Rockefeller Family Fund

RFF Director Lee Wasserman Pens Guest Essay in The New York Times

RFF's climate work realized a breakthrough when Vermont passed the first climate superfund law in the nation to make polluters pay for the damage and adaptation costs caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. It is an important step to address environmental responsibility and could set a precedent for other states to follow suit.

RFF’s director authored this guest essay in The New York Times, explaining about the significance of Vermont’s new law.

NYT Draws Attention to Expiration of Federal Funding for Child Care

Five months ago, federal funding for child care expired. A recent front-page story in the New York Times highlights that “running a child care business is more precarious than ever,” with many parents struggling to afford the cost. The article features one of RFF's grantees, the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy.

RFF’s Associate Director for Oil and Gas featured in The Hill

Sarah Brennan, RFF’s Associate Director for the Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas, published an op-ed in The Hill on what the Biden administration needs to do to transition away from fossil fuels. She mentioned two key issues the Funder Collaborative is working on: gas exports and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

Commission Shift featured in Nonprofit Quarterly

Commission Shift, an RFF grantee, was featured in an article in Nonprofit Quarterly which discussed grassroots work in democratizing public utility commissions. Commission Shift was a project incubated at RFF originally as the Texas Railroad Accountability Project. Virginia Palacios, Executive Director, has become the leading voice on reforming the Texas Railroad Commission.

Democracy organizing partners quoted in US News election analysis

RFF’s democracy program supports the work of local organizing groups, believing that the people closest to the work are the best strategists. Two RFF grantees were featured in an article published in U.S. News & World Report: How Democracy Fought Back in 2022: Branden Snyder from Detroit Action and Bishop Dwayne Royster from POWER Pennsylvania.

RFF President and Director featured in The Wall Street Journal for the Fund’s climate accountability work.

RFF’s work to hold ExxonMobil accountable in court and state legislatures for decades of climate deception was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal. As reported, Exxon saw RFF’s and other advocates’ work as a major threat to its business and responded aggressively, including the use of materials hacked from climate advocates. Despite these efforts, the cases in court continue to advance and expand in number, and bills in state legislatures continue to gain momentum.

Updates

Latinx values research featured in the Medium :

Several RFF grantees with large Latinx constituencies partnered with Equis Lab and other senior researchers to survey Latinx people, measure their sense of influence, and develop values segmentation clusters to improve efforts to communicate with and organize this important group. The study uncovered social and psychological factors that impact voting habits of Latinx people; Equis also published a companion piece to inform how organizers can better develop relationships with Latinx constituencies.

New Federal Protections for Pregnant Workers:

In late 2022, Congress passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which advocates have championed for over a decade, as an amendment to the omnibus spending package. The new law requires employers to offer pregnant workers reasonable accommodations like extra bathroom breaks, the ability to sit while performing certain tasks and restrictions on how much weight they are required to lift. Unrelenting advocacy by long-time RFF grantees like A Better Balance and MomsRising was essential to the bill’s passage at the 11th hour of the Congressional session. Over ten years ago, Dana Bakst of A Better Balance shared a story that proves the significance of this law in an op-ed for the New York Times.

WildEarth Guardians and Occidental settle lawsuit under Clean Air Act Citizen Suit:

RFF grantee, WildEarth Guardians, recently agreed to a settlement with Occidental over Oxy’s emissions of pollutants that were frequently above their permitted amount at a compressor station in New Mexico. In the lawsuit, WildEarth Guardians claimed that the emissions were not accidental but part of normal business operation which were in violation of a state-issued air permit. WildEarth Guardians built up their case by looking into Oxy’s publicly available reports filed with the New Mexico Environment Department.