Green New Deal Network joins American Jobs Plan climate push
And, new AJP ads from the Alliance for Climate Education and Conservation Hawk
Major national environmental groups like NRDC, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Environmental Defense Fund have recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads pushing for climate action in the infrastructure packages working their way through Congress. However, groups with smaller audiences, including the Green New Deal Network, the Alliance for Climate Education, and Conservation Hawks are also using Facebook ads to pressure lawmakers, spending nearly $15k altogether in the past month on the platform.
The Green New Deal Network, a coalition of 15 grassroots organizations including Greenpeace, Indivisible, SEIU, the Sunrise Movement, and the Working Families Party, is the biggest of these spenders. In the past month, they’ve spent $11,395 on Facebook ads targeting a variety of Democratic lawmakers in Congress. These include:
Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR)
Rep. Chuy García (IL)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL)
Rep. Richard Neal (MA)
Sen. Ed Markey (MA)
Rep. Nanette Barragán (CA)
Rep. John Yarmuth (KY)
Rep. Bobby Scott (VA)
Many of their ads specifically push for, among other things, $1 trillion for clean energy development, $600 billion in electrified, improved mass transit, and $600 billion to “upgrade and green” schools and public housing, all in the Dems-only reconciliation package. The GNDN is mostly targeting these relatively wonky ads at 25- to 44-year-olds in the representatives’ respective constituencies.
Conservation Hawks, an advocacy group of hunters and fishers using their unique perspectives to raise awareness of climate change, has spent $2,856 in the past month on Facebook ads pushing for “lower CO2 emissions and clean energy jobs in the 2021 infrastructure bill.” They’re mostly targeting their ads at young men and older citizens in Arizona and West Virginia, urging them to call their senators “to act on climate.”
Finally, we also found that the Alliance for Climate Education has spent $1,984 in the past month on Facebook ads regarding the upcoming infrastructure package. However, unlike other climate groups pushing for specific climate actions, ACE is instead running a nationwide campaign arguing that the current bill is a “$1.2T Congress bailout of corrupt power utilities and their fragile power lines,” urging young adults to ask that Congress instead “fund local, small, clean energy systems for every American home.”
ACE may so far be unique in using Facebook ads to so strongly argue against the upcoming infrastructure package, but it certainly isn’t alone in pushing for investments in decentralized power production over the utilities-focused status quo. For those interested in reading more about this schism among climate groups, the New York Times went deep on this exact issue earlier this week.