Delaware Democrats share a deep commitment to protecting our environment and tackling climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions using clean energy and energy independence. Energy efficiency is good for the economy and good for our environment. We are committed to supporting energy efficient and sustainable public transportation, businesses, homes, and farms.
Clean Energy Development and Implementation: The Delaware Democratic Party supports efforts to transition our energy supply to distributed and centralized renewable sources. We recognize the critical need for requiring existing generation facilities to meet environmental standards and to offer incentives to decrease transportation energy needs. New and innovative jobs in the environmental and energy sectors will also need apprenticeship opportunities to ensure a well-trained workforce. We must make our existing infrastructure safer and cleaner, while also building the infrastructure necessary to power clean energy, including solar and wind energy.
Environmental Justice: Delaware Democrats believe in the right to clean air and water for all Americans. We understand that climate change and pollution disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color. We support all efforts to ensure these communities are not further burdened with the effects of more pollution, and that we take every effort to reduce the existing pollution. We need to prioritize hiring and training workers to clean up the toxic brownfields that have polluted our state, and seek opportunities to return these sites to productive, economic use. Delaware must move towards a zero-emission through zoning and land use reform, and other regulations. The Delaware Democratic Party supports more cleanup requirements when any commercial property is proposed for residential development and holding companies and corporations accountable. We must build an equitable and competitive clean energy economy that puts workers and communities first and leaves no one behind by incentivizing and building on clean energy, energy efficiency and resilient infrastructure.
Protection of Public Land and Water: Delaware Democrats believe we must partner with our state’s farmers to be effective in keeping our air and water clean, combating climate change, and ensuring the health and preservation of our agricultural lands. The conservation of Delaware’s waterways and public lands are critical to ensuring the health and wellbeing of all Delawareans and the natural wildlife. We believe that we need policies and investments that will mitigate the effects of sea level rise, keep these areas clean and protected, as well as harness the immense social and economic potential of our public lands and waters.