Delivering For You

Climate change is real and we must act urgently to find solutions to this threat. I proudly served on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, and helped secure our nation’s largest investment in addressing climate change in history through the Inflation Reduction Act. I will continue to support our transition to a clean energy future and provide resources to both industry and everyday Americans to lower those costs.

National Monument Castner Range- The announcement to designate Castner Range as a national monument comes after over 50 years of advocacy from the community. Castner Range consists of over 7,000 acres of land that was formerly used by Fort Bliss Army Base as an artillery and munitions range. The Army ceased operations on Castner Range in 1966 and declared the land excess in 1971, at which community support for conserving the range as open space began to build. 

Congresswoman Escobar has been a fierce and tireless advocate for this designation. During her first term, she introduced the Castner Range National Monument Act, a bill to conserve and protect Castner. During a Natural Resources Committee Hearing in May 2021, Congresswoman Escobar testified about the importance of supporting her legislation and what it would mean to El Pasoans. In addition to pursuing this designation through legislative means, Congresswoman Escobar invited several key Biden Administration officials in El Paso to expedite the protection of Castner Range. In March 2022, she hosted Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland for a tour of Castner Range. Most recently, she welcomed the Undersecretary of the Army and native El Pasoan Gabe Camarillo back home in August 2022 to continue discussions about the designation. This visit was a follow-up to a meeting in June 2022 coordinated by Congresswoman Escobar in which several El Paso stakeholders joined her for a meeting at the Pentagon with Undersecretary Camarillo and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Additionally, Congresswoman Escobar also wrote to President Biden twice over the past year, urging him to designate Castner through the Antiquities Act.

The Climate Adaptation Plan Act - inspired by the report and the work of her Climate Crisis Advisory Committee (CCAC), this legislation directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator to establish a grant program to facilitate the development of climate adaptation plans for local and tribal governments like the Climate Crisis Advisory Committee Framework. Climate adaptation plans make recommendations to local governments by centering resilience measures, environmental justice, economic prosperity, and community-driven collaboration.

With Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022: 

• More than $300 billion to be invested in energy and climate reform. 
• $60 billion is earmarked for environmental justice initiatives in disadvantaged and front-line communities, such as El Paso.  
• $160 billion allocated to new and expanded clean electricity tax credits, further incentivizing the transition to a cleaner power supply, driven by wind and solar. 

Overall, this monumental piece of environmental legislation will keep our climate goals in reach, reducing U.S. emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, a vital step toward halting the worst consequences of global warming.