways” and that he will require DOT to put forward a plan to implement a user fee-based system, rather than the gas tax, to fund the Highway Trust Fund.

Mr. Biden campaigned on a $2 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, much of it related to transportation. His climate change and infrastructure agenda includes:

• Infrastructure: Create millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure – from roads and bridges to green spaces and water systems to electricity grids and universal broadband – to lay a new foundation for sustainable growth, compete in the global economy, withstand the impacts of climate change, and improve public health, including access to clean air and clean water.
• Auto Industry: Create 1 million new jobs in the American auto industry, domestic auto supply chains, and auto infrastructure, from parts to materials to electric vehicle charging stations, positioning American auto workers and manufacturers to win the 21st century; and invest in U.S. auto workers to ensure their jobs are good jobs with a choice to join a union.
• Transit: Provide every American city with 100,000 or more residents with high-quality, zero-emissions public transportation options through flexible federal investments with strong labor protections that create good, union jobs and meet the needs of these cities — ranging from light rail networks to improving existing transit and bus lines to installing infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Power Sector: Move ambitiously to generate clean, American-made electricity to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. This will enable us to meet the existential threat of climate change while creating millions of jobs with a choice to join a union.
• Buildings: Upgrade 4 million buildings and weatherize 2 million homes over 4 years, creating at least 1 million good-paying jobs with a choice to join a union; and also spur the building retrofit and efficient-appliance manufacturing supply chain by funding direct cash rebates and low-cost financing to upgrade and electrify home appliances and install more efficient windows, which will cut residential energy bills.
• Housing: Spur the construction of 1.5 million sustainable homes and housing units.
• Innovation: Drive dramatic cost reductions in critical clean energy technologies, including battery storage, negative emissions technologies, the next generation of building materials, renewable hydrogen, and advanced nuclear – and rapidly commercialize them, ensuring that those new technologies are made in America.
• Agriculture and Conservation: Create jobs in climate-smart agriculture, resilience, and conservation, including 250,000 jobs plugging abandoned oil and natural gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock, and uranium mines — providing good work with a choice to join or continue membership in a union in hardhit communities, including rural communities, reducing leakage of toxics, and preventing local environmental damage.
• Environmental Justice: Ensure that environmental justice is a key consideration in where, how, and with whom we build — creating good, union, middle-class jobs in communities left behind, righting wrongs in communities that bear the brunt of pollution, and lifting up the best ideas from across our great nation — rural, urban, and tribal.

Biden selects Pete Buttigieg as DOT Secretary, likely to pass on Mary Nichols for EPA Secretary

This week President-elect Joe Biden made a few big decisions regarding who will be leading the nation in transportation and climate policy.

While Mary Nichols was Biden’s top choice for Environmental Protection Agency Secretary, pushback from environmental justice groups led to her likely not being selected. Mr. Biden’s team is actively looking to find someone else to fill the role, according to several people who have spoken with the presidential transition team. A global leader on climate policy, Ms. Nichols has been the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) since 2007 and will be retiring this month. During the Obama administration, it was Ms. Nichols who helped broker a deal with the federal government and the nation’s largest automakers, which took California’s stringent regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and applied them nationwide. “California is at the forefront of actions anywhere in the nation and the world to direct attention and funding to underfunded communities,” Nichols told the New York Times in an interview last week.

In 2013, California implemented the first state-level, economy-wide cap-and-trade program in the United States. This allowance program nets the State billions of dollars, which are then spent on a diverse variety of greenhouse gas reduction programs called California Climate Investments (CCI). Fifty-seven percent of the revenue collected from cap-and-trade credits, or $3.5 billion, has been spent on disadvantaged and low-income communities most affected by industrial emissions — substantially more than the 35 percent required by state law, according to CARB.

President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has selected former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mr. Buttigieg is expected to play a prominent role in the incoming Biden administration’s push to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges. Mr. Biden issued a statement that said he had chosen Mr. Buttigieg “because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us. Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT.”

Mr. Buttigieg campaigned on an infrastructure plan that would cut 50% of the backlog of critical road repairs by 2030 and repair 50% of structurally deficient bridges by 2030. Selected over former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to receive the nomination, he was one of the few 2020 presidential contenders to promote replacing the gas tax with a vehicle-miles-traveled alternative that would tax drivers based on their road mileage. Mr. Buttigieg has said that the gas tax is “not a viable long-term funding mechanism for our highways” and that he will require DOT to put forward a plan to implement a user fee-based system, rather than the gas tax, to fund the Highway Trust Fund.

Mr. Biden campaigned on a $2 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, much of it related to transportation. His climate change and infrastructure agenda includes:

• Infrastructure: Create millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure – from roads and bridges to green spaces and water systems to electricity grids and universal broadband – to lay a new foundation for sustainable growth, compete in the global economy, withstand the impacts of climate change, and improve public health, including access to clean air and clean water.
• Auto Industry: Create 1 million new jobs in the American auto industry, domestic auto supply chains, and auto infrastructure, from parts to materials to electric vehicle charging stations, positioning American auto workers and manufacturers to win the 21st century; and invest in U.S. auto workers to ensure their jobs are good jobs with a choice to join a union.
• Transit: Provide every American city with 100,000 or more residents with high-quality, zero-emissions public transportation options through flexible federal investments with strong labor protections that create good, union jobs and meet the needs of these cities — ranging from light rail networks to improving existing transit and bus lines to installing infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Power Sector: Move ambitiously to generate clean, American-made electricity to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. This will enable us to meet the existential threat of climate change while creating millions of jobs with a choice to join a union.
• Buildings: Upgrade 4 million buildings and weatherize 2 million homes over 4 years, creating at least 1 million good-paying jobs with a choice to join a union; and also spur the building retrofit and efficient-appliance manufacturing supply chain by funding direct cash rebates and low-cost financing to upgrade and electrify home appliances and install more efficient windows, which will cut residential energy bills.
• Housing: Spur the construction of 1.5 million sustainable homes and housing units.
• Innovation: Drive dramatic cost reductions in critical clean energy technologies, including battery storage, negative emissions technologies, the next generation of building materials, renewable hydrogen, and advanced nuclear – and rapidly commercialize them, ensuring that those new technologies are made in America.
• Agriculture and Conservation: Create jobs in climate-smart agriculture, resilience, and conservation, including 250,000 jobs plugging abandoned oil and natural gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock, and uranium mines — providing good work with a choice to join or continue membership in a union in hardhit communities, including rural communities, reducing leakage of toxics, and preventing local environmental damage.
• Environmental Justice: Ensure that environmental justice is a key consideration in where, how, and with whom we build — creating good, union, middle-class jobs in communities left behind, righting wrongs in communities that bear the brunt of pollution, and lifting up the best ideas from across our great nation — rural, urban, and tribal.

It’s National Voter Registration Week! Did you know that early voting has already started? Policy in Motion has teamed up with some great partners to help get out the vote by reminding people to register to vote, request and return mail-in-ballots early, and head to the polls safely with masks!

Election Day is on November 3rd, and between a global pandemic and voter suppression efforts, we need to make sure that every last vote counts—which includes making sure the people in our lives are registered to vote and encouraging as many people as possible to request their vote by mail ballots.

Want to help us get out the vote?

VoteSaveAmerica.com is a one-stop-shop for voter registration, education, and engagement. They have an AMAZING hub with the tools you need to:

• Check your voter registration 
• Make sure you know your state’s dates and deadlines
• Request your vote-by-mail ballot EARLY
• Volunteer to help turn out more voters or to be a poll worker on Election Day
• And much, much more

This is the most important election of our lifetimes—things need to change, and voting is an important way to make that happen. So visit VoteSaveAmerica.com now to get registered and get involved.

“Adopt A State” is another great program that allows you to adopt one of the six key battleground states that will be most important to winning up and down the ballot on November 3. When you Adopt A State, Vote Save America will send you specific calls to action that you can do from home that will help turnout the voters we need.

What are you waiting for? GO VOTE!

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of Policy in Motion!

On August 10th, 2010 I took a leap of faith in starting my own policy consulting firm, Policy in Motion. Many of you were there that day — and were there for my Aug 10th, 2011 book launch, and Aug 10th, 2012 film premiere of Growing Beautiful Communities! As I reflect back on what an incredible journey it has been over the last decade I am mostly struck with gratitude for all of the amazing mentors I had at the start of my career in Sacramento and at UC Davis and everything I was able to accomplish over this past decade. I have also had the privilege to serve as a mentor to many young professionals in the planning and policy field, helped launch new sustainability initiatives across California, and spent a remarkable year on a Presidential Campaign trail (pre-covid) serving as Policy Director and Democratic National Committee Debate Liason. More on these key projects here.

2020 has not exactly turned out as many of us anticipated when we rang in the new year. I have personally gone through some major changes losing my big sister to cancer in the middle of a pandemic. But if there’s anything she taught me it was to live life to the fullest, even if that just means smiling through a hard day and petting your dog (I also got a new puppy!).

So in lieu of having an annual celebration this week with colleagues, I would like to introduce you to my recently redesigned business website, www.policyinmotion.com — highlighting the great projects, programs, and campaigns I have worked on over the last decade!

Lauren Michele
Founder, Policy in Motion
lauren.michele@policyinmotion.com
www.policyinmotion.com

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have joined together this week to launch “Unity Task Forces” for Climate Change and Health Care.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is helping Joe Biden’s presidential campaign develop proposals by co-chairing a climate policy panel that the former vice president created as part of a larger effort to appeal to the party’s left wing. AOC has championed the movement for a Green New Deal working with the Sunrise Movement and other advocacy organizations to raise climate change awareness. Varshini Prakash, the 26-year-old president of the Sunrise Movement, has also accepted a role on the climate task force. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, a top Biden surrogate, will be the other co-chair of the climate panel. He negotiated the Paris Climate Accord intended to reduce global production of greenhouse gases. 

The climate task force exists alongside groups on criminal justice restructuring, immigration, health care, education and the economy. The task forces include five members picked by Biden and three picked by Sanders.  

Five members of the health-care group support “Medicare for All”: the House author of the current legislation, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.); Medicare for All caucus member Rep. Robin L. Kelly (D-Ill.); SEIU President Mary Kay Henry; and former gubernatorial candidates Don Berwick and Abdul El-Sayed. A sixth member, Sherry Glied, supports an Australia-style universal Medicaid system. “Advocacy for Biden’s own primary position — that Medicare for All would be too expensive and undermine the gains of the Obama years — is shunted to the margins,” according to The Washington Post. 

California faces enormous challenges in the balance between protecting public health and re-opening its economy that has crushed thousands of small businesses.

The State’s Stage 2 Readiness Criteria released last week requires counties to have “No COVID-19 deaths in the past 14 days”. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer sent the following letter to Governor Gavin Newsom today in regards to the feasibility of this criteria.

The issue with a numerical not percentage based criteria for counties is that the Governor’s proposal does not take county population into account. San Diego has had no new deaths since Friday, Orange County had 2 today, but Los Angeles had 39 deaths just today so could have to wait until 2021 to see any re-opening under this criteria. Rural California will probably be the only areas able to start re-opening any time soon.

Alameda County has had no new deaths in the last two days and is home to the Tesla controversy. Elon Musk has pledged to move Tesla operations out of California over the lockdown dispute with the county and re-opened today asking officials to arrest him.

Today California Governor Gavin Newsom outlined a 4 Phase plan to reopen the state over the coming weeks and months. Here’s what life in the Golden State will be looking like:

• Stage 1 – reflects where California is now, staying home and working on flattening the curve.
• Stage 2 – involves lifting restrictions on some lower risk workplaces, such as retail, manufacturing and offices where telework is not possible. Will include the opening of more public spaces. Reopening child care centers will be a part of this second stage as well.
• Stage 3 – will be “months, not weeks, away.” This stage will encompass personal care businesses like gyms, spas and salons, sports without live audiences, in-person religious services and other businesses where workers come in close contact with customers.
• Stage 4 (final phase) – will see the end of the stay-at-home order with the reopening of the “highest risk parts of our economy” being reopened. That includes concerts, convention centers and sports with live crowds. Newsom said that stage would come only “once therapeutics have been developed.” Newsom also floated the idea of restarting school in late July or early August, saying that “the prospects of an earlier school year are warranted considering the prospect of neglecting our next generation.”

Life Beyond COVID-19

It goes without saying that the world is undergoing massive changes during this global pandemic — the good, the bad, and the uncertain — from record clean air levels to record unemployment levels, and record levels of uncertainty about what “life after COVID-19” will look like.

The Good – Earth Gets a Vacation

Traffic accidents and crash-related injuries and deaths were reduced by half during the first three weeks of California’s shelter-in-place order, which began March 20. The reductions save the state an estimated $40 million per day — about $1 billion over the time period — according to an updated special report released this week from the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis. In parallel with the more than 50 percent reduction in traffic collisions and related injuries and deaths came a 55 percent reduction in traffic on some highways. There was also a 40-50 percent decrease in trauma-injuries for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists reported among Sacramento-area hospitals. Altogether, the reduction amounts to about 15,000 fewer collisions per month and 6,000 fewer injuries or fatal accidents per month that can be directly attributed to the shelter-in-place order.

Since the shelter in place order, Los Angeles — consistently named the country’s smoggiest metropolitan area in the United States with the nation’s 6th worst traffic congestion — has had its longest stretch of clean air since 1980, the earliest year with available EPA data. The planet’s wildlife is also taking a break. While India is on quarantine, thousands of undisturbed sea turtles were able to lay an estimated 60 million eggs on beaches normally covered by people. With South Africa on lockdown, prides of lions lounge on the roads undisturbed. And herds of wild goats took over the roads in a Welsh town in the United Kingdom.

The Bad – Unemployment

More than 26 million Americans have filed for initial unemployment benefits in the past five weeks. Economists note the unemployment rate is almost certainly at its highest level since the Great Depression. California was the first state to issue a stay-at-home order and has seen the greatest number of job losses. In a state with an estimated labor force of 19.5 million, 3.3 million Californians have filed unemployment applications since March 14. 

The Uncertain – The Road Ahead

Businesses, government agencies, schools, and nearly every professional industry is wondering how and if people’s work and life patterns are not just changing now but changing forever. In an effort to collect information to help guide future policy and industry decisions, researchers have begun to collaborate on a behavior survey to collect this critical data.

Together with collaborators from across the U.S., Deborah Salon (Associate Director of the TOMNET University Transportation Center at Arizona State University) has developed a new survey to gather data on the extent to which we are likely to “go back” to our pre-COVID-19 way of living. The survey focuses on the adoption of remote working, distance learning, online shopping, online socializing, and the potential for these to change day-to-day travel patterns and air travel. If demand for these things changes a lot, it has the potential to transform our cities in ways that we need to prepare for. The data will ultimately be shared publicly at regular intervals over the next few months in hopes that this information will help our nation better plan for what’s next!

The survey link is here, it takes about 20 minutes, and is open to any adult (18+) living in the U.S. Please take a moment to complete the survey and share with others: https://asu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3WcMRvJzfRkj2Yd

Policy in Motion has partnered to help get the word out and encourages businesses, associations, and governments to do the same — if interested, please contact Deborah at deborah.salon@asu.edu

UPDATE 4-21-20: The White House and Congress have just reached a deal on a new funding package that will replenish the coronavirus relief program for small businesses. The deal is expected to include $310 billion for the paycheck protection program, which has come under fire for giving funds to major corporations over small businesses and which ran out of money last week.

I just got off a Zoom call with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce navigating federal relief under the CARES Act for small businesses and entrepreneurs. You may have seen the news this morning that the Small Business Administration has run out of money and not accepting any more applications for these grant and loan programs. The US Chamber and SBA are currently lobbying Congress for additional funding ASAP and are encouraging small businesses to stay alert for updates as to when the grant/loan programs will resume (most likely PPP will resume but not EIDL).

Additionally, this week the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation began accepting $5,000 grant applications for small businesses with 3-20 employees in economically vulnerable communities $5,000 grants for small businesses with 3-20 employees in economically vulnerable communities. You can apply at www.SaveSmallBusiness.com – the application should take about 10 minutes!

For Californians who are business owners, self-employed, independent contractors, have limited work history, and others not usually eligible for regular state UI benefits, check out the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance page linked here. The EDD will begin accepting online applications for this program on Tuesday, April 28.

For more information on these programs and to stay up to date with the latest on COVID-19 and other current policy updates impacting small businesses, please sign up for Policy in Motion’s email newsletters here: http://eepurl.com/bs2DzD

10 years ago I was living in Washington DC and working on the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation. I remember when it passed the House and died on the Senate floor. That’s the closest we’ve gotten to comprehensive climate change legislation in the United States.

There is now momentum again to tackle this great challenge of our lifetime. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) have introduced a resolution called the Green New Deal. It is an outline and call to action, a framework for collaboration on climate change mitigation, resiliency, and equity. It essentially outlines objectives for developing an eventual legislative plan to:

• Achieve global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030.
• Meet 100% of the power demand in the United States through clean renewable zero-emission energy sources by 2030.
• Achieve net-zero global emissions by 2050.

In 2017, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-2) introduced the “Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act” (HR 3671) detailing a legislative plan to transition us away from fossil fuel sources of energy to 100% clean energy economy by 2035 and 80% by 2027. The Off Act (www.offfossilfuels.org) has been endorsed by over 400 national, state, and local organizations and is considered the most aggressive piece of climate legislation ever introduced in Congress. It includes details on HOW we get to a carbon neutrality goal, including:

• Clean energy mandate, zero-emission vehicle mandate, electrification of transit, electric vehicle rebate program for consumers.
• Moratorium on new major fossil fuel projects, ending fossil fuel subsidies, low-income weatherization and retrofit assistance.
• Extension of tax credits for wind facilities and solar energy.
• Ban on crude oil and LNG exports. Ban fracking.
• Environmental justice provisions for a clean energy future.
• Establishes the Center for Workforce Development within the Department of Labor and the Equitable Transition Fund within the Department of the Treasury to identify the employment potential of the energy efficiency and renewable energy industry and the skills and training needed for workers in those fields to support career transition period.

A year prior to taking office, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez signed the OFF Act pledge to endorse Tulsi Gabbard’s landmark climate change legislation. Tulsi Gabbard has been an early supporter of the movement for a Green New Deal and was the first 2020 presidential candidate to support a House Select Committee on a Green New Deal.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today a select panel on climate change called the “House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis” — this will be led by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), and includes the following members: Reps. Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Sean Casten (Ill.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Donald McEachin (Va.) and Joe Neguse (Colo.).