Josh, Karen, Barbara, et al.:
Paul Wilson and I were on a conference call last week to talk about the Energy bills in Congress. As you may recall, the Senate passed an increase in the CAFE standard, and action now turns to the House. The Club is making an all out effort to pass the bill there, with the strongest possible CAFE standard and a renewable energy portfolio standard. In addition, we must oppose coal-to-liquid subsidies in any form, as America must not start down that path if we are to avoid a dramatic surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next couple weeks, we will be targeting Molohan and Rahall to ask their support. This will be more difficult than it seems, as both have sponsored coal-to-liquids bills, and both have raised objections to wind farms in their districts. Nevertheless, an increase in CAFE standards has been a Club goal for many years, and the Senate bill is a good start. We are unlikely to see a better bill in this Congress, so we must do our part to get them on board.
We should discuss at least three efforts, 1) getting calls to the Congressmen; 2) letters to the editor (guest op/ed pieces would be even better); and 3) setting up a meeting with Mollohan, preferably while he is on the July 4th recess during the next two weeks. (Suvch a meeting might also be a good time to talk about Allegheny's TrAILCo powerline).
JBK
"Glen Besa" glen.besa@sierraclub.org 6/30/2007 5:21 PM >>>
ACT: Please call your Congress member's office to set up a meeting in the district before July 16. See details below:
Folks,
One of the most important actions you can take is to set up a meeting with your Congress member or his staff in their district. If you can set up a meeting in the next two weeks, before July 16 when we anticipate the House to take action that would be outstanding
TIPS:
1) please check in with staff to coordinate setting up in-district meetings so we don't have multiple asks. Here are your staff contacts:
DE - Ezra Temko EzraJT@gmail.com
GA -- Anna Cherry anna.cherry@sierraclub.org
MD -- Glen Besa glen.besa@sierraclub.org
NC - Chatham Olive chatham.olive@sierraclub.org
SC - Dave Muhly vafw@naxs.net
TN -- Dave Muhly vafw@naxs.net
VA - Glen Besa glen.besa@sierraclub.org
WV - Dave Muhly vafw@naxs.net
2) coordinate with other Sierra Club volunteers in the district in setting up the meeting date and time.
3) Invite other groups to accompany you. Make sure they support our position. Other groups might be reps from the faith community, other enviro groups, Trout Unlimited, etc.
4) You'll probably meet a staffer rather than your congress member -ask them to relay your position to the Congress member.
5) Be courteous! Be Prepared! Use the fact sheets as talking points. If there are several of you, assign roles and rehearse what you want to say. See goals below:
6) Report the outcome of your meeting on the attached form above and return it to your staff contacts.
GOAL OF IN-DISTRICT MEETINGS: To secure action by Congress that addresses global warming and oil dependence, we will ask Representatives in the House to support legislation to accomplish the following three goals:
1) Establish a national Renewable Energy Standard (RES) of at
least 20% by 2020; See Udall-Platts Factsheet
2) Mandate a 4% annual improvement in fuel economy (CAFE)
standards; See Markey-Platts Factsheet
3) Prevent environmental damage from motor fuels with a particular
focus on blocking any provisions that would jumpstart a new liquid
coal industry. See Coal Energy Bill factsheet.
Our Priority Targets:
State
House
DE
AL (Castle)
GA
GA8 (Marshall); GA12 (Barrow); GA13 (Scott)
MD
MD2 (Ruppersberger); MD5 (Hoyer); MD6 (Bartlett); MD7 (Cummings)
NC
NC1 (Butterfield); NC2 (Etheridge); NC4 (Price); NC7 (McIntyre); NC11 (Shuler); NC12 (Watt); NC13 (Miller)
SC
SC4 (Inglis); SC5 (Spratt); SC6 (Clyburn)
TN
TN4 (Davis); TN5 (Cooper); TN6 (Gordon)
VA
VA3 (Scott); VA10 (Wolf); VA11 (Davis)
WV
WV1 (Mollohan); WV3 (Rahall)
RESOURCES:
Many other documents including fact sheets on bills are posted on the web in two locations:
1. The public website: http://www.sierraclub.org/energy/grassroots/ 2. On Clubhouse at: http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/go/committees/energyhq/grassroots/ which is password protected
Additionally, you can access the text of the bills and their status on www.thomas.gov http://www.thomas.gov/
Glen Besa, Regional Director
Sierra Club Appalachian Region
(DC, DE, GA, MD, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
422 East Franklin Street, Suite 302
Richmond, VA 23219
O-804-225-9113 x 104
F-804-225-9114
C-804-387-6001
glen.besa@sierraclub.org