Climate Action Plan

Addressing climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face, as a planet and as a community.

Austin is well-positioned to take powerful action to address climate change. We own our own electric utility, water utility, and waste management utility. We have a powerful environmental community that has been organizing for decades to protect natural resources, invest in renewable energy, and promote conservation. We also have a growing labor movement that is committed to supporting climate action, creating good union jobs, and taking care of workers as we transition to a renewable economy.

My commitment, on Austin City Council, will be to fight for powerful climate action that supports rapid decarbonization, provides a just transition for workers, and prioritizes environmental justice, including caring for the frontline communities that have been most harmed by fossil fuel exploitation.

Explore the plans:

Close Fayette Coal

  • Austin should close the Fayette coal plant, avoid building any new natural gas power plants, and make major investments in battery storage, geothermal, and other renewable energy strategies.

    Closing the Fayette coal plant is key to meeting our climate goals. Austin Energy’s share of the Fayette power plant represents 77% of the carbon produced by our public utility. Our share also uses over 2.3 billion gallons of water per year. We must close the Fayette plant as soon as possible, and at the same time, pursue two concurrent necessities: to provide a just transition for coal plant workers; and to remedy the legacy of environmental pollution caused by decades of coal plant operations.

  • Our shared commitment to closing Fayettte should not in any way support the new push, by some fossil fuel supporters, to build a new natural gas plant in Austin. Instead, to meet our local needs for power generation and transmission, we should pursue the recommendations of climate and energy experts to invest in wind, solar, geothermal, storage, energy efficiency, and demand response, each of which offers enormous potential to meet our energy needs.

Austin Conservation Corps

Expand the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps

  • During each year’s general fund budget process, I will prioritize the expansion of Austin’s Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC). The ACCC is a workforce program that provides equitable pathways into green jobs, including the City’s critical workforce needs in parks, waste management, and infrastructure. In Fiscal Year 2023, 387 local workers participated in the program. I will work to double that number while expanding career path options.

  • A fully realized ACCC would recruit young workers from Austin and across the region into a broader climate strategy. After working for a year or more planting trees, building trails, or managing our parks and greenbelts, corps members would “graduate” to union apprenticeship programs and Austin Community College renewable energy certification programs. Over time, these young workers would be connected with green jobs in fields like solar, geothermal, and battery storage, to earn a living wage and advance the City’s climate goals.

Food Farms

Austin’s city workers make our city great and should be treated with respect and dignity.

  • To decarbonize our food supply while addressing food scarcity in our community, we need to keep local farms in business.

  • As a City Councilmember, I will propose a public “strike fund” and farm conservancy to preserve regional farms. With these tools, the City can provide working capital and acquire local farms, ensuring their continued operation. This program would also create synergy with other City efforts, including the work of the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps and ongoing City-County-Schools partnerships focused on ending food scarcity, especially among young people.

Project Connect

Protect Project Connect and Fight for Crestview Station

  • Project Connect was overwhelmingly approved by Austin voters and is the culmination of decades of work. It will put in place a system of high-capacity light rail and bus services that will shift how Austinites move around town

  • Project Connect also advances our climate goals, by reducing the need for highway expansions and mitigating the heavy costs of car dependency.

  • I will fight to protect Project Connect from bad-faith litigation and attacks from the Texas Legislature. And I will work with my Council colleagues and the Board of the Austin Transit Partnership to ensure the Crestview Station and Airport priority extensions are completed as soon as possible. Crestview Station, right here in District 7, will allow for significant increases in ridership, thus helping the system achieve its ridership goals and facilitate additional funding and expansion.

Weatherization

Invest in Weatherization and Other Conservation Strategies

  • Although “weatherization” may not seem like an innovative strategy, it’s one of the key ways Austin can achieve our energy conservation goals while helping people afford to live in the City. I will support and expand programs that subsidize the weatherization of multifamily properties, both to reduce electricity consumption and lower electric bills for Austin renters.

  • The City can also use public enterprises as a way to fast-track efforts to create clean energy jobs, reduce residential energy bills, and ensure we take full advantage of federal clean energy funds. Following the example of the Philadelphia Energy Authority, I support the creation of an Austin Clean Energy Authority that would seek to maximize the use of billions of dollars in potential investments made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Green Bank

Create an Austin Public Bank

  • We need new sources of patient, mission-driven capital to grow the City’s already substantial efforts to build and preserve affordable housing. We also have to make sure our public investments are building green affordable housing.

  • A new public finance authority modeled on successful public banks around the world, including the Bank of North Dakota, Costa Rica’s Banco Popular, and Germany’s KfW development bank. Instead of letting a Wall Street bank siphon city resources for their private profits, an Austin Public Bank would use City’s deposits and lending capacity for local economic and social priorities, such as building green affordable housing and investments in climate resilience.

  • I will also spearhead the use of the City’s existing Affordable Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) and Austin Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) to create a new kind of publicly-controlled, non-profit housing developer that builds green, mixed-income social housing.