House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charted a course to zero out all of the United States’ planet-heating emissions by 2050, unveiling a Democratic proposal Tuesday that’s been hailed by experts as the “most detailed climate plan in U.S. political history.”
Now nearly five dozen House Democrats want to see those principles applied to the next big piece of legislation coming down the pike. At least 59 legislators signed on Wednesday to a letter demanding that party leaders add more climate provisions to the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill slated for a vote as early as this week.
“We have to get this right. There are no do-overs,” said the letter, authored by Reps. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). “We know the importance of listening to our impacted communities, workers, and scientists. We must understand the consequences of acting too late. This cannot be a lost decade for our economy or our planet.”
Polling shows why Democrats are ramping up their rhetoric on the climate crisis. Roughly 58% of all registered voters support transitioning the country to 100% clean energy, including 76% of Democrats, 59% of independents and 38% of Republicans, according to a survey the think tank Data for Progress published in May. Two-thirds of Americans say the federal government should do more to reduce the effects of climate change, according to a Pew Research Center poll released in June. | 
