Green Stimulus for your Local Govt

cross posted from HERE
A couple weeks ago, I had an idea for how to alleviate poverty, crime, and bring green jobs to College Park/Prince Georges County. A figured it would be good to highlight an opportunity in this column to actually acquire the funding for some of my suggestions. Additionally, I actually had to do some investigating to figure out who was doing what. My sources are posted below my article.

Green jobs and government grants: Get what’s yours

Matt Dernoga

Issue date: 4/21/09

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a column suggesting a few measures by which Prince George’s County and local cities could invest in job-creating green initiatives. This would help alleviate poverty and reduce crime. Local governments everywhere have faced gigantic budget deficits and big spending cuts. Good ideas are nothing without a bag of cash, and I’ve got the treasure map for you.

The economic stimulus package appropriated $3.2 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. This money is being allocated to states, counties, cities, Native American tribes and U.S. territories based on population size and energy usage for state and local governments. The rule for the money is it must assist in the implementation of strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions and total energy use and improve energy efficiency. Prince George’s County is eligible for $6.6 million. College Park can grab $133,700.

The catch is the money isn’t just handed out to local governments. They have a certain amount earmarked and available to them, but they need to apply for grants detailing how they’ll use the money. Only then are they awarded the funds. In other words, someone in the government needs to know the money is there and go after it. If they don’t submit a formula grant proposal by June 25, good-bye free cash.

Fortunately, both Prince George’s County and College Park are aware of the opportunities the EECBG Program provides. The county has applied for seven grants and is considering three more. The assistant city manager is going to present a recommendation for a grant to the College Park City Council on May 5. I encourage students and residents to submit their ideas to their county and city representatives. It would be more productive than throwing a Tax Day tea party.

There’s going to be even more money available than the figures I listed above. The state has received $9.6 million from the EECBG Program. Up to 40 percent of that money could soon be made available to all counties and cities in the state to apply for with competitive grants. The other 60 percent is available to small towns with low populations, like Edmonston and Hyattsville, which didn’t get any money earmarked specifically for them. County and city governments should coordinate to get as much money as possible.

The county is working on a plan to build a solar farm at the county landfill with Pepco. This would create jobs and make the county a leader in renewable energy, but it needs money. Or consider energy-efficient overhauls of buildings, free residential and commercial energy audits, energy efficient traffic signals and street lighting and low-interest revolving door loan funds to low-income energy users for efficiency improvements.

The wish list goes on, and the money is sitting there alongside a more prosperous and sustainable future. Regardless of how you feel about the federal government’s spending, here is a case where money is available to benefit ordinary people on Main Street, not Wall Street. Go after it! X marks the spot.

Matt Dernoga is a junior government and politics major whose father serves on the Prince George’s County Council. He can be reached at mdernoga@umd.edu

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http://www.eecbg.energy.gov/
http://www.eecbg.energy.gov/grantalloc.html

Action Alert: Over 2,000 in DC tmo and Friday

Cross-Posted from: here

Lobbyists trying to stop the climate bill that is.

$450 million: Amount spent on lobbying and political contributions by

opponents of global warming action in 2008.

52: public spokespersons engaged by polluters and the ideological

right to spread disinformation about global warming online and in the

media.

2,340: Number of paid lobbyists working in Washington on climate

change in 2008.

7 in 8: Proportion of climate lobbyists advocating against climate

action.

$45 million: Amount spent on global warming denial advertising by the

coal industry in 2008.

——————————————————————————————————

As I’ve said before, there is a climate bill being considered in Congress right now, which you can read more about here. I think the people should have a say too. Google your Congressman’s name, and give their office a call saying you want them to support the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Write a letter to the editor supporting Congress to cap carbon and help spark the shift to a clean energy economy. The best thing though, is to just show up. Below is an opportunity for people to have their voice heard inside the halls of Congress. These kinds of activities are also going on Friday in the same place, although the big push is Thursday. If the above numbers indicate anything, it’s that we all need to find a way to have our voice heard on this one. 2 million votes beats 2,000 lobbyists.

RSVP to theteam@energyaction.net or the Facebook event

What: This Thursday’s Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill

Who: The representatives debating the specifics to include in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, Lobbyists for the utility companies and some of the biggest polluters, testifying before the committee and asking that the permits to pollute be given away to them for free, and hundreds of young people like us reminding the representatives that this is not an option and it is not what we voted them into office to do.

When: Thursday, April 23rd @ 8AM – The hearings are happening all week, but we want to focus our energy when the oil/coal lobbies are presenting. I know 8am is early but if we want to get into the actual hearing room we need to arrive early because the corporate lobbyists paid “supporters” will be sure to get there early to receive the cash.

Where: Rayburn House Office building, Room 2123 (Click here for a map)

Why: At Power Shift, we flooded the halls of congress for the biggest clean energy lobby day in history to demand bold climate legislation for a more sustainable future. We told our representatives what we wanted and they heard us, but will they follow through? This is a chance to show congress that we mean business – our mere presence on the Hill will speak volumes. Come get in the hearing, call constituents in the home districts of those members on committee, pay a visit to their offices, and be outside the office building to rally.

RSVP to theteam@energyaction.net or the Facebook event

Questions? Contact Ethan: Ethan@chesapeakeclimate.org, 202-631-1992

Live Updates – Climate Hearings on Capitol Hill

This week, the Energy and Commerce Committee are holding hearings about the American Clean Energy and Security Act (aka ACES, aka Waxman’s Bill). Of course, us climateers will have a presence there as well – stay in the loop this week (and contribute your two cents!) on Twitter


Follow CCAN on Twitter!

Watch Energy Committee Hearing Live!

Want to see what Congress is saying about global warming pollution?

Watch it live here. Cheer for the champs, and boo the obstructionists, all from the comfort of your own home.

Then join us Thursday morning to pack the hearing room as utilities testify about the bill! RSVP today!

Spam's contribution to global warming

No, not the “meat” in a can. Those emails telling you about viagra and people in Nigeria with millions of dollars that they’d love to send to you. McAfee, which (coincidentally?) sells anti-spam protection software, recently commissioned a study on the envirnmental impacts of spam.

The conclusion? After taking into account all the energy that goes into creating, storing, deleting and filtering spam, it was found that the average spam message creates about .3 grams of CO2 emissions. Because 62 trillion junk email messages were sent in 2008, that equals the amount of CO2 that would be produced by driving around the world 1.6 million times.

Richi Jennings, spam expert, breaks it down this way: “Globally, the annual spam energy use is 33 billion kilowatt-hours, or 33 TWh – that’s as much electricity as 2.4 million U.S. homes use, with the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion U.S. gallons of gasoline.”

Now here’s the BIG grain of salt. The solution to the problem of spam and global warming? Invest in a state of the art spam filter – like one created by McAfee! Because really, the most energy used on spam is people manually sorting through their email, trying to find real messages from real people. I personally would prefer a more proactive route, though I may start missing the emails telling me how to make my breasts grow bigger, faster.

Earth Poem

In honor of Earth Day, coming up this Wednesday, I want to share with you all a poem sent to me by amazing CCAN activist from Baltimore, Frances Aubrey.

My Earth

This is my Earth

Miles to Go Before We Sleep….

va state house

First I want to offer my sincere CONGRATULATIONS to my colleagues and neighbors working in Maryland. Maryland is clearly leading the way and setting the example for what other states can be doing in the absence of federal climate legislation.

I’d like however to focus on Virginia, which by stark contrast is anything but a leader on this issue. As many may be aware, the Virginia General Assembly reconvened for it’s one day veto session last week. The only real way to sum up the results of that one day session is with one word… disappointing.

We had a real opportunity to move Virginia towards the a clean energy future that is already available and affordable, it just needed a little legislative help. Some of you may have followed me on twitter last week giving the play by play of what went down and I decided to sit and think on it over the weekend before voicing my complete disappointment in our elected officials.

There are some champions to be highlighted and thanked before I go on:

Senator Donald McEachin- introduced a comprehensive piece of legislation on energy efficiency that would have saved consumers money on the electricity bills in the long run and created 10,000 plus jobs for the commonwealth and contained a strong mandatory target. (SB 1447)

Senator Mark Herring- introduced key components of the above bill (a mandatory 19% Efficiency goal for utilities) (SB 1440)

Delegate Albert Pollard- introduced a bill that would give utilities the same rate of return for investments in efficiency that they currently see for investments in coal. This bill passed and is an important step towards a clean energy economy but it is just the first step.

Senator Chap Petersen- introduced bills with strong targets on efficiency. Senator Petersen was also a vocal champion for moving Virginia forward and embracing a clean energy future.

Governor Tim Kaine- yeah that’s right, Governor Kaine endorsed legislation that contained mandatory efficiency targets at the beginning of the session and amended the weakened bills that came out of the session to include a 19% efficiency target.

These are the five BIG thank yous I feel I have to give before moving on to lastweek’s veto session.

Unfortunately, none of the legislation was able to make it out of the General Assembly with a mandatory efficiency standard. Utilities, like Dominion were able to make that a scary idea, because according to them it’s impossible to control the behavior of rate payers, despite the fact that mandatory efficiency measures have been successful in other states like California and Vermont (note that Vermont is a mostly rural state with mountains). But Governor Kaine stepped in and amended the legislation that passed to include a 19% target. This is far from where we started at the beginning of the session but still would have been a step forward, and would have put us a better place to start next legislative session. In my eyes this was the least we could do this session and claim victory.

Well, we couldn’t do that.

We were unable to pass a voluntary efficiency standard! It passed in the Senate with a close vote but I will briefly thank the senators that voted for the amendment. Barker, Colgan, Deeds, Edwards, Herring, Houck, Howell, Locke, Lucas, Marsh, McEachin, Miller, J.C., Miller, Y.B., Northam, Petersen, Puckett, Puller, Reynolds, Saslaw, Ticer, Vogel, and Whipple all voted in support of the goal so thank you!

Then we went to the House. Delegate Pollard stood up and endorsed the Governor’s amendments to SB 1248 and was immediately countered by Delegate Hogan. Delegate Hogan that made false accusations in regards to the target, the most egregious being that Virginia already has a voluntary efficiency standard of 12% that we are not meeting so why set the bar higher. This is utterly absurd but stood uncontested. Virginia does not have a voluntary energy efficiency standard of any kind! We do however have a voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) of 12% but this is COMPLETELY different! I was shocked that no one contested this. He also threatened that efficiency is going to raise rates for consumers period. No mention of the fact that our current course will also raise rates and in fact will raise rates far more than efficiency. Delegate Pollard brought that issue up, but Hogan’s damage was done. The votes fluctuated a bit but ultimately the Gov’s amendments were defeated by 3 votes. 47-50 with 3 people abstaining. I’ve heard a lot of discussion that the ultimate demise was the result of a partisan battle in the House that was beyond our control. I find that hard to accept when I examined the vote count. There were Republicans voting for the amendments as well as Democrats voting against. Maybe it was a case of partisan politics I’ll list the vote count below and you can decide. The one thing I ask is if your Delegate voted against this simple amendment please give them a call and voice your disappointment that we were enable to push our cheapest fuel source here in Virignia…. Energy Efficiency.

It’s great that we got close, but we’ve certainly got our work cut out for us in Virginia next session.

The House Vote Count:

YEAS–Alexander, Amundson, Armstrong, Athey, BaCote, Barlow, Bouchard, Brink, Bulova, Caputo, Dance, Ebbin, Eisenberg, Englin, Frederick, Hall, Herring, Howell, A.T., Hull, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Marsden, Marshall, R.G., Mathieson, McClellan, McQuinn, Melvin, Miller, P.J., Morrissey, Nichols, Plum, Poisson, Pollard, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Shannon, Shuler, Sickles, Spruill, Toscano, Tyler, Valentine, Vanderhye, Ward, Ware, O., Watts–47.

NAYS–Abbitt, Albo, Bell, Bowling, Byron, Carrico, Cline, Cole, Cosgrove, Cox, Crockett-Stark, Fralin, Gilbert, Griffith, Hamilton, Hargrove, Hogan, Hugo, Iaquinto, Ingram, Janis, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Kilgore, Knight, Landes, Lohr, Loupassi, Massie, May, Merricks, Miller, J.H., Morgan, Nixon, Nutter, O’Bannon, Oder, Orrock, Peace, Phillips, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Saxman, Sherwood, Ware, R.L., Wright, Mr. Speaker–50.

ABSTENTIONS–0.

NOT VOTING–Gear, Marshall, D.W., Tata–3.

Volunteer Night to Stop Coal!

Are you ready to fight coal?

All across the country coal plants are being rejected. Yet somehow in Virginia we are building a new coal fired plant in Wise County and proposing a plant three times the size in the Hampton Roads area.

During the presidential campaign, both candidates invested a lot of time and energy to make phone calls in to key swing states to influence critical votes to win the election. This is a GREAT strategy to win.

In our campaign to stop this proposed plant, we have critical votes just like swing state votes. Right now, Virginians living in electric cooperatives served by Old Dominion Electric Coop have a unique voice in this fight. Tomorrow night we will start calling these folks to educate them on why this coal plant is a bad investment and get them to take action!

We will be meeting tomorrow at the St Charles Borromeo Parish in Arlington, near the Clarendon Metro stop for our first volunteer night to stop coal. The details are below, and I hope that you can join us.

What: Volunteer Night to Stop Coal!

Where: St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Parish
3304 Washington Blvd.
Arlington, Virginia 22201

When: Tuesday, April 13th 5:30-7:30pm

**We will have a couple of laptops on hand, but please if you have one, bring your own as well as your cell phone..**

Any questions please email: Lauren@chesapeakeclimate.org

Thank you activists: MD's Climate Bill is Done!

Dear CCAN activists,

It is with great pride that I announce that today, on the last day of the 2009 session of the MD General Assembly, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act jumped through the last logistical legislative hoop, and is headed to Governor O’Malley’s desk for signing. If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to thank/spank your legislator for their vote on the bill.Remember this? Rally for Global Warming in the snow!

I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for all the hard work you did over the past few years. Thank you for calling your legislator – and calling others in your district to tell them to make a call as well. Thank you for coming to Annapolis during a snow storm to show Governor O’Malley and the General Assembly that we were serious about passing this bill. Thank you for coming BACK to Annapolis to lobby and to thank the Governor for his support. Thank you for organizing constituent meetings in your district, attending town hall meetings across the state, and making sure that every legislator in the state knows that fighting global warming is a top priority for MD voters.

And the timing couldn’t be better: we’re gearing up for a big fight on the federal level, with two climate bills already introduced. Here in MD, we can be proud of doing our part to add to the pressure Congress is feeling to pass something strong – and we need to make sure that our elected officials on Capital Hill know that we plan on holding them accountable to passing strong climate legislation, just like we did on the state level.

Thanks again for all your hard work,

Holly, MD Campaign Coordinator, and the rest of the CCAN team

PS – Keep your ears open for details on a thank you celebration and victory party, to be scheduled some time in May.