How to Get a Strong Senate Climate Bill, Part 1: Collect Letters

At a meeting with Senator Cardin, the Senator’s chief energy policy adviser issued Maryland climate activists some very specific marching orders:

“If you want a stronger climate bill, we need to hear from you. Send us your input.”

Glad to oblige, I took this message back to the grassroots with a further caveat: The Senator’s office had received in the neighborhood of nine-hundred letters from opponents of the bill, compared to only six- or seven-hundred from supporters. Not missing a beat, climate activists across the state took up the Senator’s challenge and sprung into action, determined to close the gap with the “cap and tax” crowd.

The action that unfolded was truly inspiring. From Baltimore, to Silver Spring, to Hyattsville, and Columbia activist teams descended upon an array of local festivals, farmers markets, street corners and even movie lines to amass enough letters to make up the deficit. They hit their goal in less than a week, pulling in around two-hundred and fifty handwritten letters specifically asking the Senator to ensure the Senate bill went much further than the House ACES bill to ensure that polluters and not the public bear the costs of fixing the climate crisis. This focus on pocketbook protection was particularly timely considering that the Senator is currently helping to draft the version of the bill dealing with that very issue.

cardin-letters-002Today, I dropped by Capitol Hill with two of Maryland’s top letter collecting champs, Danny Berchenko and Susan Stewart to make sure Senator Cardin received the big dose of grassroots support he was looking for. Echoing an earlier letter delivery to Congressman Sarbanes, we bound up the giant stacks of letters with some bright green ribbon and handed them over to Senator Cardin’s staff with the promise that there were plenty more on the way.

That’s right; our letter writing campaign is far from over. The “cap-and-tax” crowd isn’t going to stop making its voice heard and neither can we. We’ve got to outpace those naysayers over the coming weeks, and make sure Senator Cardin continues to hear the drumbeat for a stronger climate bill. We’re aiming to collect one-thousand letters by the end of August when the Environment and Public Works Committee starts to mark up the Senate climate bill. But we can’t do it without you. Help us win the letter writing race and capitalize on the amazing opportunity we have to work with our Senator to create a stronger climate bill. Please contact me today (email: keith@chesapeakeclimate.org) to get plugged into a letter collecting team in your area. Also be sure to check out the Maryland campaign resources page for our helpful letter writing guide, sample letter writing points and our new grassroots Senate Action toolkit packed full of information on all the exciting ways you can engage with this historic campaign.

Navigating a Minefield Part 2

Cross-posted from: here

In my first post on the coming climate legislation battle in the Senate, I focused on a myriad of suggestions on how both the politicians pushing legislation as well as environmental activists and organizations could work to get a stronger bill. Despite the monumental challenge of getting to 60 votes in the Senate, as I said in the first post which I won’t repeat in depth here, there are advantages in terms of how to increase the pressure on Senators that we didn’t have in the House. However that isn’t the focus of this post. This post basically shows that absent a much stronger and smarter mobilization in the Senate, there will need to be wheeling and dealing done by President Obama, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, along with top Democrats.

As a disclaimer I will say that the “pick your poison” scenario I lay out at the end is not one that I would like to see. It is simply a look at what it’s going to take to get 60. Another disclaimer is this is a long post, so bring a snack. Continue reading

Strong Men Take Over Senate Hearing

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee Tuesday as the Senate drafts its version of a clean energy and climate bill. Grassroots advocates with CCAN and the Avaaz Climate Action Factory, some wearing strong man suits, turned out in force to demand a stronger bill. In honor of Administrator Jackson’s presence, we specifically demanded restoration of the EPA’s authority to regulate global warming pollution from coal plants.

As you know, the House of Representatives successfully passed H.R. 2454, a 1,400-page cap-and-trade bill that was the result of months of negotiations. The bill underwent many changes as its authors – Congressmen Markey and Waxman — negotiated to get the votes they calculated it needed to pass. The result? The House-passed bill just isnt’ good enough.

In one of the most controversial compromises, the House repealed the Clean Air Act provision that empowered the EPA to regulate carbon pollution from dirty coal plants.

Without this provision, the Obama Administration is powerless to stop hundreds of old, dirty coal plants from spewing global warming pollution into the air. Some of the biggest climate polluters on the planet could be let off the hook.

Even worse, the coal industry is trying to build at least 100 more dirty coal plants. For years, environmental and citizen groups have blocked these plants. Right now the Chesapeake Climate Action Network is fighting two proposed coal plants in Virginia alone. If this Clean Air Act provision is eliminated, local groups may be unable to stop another generation of dependence on dirty coal.

Tuesday marked the beginning of a series of hearings and high-level meetings aimed at producing a Senate complement to the House climate bill. CCAN and others will be working non stop to make sure the Senate bill truly delivers on the clean energy future we so desperately need. Want to stay in the loop? Join our special “Hill Force” list and we’ll keep you up to date on how to get involved.

Calling all Climate Superheroes

In the recent House climate vote, the Maryland Congressional delegation broke largely in favor of protecting our climate. Seven out of eight of our Congressional representatives or about 90 percent of the delegation stood up for climate and clean energy action by voting yes on the American Clean Energy and Security Act. That statistic puts Maryland among the top ten states in terms of percentage of the state Congressional delegation that voted yes on the bill.

Besides begging the question why peak-oil-Cassandra Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD-06) decided to vote against the best chance our country has had in years to break our dependence on oil, this vote stands as a testament to the Maryland Congressional delegation’s appreciation of the severity of the threat that climate change poses to Maryland.

Marylanders should count themselves lucky to have leaders that are so plugged in. As we at CCAN are always quick to point out, Maryland is the third most vulnerable state in the country to sea level rise, and few states are more in need of federal leaders who understand the need for federal climate action.

This fact is underscored by a recent study which shows that the forecast for climate impacts on Maryland is direr than previously predicted.

According to the EPA study, Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region, there is growing evidence that sea level rise in Mid Atlantic states like Maryland is accelerating, and that the combination of rising seas and stronger storms could result in unforeseen tipping points for vulnerable wetlands and islands.

Preventing this dire forecast from unfolding will require bold action from the federal government, so it’s heartening that our leaders are acting in their constituents’ best interests. However, as I wrote in a post last week, and Mike Tidwell emphasized in a recent letter, while the ACES bill is a baby step in the right direction, the solutions it offers fall far short of what is truly required to slow climate change and protect the Bay.

We need a stronger bill from the Senate, and that means we need our Maryland Senators to not just match but better the level of leadership exhibited by Maryland’s Congressional delegation. The time for climate heroes has passed; now’s the time for climate superheroes. Of course our elected officials’ legislative muscle is only ever as strong as our voices. So get on the phone to Senators Mikulski and Cardin today to help pump them up!

Health Care Pointless Without Climate Cure


Don’t put climate on back burner

By Mike Tidwell
July 7, 2009
Baltimore Sun

Barack Obama may have made history last November, but he seems deaf to history’s loudest call right now. The president clearly believes that health care reform, above all else, will define his early presidency. But even if Mr. Obama scores total success on health care, few future Americans will care or remember as long as the Earth’s ailing atmosphere goes untreated.

Climate change, it turns out, is the ultimate public health issue. And yet the House of Representatives passed a mere band-aid of a bill last month on global warming. Why so weak? Because Mr. Obama, with his 63 percent approval rating, was surprisingly AWOL for most the climate debate, essentially telling House leaders to hurry up and pass something – anything – so we can get on to the real issue of health care.

But cheap prescription drugs won’t do much good if our cities have filthy drinking water in coming years due to global warming. A “public option” on heath insurance? I’m all for it – but it will mean little if killer heat waves and mega-droughts parch the nation while Florida becomes a chain of malarial islands. Continue reading

Navigating a Minefield Part 1

Cross-Posted from: HERE

I’m pretty sure that from now until the Senate votes on a climate bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will look at what he’s going to have to do to get 60 votes for a measure, and add 30 seconds to his schedule every day where he takes a pillow and cries into it. The Senate is where legislation goes to die. As elated as I was at passing the Waxman-Markey bill out of the House, it hit me pretty fast that this was going to get ugly.

Environmental groups have been talking about the idea of strengthening, but in the Senate what kind of grassroots pressure and mobilization would that really take? What kind of bill would we end up seeing if we had “business as usual” activism on this bill? The first thing I want to do is talk what is necessary for a much stronger bill, and I must admit that this has long odds considering we came up short in the easier of the two chambers. Next, I’m going to show you what compromises would have to be included in the bill in order to reach 60 votes assuming the level of support by the American public is as dull as it was in the House. Continue reading

We Need More


Video by Jay!

On Friday the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed 219-212 in an historic vote, but key features of the bill fall far short of what scientists say is urgently needed. The Senate, with President Obama’s leadership, must work to greatly improve the bill.

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