I am incredibly proud to see a colleague that I came here in a historic class of firsts.

I want to talk to you about the Environmental Justice for All Act that I proudly co-sponsored.

If we are going to fight the climate crisis with the scale and urgency necessary to save our planet, we must look toward ocean-based climate solutions as key pieces for our efforts.

I hope in some ways we can always bring that public health aspect to it.

I thank our wonderful colleague, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, for this amazing, incredible effort, and for me to be here, and to actually witness this is an honor. The passage of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act is long overdue…

What does it truly mean to be forgotten when it comes to policy and when it comes to when you look at budgets that are coming out of Washington, DC, and it leaves communities like ours behind?

Every time we invest in these false solutions, it is an opportunity cost to our future, to equity, to climate justice.

I would love to share with our colleagues some of the fraudulent activity of opportunity zones by billionaires.

If you want to look at the economy, how the cost to the economy is when we do nothing, and, really, the human cost, to me, is something that we can't look away...

Nothing is more apparent than that during COVID.

Act now and save millions of lives or wait, have it cost 10, 20 times more.

I really, truly want to talk about the human cost.