Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Dems seek climate vote on post-Sandy aid bill

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the White House in Washington, D.C. for the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action on September 12, 2023. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT)

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) want to use debate over post-Hurricane Sandy aid to put lawmakers on the record on climate change.

His amendment declares the “sense of the Senate” that mitigating the effects of “extreme weather,” including curbing humans’ contribution to climate change, is in the nation’s economic interest.

Whitehouse and three colleagues proposed attaching the language to the $60.4 billion recovery and reconstruction bill that’s currently on the Senate floor.

But with dozens of proposed amendments piling up, Whitehouse and his three co-sponsors will face long odds landing the plan on the list of amendments that will be voted on.

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Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.