Reactive from Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
Last night the House of Representatives took our country a huge step backward. Passing President Trump’s so-called “one big, beautiful bill” threatens decades of progress on climate and equity.
Climate activists fought hard to pass into law the first significant piece of climate legislation in our country. The Inflation Reduction Act contains major federal investments in clean energy infrastructure and jobs across our nation. This bill decimates this progress.
It’s hard to overstate the damage this bill will do. It will raise energy bills, cost nearly a million jobs, make our air and water dirtier, and unleash millions of additional tons of emissions that are wreaking destruction on our climate. Why? To give tax breaks to corporate polluters and billionaires and prop up the deadly fossil fuel industry.
Dayenu will be fighting – alongside millions of people who care about a just and livable future – to preserve the progress we have made. “Ma’alin ba-kodesh v’ayn moridin. Once we set out upon a holy path, we rise, we do not descend.”
This bill threatens all of us, and Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities pay the steepest price.
We are furious, but we are determined – and we will be mobilizing. Senators must refuse to reward billionaires and corporate polluters at the expense of working families and our climate.