Join our Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) debrief call Sunday 5/21 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT to hear from the organizers who made it happen and grow the movement for public power to win a Green New Deal from coast to coast!

This week, a four year campaign by DSA chapters across New York won the biggest Green New Deal victory in US history: passing the Build Public Renewables Act.

BPRA will bring working class control over the energy system of a state that is the tenth-largest economy in the world. It enacts a New Deal model of public ownership to build renewable energy at massive scale, and ensure that it remains a public good, affordable to New Yorkers, and a source of tens of thousands of good, green union jobs.

Its gold standard labor protections, written by New York’s AFL-CIO, will usher in a new era of green union jobs, and create an Office of Just Transition that finally turns “a just transition” from slogan to reality.

It attacks environmental racism by shutting down toxic fracked gas power plants polluting Black and brown communities.

It provides automatic discounts that lower utility bills for those who need them most.

Over four years, the BPRA campaign united legislative, electoral, and labor work into a multifaceted vision of what modern socialist organizing can be.

We risked arrest to reveal the plague of fossil fuel lobbying. We forged a historic climate/labor alliance with key unions. We used mass media to mobilize an untapped base of New Yorkers who made 5,000 calls in two days and made #BuildPublicRenewables trend twice.

We channeled outside power straight into the halls of Albany. And when our Socialists in Office told us they needed more numbers to win, we delivered. We primaried our bill’s own lead sponsor. We helped Kristen Gonzalez beat a million dollar establishment campaign in Queens and Sarahana Shrestha unseat a 26-year incumbent to become the Hudson Valley’s first socialist legislator — gaining enough state power for DSA’s statewide Tax The Rich campaign to win BPRA in the budget.

When we finally forced the Governor to pass the bill, she packaged it in a budget defined by economic austerity and racist attacks on civil rights. This climate of fear and violence that Governor Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams created harms our most vulnerable and enabled the murder of Jordan Neely. We know the climate action we need cannot come at the cost of our public goods and civil rights. That’s why our eight socialists in Albany voted NO on the Governor’s budget package. It is a measure of our power that we are able to win key victories without compromising our principles.

Now, capital wants to hit back. Let them try. Because we’ve proven that when enough of us come together, we will win. If our victory moved you, join DSA to continue the fight with us. We’ll make sure it’s just the beginning.