State and Local Policy

The Center for American Progress constantly strives to find meaningful solutions and pathways to promote progressive policy advancement at the state and local level. Our work focuses on locally driven solutions as well as the vast policy and communications expertise in the organization. We hope this research and data can help facilitate thoughtful debate among state and local leaders so that we can bring about progressive change in an ever-changing political landscape.

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How States Can Turn Polluted Lands Into Clean Energy Report
Turbines from the Roth Rock wind farm are seen in Oakland, Maryland, August 23, 2022.

How States Can Turn Polluted Lands Into Clean Energy

In the absence of federal leadership, states should encourage renewable energy development on contaminated lands—including landfills, abandoned mines, and brownfield sites—in order to reap economic benefits and meet rising electricity demand.

Dylan Nezaj, Alia Hidayat

Fact Sheet: How States Can Turn Polluted Lands Into Clean Energy Fact Sheet
Turbines from the Roth Rock wind farm along the Backbone Mountain are seen on August 23, 2022.

Fact Sheet: How States Can Turn Polluted Lands Into Clean Energy

In the absence of federal leadership, states should encourage renewable energy development on contaminated lands—including landfills, abandoned mines, and brownfield sites—in order to reap economic benefits and meet rising electricity demand.

Alia Hidayat, Dylan Nezaj

Fact Sheet: Expanding the Public Safety Workforce Fact Sheet
Social workers provide a man experiencing homelessness with resources in a local park in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Fact Sheet: Expanding the Public Safety Workforce

Cities across the country are investing in safety by incorporating specially trained professionals such as community responders and community violence intervention professionals into their local public safety workforces.

Allie Preston, Rachael Eisenberg, Kirby Gaherty

How Changes to Fourth-Grade Reading Standards and Research-Backed Approaches Can Improve Reading Achievement Report
Teacher sitting at classroom table with students

How Changes to Fourth-Grade Reading Standards and Research-Backed Approaches Can Improve Reading Achievement

Four states—Alabama, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Mississippi—have shown that adopting more rigorous literacy standards and scientific approaches to reading instruction can help reverse the decline in reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Tania Otero Martinez, Weadé James

Louisiana v. Callais: The End of the Voting Rights Act? Article
Supreme Court building beneath stormy sky

Louisiana v. Callais: The End of the Voting Rights Act?

Louisiana v. Callais puts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court’s crosshairs and could result in the elimination of the last remaining bulwark against racial discrimination in voting.

Devon Ombres

Expanding the Public Safety Workforce Report
Three people speaking, with two standing outside van and one sitting inside.

Expanding the Public Safety Workforce

Cities across the country are exploring innovative ways to incorporate new professionals, such as community responders and community violence intervention professionals, into their existing public safety workforces to improve outcomes for communities.

Allie Preston, Rachael Eisenberg, Kirby Gaherty

The Trump Administration’s Attack on Environmental Protections Will Increase Cancer-Causing Pollution Report
In the background of the view of a residential street, smokestacks at the Hugh L. Spurlock Generating Station are seen in Maysville, Kentucky.

The Trump Administration’s Attack on Environmental Protections Will Increase Cancer-Causing Pollution

The Trump administration’s plan to torpedo air pollution limits and cancer prevention programs while ripping away health care and cancer treatment and canceling clean energy investments will increase preventable cancer cases among Americans—all to enhance polluters’ profits and cut taxes for the superrich.

The Trump Administration Is Quietly Gutting Minimum Wage Protections for Millions of Workers Article
A group of workers is seen walking along a brick pathway.

The Trump Administration Is Quietly Gutting Minimum Wage Protections for Millions of Workers

The administration has already cut minimum wage protections for hundreds of thousands of federal contract workers and halted plans to require companies to pay disabled workers at least $7.25 per hour; this Labor Day, it will advance plans to eliminate federal minimum wage protections for millions of child care and home care providers.

Aurelia Glass

States Can Lead the Way on an Abundant, Pro-Nature Clean Energy Future Article
Wildflowers growing on hills with wind turbines

States Can Lead the Way on an Abundant, Pro-Nature Clean Energy Future

The Trump administration has falsely framed wind and solar power as harmful to wildlife in order to justify stifling affordable, rapid-to-deploy, clean energy. Here’s how state leadership can advance clean energy and conservation goals simultaneously.

Alia Hidayat

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Tackling Climate Change and Environmental Injustice
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Tackling Climate Change and Environmental Injustice

We pursue climate action that meets the crisis’s urgency, creates good-quality jobs, benefits disadvantaged communities, and restores U.S. credibility on the global stage.

Restoring Social Trust in Democracy
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Restoring Social Trust in Democracy

Democracy is under attack at home and abroad. We must act to ensure it is accessible to all, accountable, and can serve as a force of good.

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