Help Pass a U.S. Climate Bill!

July 2009

In late June, the U.S. House of Representatives passsed a much-needed piece of legislation aimed at addressing the world’s greatest environmental challenge — climate change. While the ‘American Clean Energy & Security Act’ — H.R. 2454 — is far from perfect, it serves as the essential step forward this nation must take on this critical issue… now.

Vermont’s Congressman Peter Welch was crucial to a successful vote in the House, and the Congressman deserves a big thank you for his leadership on ACES. Email him here to express your gratitude and ask him to keep pushing as the bill moves through the Senate and, presumably, into a House/Senate conference comittee.

Now, the U.S. Senate has taken up the bill and Vermont's esteemed Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders will help decide the fate of this bill.

Please help this nation move forward and seize on this essential opportunity to pass, not one second too soon, as strong a climate bill as possible.      

Here’s what you can do…

Contact Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders and ask for their ongoing leadership on this issue. Encourage them to fight hard to ensure that the United States seizes this historic opportunity to build a clean, green energy economy. Also, ask them to help strengthen the bill to ensure it goes as far as the world's leading climate experts assert it must. To get there, ask them to:

•    Fight for the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate power plants, refineries and other sources to meet up-to-date carbon pollution standards.
•    Work to ensure the ACES bill includes a Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the carbon content of transportation fuels over time and slow the development of dangerous and expensive fuels like tar sands, oil shale and liquid coal.
•    Advocate for the use of utility allowances for efficiency. As currently written, the bill misses an important opportunity to help lower consumers’ electricity bills and reduce consumer demand by helping people save energy through efficiency measures.
•    Ensure the bill includes an “Education for a Green Economy Fund,” which would drive much-needed investments into the nation’s educational systems — higher education, K-12, workforce training etc — to foster the ‘green job’ training opportunities we need to retool our economy for a vibrant 21st century.  

Reach Senator Sanders at: 202-224-5141 or 800-339-9834 or email him here.

Reach Senator Leahy at 202-224-4242 or 800-642-3193 or email him at senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov.

Reach Congressman Welch by calling 888-605-7270 or emailing him here.

It is also really important to raise broad public awareness about this bill as a vigorous and difficult debate is underway in Congress. Send a letter to the editor of your local paper and encourage your friends, family and neighbors to spread the word as well. Find contact information for Vermont papers and tips for writing letters to the editor here.

Read much more about the bill in a comprehensive analysis by VNRC’s affiliate — the National Wildlife Federation — here. Or, find much more information about ACES and easy ways to engage by visiting the comprehensive, climate-action-oriented site — 1Sky.org.

The need to pass a strong and far-reaching bill could not be more urgent. On June 16, the White House released a new report outlining the impacts of climate change in the United States. Backed by the consensus of 13 national agencies the conclusions in the “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" report could not be more alarming. On a global scale, the report predicts intensifying droughts, coastal flooding and inundation, soaring temperatures, increased air pollution and waterborne diseases and much more. Here in Vermont, we are likely to lose two iconic industries: maple sugar production and alpine skiing.

Again, while this bill is far from perfect, it is a crucial step forward. It will help create millions of jobs, build a clean energy economy and serve as the essential vehicle for a U.S. cap-and-trade system — and a key starting point in the upcoming negotiations on a new international climate agreement in Copenhagen in December.

Success on ACES and success in Copenhagen is imperative to maintain a healthy and habitable planet for current and future generations.

Congressional leaders across the nation must hear loud and clear from you and millions of others that we need this bill now — and we need it stronger. Please contact Congressman Welch, Senator Sanders and Senator Leahy you hope they will act to ensure the strongest bill possible as bill is taken up in the Senate and moves, as presumed, to a conference committee after that.

Help move Vermont, this nation and this world towards solutions on this critical issue — at this critical time. Take action today!