Rep. Stansbury: Change Is Coming!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]And what history has taught us is that at every moment where the United States has faced a setback, at every moment in which the United States faced efforts to try to take us backwards and not forwards, it was followed by a moment of innovation, of investment in our people and great change.

[00:00:21]And that is why I know that even though these times are dark, and even though I know that we are facing an administration that does not support moving into the future in a clean energy and climate resilient future and protecting our communities, and even though we are facing the insanity every day of every tweet that comes down the pike, I know that we are going to come out this better than where we started.

[00:00:49]Because history tells us after the Civil War and the rise of the robber barons and industrialization that led to deaths of thousands of children and the darkening skies and the cutting of our forests, out of that was born the modern progressive movement. That was the progressive movement that gave us the 40-hour work day. It's what gave us the labor movement. It's what gave us national parks and conservation. And it is what ultimately led to women getting the right to vote in this country.

[00:01:23]>> [applause] >> What was born out of the Great Depression was a new idea for America.

[00:01:31]It wasn't just a new deal for our economy, but a new idea about the purpose of government. That we could not only build a progressive future that would literally electrify homes across the world, across the country. If you think about it, the New Deal wasn't just an economic New Deal. It is what electrified our communities to begin with, and it wasn't just about electricity. It was an anti-poverty program and it was about the idea that our democracy here in this country wasn't just to serve the corporations and people who were going to get rich off of whatever they could do, but that this was a country built by the people, for the people, and that it should serve the people. And that was a new idea that was born out of the New Deal. It's what gave us the modern world, Social Security. It created and paved the path for the modern Civil Rights Movement.

[00:02:29]Ultimately, in the dark days of McCarthyism and the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon and everything that happened in the mid-20th century, was born the most progressive movement this country had ever seen. The Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement, the Red Power Movement, the Environmental Movement, our modern Clean Air Act and Water Act were born out of that movement.

[00:02:54]It's what was born out of the LGBTQ+ Movement, the Women's Rights Movement.

[00:02:59]And it is what makes it possible for many of us to stand and sit here today.

[00:03:05]And so what I want to leave with all of you, because I know this doesn't sound a lot about energy, is that we have to be real about the moment that we face and be prepared for what we know is possible.

[00:03:21]And so what American history tells us is that we are right on the precipice in this dark moment to build the most progressive movement this country has ever seen.

[00:03:36]>> [applause] >> And the thing that is important to know is that all of those former progressive movements weren't born just out of the darkness. They were built over generations. Ideas that were seeded generations before them came to fruition when the moment was right. And so all of the work that you all have been doing in this room to build transformational policies and technologies and investments in clean energy and climate resilience will be the foundation on which we build that future when the political moment arrives.

[00:04:17]It will not have been for naught because it is just right around the corner.