Congratulations to LCEA’s Jessica Guadalupe Tovar!

(12/2020) WASHINGTON, DC— On November 23, Rachel’s Network announced the awardees and finalists of its second annual Catalyst Award. Jessica Guadalupe Tovar of the Local Clean Energy Alliance is one of nine winners for the 2020 award! The award provides women leaders of color support and recognition for their commitment to a healthy planet, along with a $10,000 prize, networking opportunities, and national recognition for their work.

Jessica Guadalupe Tovar is a longtime Environmental Justice and Climate organizer.  Jessica’s work has addressed struggles in communities at the center of advancing solutions for low-income people and people of color.  Her personal experience of being a frontline person is a testimony to her commitment to building a fierce movement of what she calls, “Clean Power to the People” by creating policies that advance a just transition to clean energy—a local Green New Deal for people systematically left out of economic and other community benefits.

 

For 12 years she had the privilege of working for grassroots base-building organizations and winning some groundbreaking campaigns.  More recently, with the Local Clean Energy Alliance (LCEA), she advocated for the establishment of a county-wide public energy agency that replaced PG&E in providing electricity, called East Bay Community Energy (EBCE).  LCEA along with dedicated allies, won a commitment to community benefits under a ‘Local Development Business Plan—a plan for a local Green New Deal with a first year budget of $5.6M coming from the program’s electricity revenues.  This program funds local solar, wind, battery storage, energy efficiency, demand response, a community innovation grant fund, plus so much more.  This work has been precedent setting and is a case study for successes and lessons learned.

 

Jessica’s past work included fighting the expansion of processing Alberta tar sands at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, CA with Communities for a Better Environment (CBE).  She also helped get the PG&E Hunters Point power plant shutdown—an old facility located adjacent to historically black housing projects in San Francisco while working with Greenaction.  In both communities, many members suffered from asthma, cancers and other environmental illnesses.  

 

In 2020, she led the  fight against the inclusion of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear energy in East Bay Community Energy.  These false solutions to climate change continue a legacy of shifting environmental burdens.  Nuclear energy has no place in a clean energy future that is truly dedicated to economic, climate and environmental justice for our most vulnerable communities.  

 

You can find Jessica on LinkedIn.

 

Help Rachel’s Network and the Local Clean Energy Alliance get the word out about these fierce environmental activist women by sharing the Network’s social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.  

 

Rachel’s Network is a community of women at the intersection of environmental advocacy, philanthropy, and leadership. Named after Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, the network’s mission is to promote women as impassioned leaders and agents of change dedicated to the stewardship of the earth.