Policy and Advocacy

Brightline bridges policy and legal advocacy to ensure that workforce and environmental policies benefit local, underserved, and low-income communities. With nearly two decades of experience in connecting community groups and elected officials, we work across many levels of governance – from local city halls, to environmental regulatory agencies, to state and national capitols.

Brightline’s recent policy and advocacy work focuses on:

Clean Energy Infrastructure

Environmental Justice Mapping

Local Hiring

CLEAN ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE

Clean, renewable energy holds great promise for both environmental benefits and economic growth. As we transition to a greener economy, Brightline brings equity issues to the forefront of these policy discussions, empowering frontline communities to advocate for cleaner air and water in their neighborhoods. We also support underserved communities in connecting with government and industry leaders so that new clean energy projects – especially those being developed in underserved neighborhoods – bring stable, good-paying jobs and other economic opportunities to these communities. 

Offshore Wind

As we emerge from a global pandemic and face the impacts of a changing climate, offshore wind offers a silver lining for frontline communities in need of economic recovery and cleaner air. Offshore wind development holds the potential to create thousands of skilled, local jobs; cleaner air; and generational benefits for local communities. For example, in California, offshore wind will create shovel-ready jobs in port revitalization, turbine, and transmission line projects. Over the coming decades, offshore wind will also create sustainable long-term jobs in construction, manufacturing, and installation of offshore wind floating systems.

Brightline partners with local communities, policy makers, and industry leaders to ensure that frontline communities have a voice in the development of this industry and see economic benefits from the development of wind turbines off their shores.

Learn more about the opportunities for local economic growth through offshore wind and our recommendations for addressing environmental justice concerns in our policy report, California Offshore Wind: Winding Up for Economic Growth and Environmental Equity.

Building Decarbonization

Buildings – from single family homes, to apartment buildings, to commercial workplaces – are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. In California alone, buildings account for close to a quarter of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Building decarbonization seeks to reduce these emissions and includes strategies such as using clean energy generated onsite, using more energy-efficient appliances, and reducing use and leakage of natural gas and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Government programs include incentives for building owners and users to install roof-top solar, buy energy-efficient electric appliances, and weatherize buildings to reduce energy use.

Building decarbonization plays an important role in addressing climate change. However, government incentives for change are often tough to access, especially for renters and low-income homeowners. Brightline works with frontline communities to build local, state, and national coalitions that support building decarbonization and ensure that these programs – and their benefits – reach low-income communities. We advocate for developing and implementing building decarbonization efforts that reduce emissions in low-income communities and provide job opportunities for community members. We also work with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-led affordable housing nonprofit developers across California to expand access to state and federal resources. In collaboration with academic institutions such as UCSF, we have also monitored indoor air quality in aging buildings for underhoused people that suffer disproportionately from extreme climate change events.

Vehicle Electrification

Using electricity produced from renewable energy sources to power our vehicles – instead of petroleum and diesel fuels – continues to gain attention as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. Policy-makers in the U.S. have tried to incentivize the use of electric cars and bikes by offering rebates on their purchase. However, the majority of these rebates, like many clean-energy incentives, tend to go to affluent buyers and often miss low-income communities. 

As vehicle electrification efforts continue to grow, Brightline works with frontline communities, public officials, and other community-based organizations to advocate for more outreach about these programs to underserved communities. We aim to increase the participation of low-income communities and communities of color in electric vehicle and car-sharing incentive programs, ensuring that these communities have equal opportunity to access these benefits as well as charging infrastructure.

Learn more about our recent efforts on vehicle electrification here.

Environmental Justice Mapping

City, state, and national governments face difficult decisions about how best to distribute limited funds for both environmental and social programs. Maps that overlay environmental and social data are one of the tools that many states use to understand where needs might be the highest and prioritize funding. While these maps are useful in visualizing the overlap of issues such as poor air quality and unemployment, they often rely on limited or out-of-date information. For example, recent efforts to map areas in California did not fully take into account sky-rocketing housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area or the impact of recent wildfires. The result was that many communities lost the chance to apply for grants to improve environmental conditions in their neighborhoods.

Brightline works with frontline communities, state environmental agencies, and city leaders to ensure that environmental justice mapping uses the most robust and up-to-date data available. We also advocate for government scientists to incorporate detailed social data and community review into their models so that the resulting maps accurately reflect both environmental and social conditions across the state. Most importantly, we help ensure that unintentional biases in data selection and availability do not keep frontline communities from accessing government grants that can help improve environmental conditions in their communities.

Learn more about environmental justice mapping in California here.

LOCAL HIRING

Brightline advocates for local hiring policies and job training programs that help underserved communities benefit from an emerging clean economy. Local and Targeted Hiring policies lead to the hiring of workers living in a specific geographic area or from specific populations within a community. When coupled with sustainable wages and job training programs, these hiring practices help ensure that frontline communities benefit from new economic development.

Brightline has been a long-time advocate of Local and Targeted Hiring. Through policy research, legislative drafting, and implementation advice, we have helped city governments across the U.S. address equity issues by integrating local hiring policies into their grantmaking programs and setting up workforce training programs that feed directly into new, good-paying jobs. Our work has focused on local jurisdictions ranging from San Francisco, Baltimore, Jersey City, Providence, to Seattle. We are now applying this expertise to a new wave of economic development in clean energy.

Learn more about Local Hire in Brightline’s Putting Local Hire to Work report.