At CCAN, our main mission is to achieve climate and clean-energy policy advancements. Of course, we’re also determined make sure existing policies and programs have their full effect.

So, for our friends in DC, here’s a reminder to take advantage of the wonderful free home energy-audit program that the Department of the Environment established a few years back. If you own a single family or town home with 4000 square feet or less of floor space, you’re eligible for a cost-free professional assessment of your home’s energy use courtesy of the District's Home Energy Rating System program. All you’ve got to do is register for an audit and a professional from a certified home energy auditor like our friends at Elysian Energy, LLC will be in touch to schedule an appointment.

If you think this sounds like a good deal, then make sure to get your audit scheduled ASAP. Currently there's no guarantee that the District will renew the program after July 30th, and once people get wind of this, there could be a rush of customers vying for the limited remaining appointments.

Audits typically take a few hours and can help you identify cost effective ways to cut your energy bills and your carbon footprint. Plus, you’ll be helping to support local green jobs. Thanks to the HERS program, Elysian Energy for example is able to support six employees in the District.

And remember, such programs only exist because of the encouragement the District government has received from grassroots advocates. So once you’ve gotten your audit (or if you’ve already had one) please send a note to your city council members asking them to maintain and grow funding for these kinds of programs through the city’s Sustainable Energy Trust Fund.

For more info on the HERS program click here to visit the DDOE site, or visit Elysian's site. And when you sign up for the audit, don't forget to mention that CCAN sent you!

 

This Saturday 5/5/12, people across Maryland and the world will take action to "connect the dots" between climate change, extreme weather and other climate impacts that are already affecting our lives. Organized by 350.org, Climate Impacts Day is shaping up to be another powerful demonstration of the grassroots determination to spur global action on this most urgent of global crises.

Here in Maryland we got off to an early start with our efforts to connect the dots when I traveled to Annapolis this week to chat with hardcore, Annapolis-based sailor Matt Rutherford.

 

Annapolis, 4/6/12
By James McGarry

With time running out in the Maryland General Assembly, a group of minority business and civic leaders from across the state gathered Friday in Annapolis to urge immediate passage of the Offshore Wind Energy Act (SB 237) in the Senate Finance Committee. Leaders highlighted the health and environmental benefits of the bill, as well as the fact that tens of millions of dollars in minority business funds will be lost if the Senate Finance Committee fails to act.

In attendance representing Maryland businesses were Lance Lucas, President of the Greater Baltimore Black Chamber of Commerce, Vernon Wade, President/CEO of Wade Enterprises, Inc. and chair of the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce, and Shawn Young of the Prince George’s Electrical Association. In addition to the thousands of jobs that would be created over the next five years and the more than $100 million in economic opportunities for minority businesses, the speakers emphasized the environmental and health benefits that would result from the bill, citing that African American children are disproportionately affected by asthma.

“If Maryland doesn’t act now, this opportunity could pass us by,” said Wade, before adding that, “we can consider this a game changer.”

The bill must clear the Senate Finance Committee to reach the Senate floor for a vote by Monday, April 9, before the end of the legislative session. It cleared the House of Delegates on March 30 by a margin of 88-47. Supporters are currently working hard to secure a sixth vote in the eleven member panel. Committee Chairman Thomas “Mac” Middleton said the panel will not vote until after the bill has firm majority support within the committee.

If measured by the turnout at the rally at the Annapolis state house yesterday, of all the issues confronting the Maryland General Assembly as it reconvenes this week, offshore wind power enjoys the most energetic public support.

Maintaining the grassroots momentum from a statewide series of packed “Wind Works” town hall forums, over 100 citizen clean energy advocates from across Maryland descended on Lawyers’ Mall on Wednesday morning to greet returning state lawmakers with an unequivocal message: “Get it done in 2012! Wind works for Marylanders’ health, jobs, climate and energy costs!”

Decked out in blue campaign t-shirts, wind advocates were the most visible activist presence on the opening morning of the 2012 legislative session. The impressive show of support for a cold weekday morning jibed with recent statewide poll results which showed that nearly two-thirds of Marylanders support developing the state’s robust offshore wind energy resources, even if it means a small initial bump in energy costs.

Speaking to the rally crowd, state Senate Majority Leader, Rob Garagiola scoffed at charges from critics that Marylanders can’t afford to invest in offshore wind: “The price of coal goes up; the price of gas goes up. Does the price of wind ever go up?

The crowd responded with a resounding, “No!”

“That’s right,” Garagiola continued, “It doesn’t go up. This is going to save ratepayers money.”

Other speakers included the state House Majority Leader Kumar Barve, climate justice and health advocate Vernice Miller Travis, Chesapeake Climate Action Network Director Mike Tidwell, MD Delegate Tom Hucker, Johns Hopkins student Tippy Patrinos, business innovator Joe Gaskins, and state Senator Paul Pinsky.

After the rally, the sea of blue shirts shifted from the mall to the inside of the state house and the legislative office buildings where activists took the wind works message to legislators and other dignitaries.

On his way to address the opening session, Governor Martin O’Malley stopped to greet wind activists distributing fliers on the mall, and reiterated his support for pushing the bill through the Assembly this year. The Governor’s new offshore-wind energy bill is expected to drop in the next few weeks along with the rest of his ambitious legislative package. With other big ticket issues like same-sex marriage, a proposed sales or gas tax increase on the agenda clean energy advocates certainly have their work cut out for them in keeping wind at the top of the priority list. But if advocates keep bringing the same grassroots energy they brought to Annapolis on Wednesday, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Learn more about the “Wind Works for Maryland” campaign and get involved at www.marylandoffshorewind.org.

Few if any issues are as important to the future health, economic sustainability and quality of life of communities around the world than climate change and clean energy. And as we’ve seen at two separate town hall events in Prince George’s County and Montgomery County these past two weeks, Marylanders know it.

The war over America's coastal-energy future has officially begun, and the result could determine whether we see wind turbines or catastrophic oil spills along our coastlines in coming years.

The opening salvo came in early July, when everyone's favorite climate-hating, fossil-fuel-loving industrialist villains, the Koch brothers, released a so-called "cost-benefit analysis" of New Jersey offshore wind development plans through their front group Americans for Prosperity.

The focus on New Jersey is no big surprise. Fresh off their recent success in manipulating the state's Republican Gov. Chris Christie into backing out of the Northeastern cap-and-trade system known as RGGI, the brothers grim are honing in on what they see as a weak spot in the clean-energy movement's eastern front. Hoping to score a knockout blow, the duo have packed their offshore wind "analysis" with distortions.

Topping the report's list of misrepresented facts are the jobs benefits. In fact, forget about misrepresentation; the report actually failed to represent those benefits altogether. Considering the impressive job-creation numbers cited in a range of other studies on offshore wind, it's hard to imagine how any analysis that wasn't commissioned as an intentional piece of fiction could have made such a glaring omission. Indeed, a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that the 1,000 megawatts of offshore wind power New Jersey is planning to build could result in nearly 5,000 construction and maintenance jobs. Adding to the imbalance of the Kochs' equations, their report completely discounts wind power's benefit as a relief valve against foreign-oil dependence or New Jersey's need to import electricity from other states.

Of course, this parade of misinformation should come as little surprise considering the track record of the key Koch crony in the Garden State: AFP New Jersey chapter director and Tea Party high priest Steve Lonegan. A longtime extreme-right gadfly of the New Jersey political scene, Lonegan earned his Koch-worthy credentials publishing false accusations about political opponents during his time as mayor of Bogota, N.J., and has been accused of violating state election laws and defrauding taxpayers in a 2008 run for governor. What's more, as chronicled in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Lonegan was the local force behind the "dishonest scare-campaign" that led to Christie's retreat from RGGI.

With Lonegan leading the offensive, it's clear the Kochs are planning to make the fight over New Jersey's coasts a particularly ugly and bruising one. The situation also bodes ominously for other states up and down the Mid-Atlantic Bight that are considering wind projects, from Connecticut to North Carolina.

Thankfully, for all the dollars and deceitfulness the Kochs have in their arsenal, their victory is far from assured. As their failed attempt to cut down California's climate law in 2010 proved, the Kochs can be beaten by a well-organized, grassroots-powered opposition with truth on its side. And that's exactly what they're up against in New Jersey and up and down the Mid-Atlantic Bight, where a robust coalition involving everyone from Google to the United Steelworkers to the League of Women Voters is ready to stand up for wind and smack down any BS Lonegan and the Kochs serve up.

Game on, boys. Bring it.

This post has been cross-posted courtesy of Grist
Image credit: Gus Ruelas/Greenpeace

On Tuesday morning, CCAN's Virginia team and members of the newly created VA4Wind coalition came together to formally announce our campaign to bring offshore wind energy to Virginia. Because Dominion Virginia Power is the commonwealth's largest electric utility, the coalition is calling on the company to develop a large-scale offshore wind energy project off of Virginia's coast. We hope to compel Dominion to include offshore wind in its September 2011 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP).

[caption id="attachment_4507" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="VA4Wind"][/caption]

At the event, VA4Wind leaders touted the plentiful benefits of offshore wind energy and the opportunities it provides for the commonwealth, including the addition of thousands of new jobs and a new revenue source for Virginia's economy, cleaner air and water, and stable long-term energy prices. With plentiful offshore winds, a deepwater port and a skilled and experienced labor force, Virginia could easily be the east coast capital for America's new offshore wind industry.

In just a matter of weeks, VA4Wind has already collected more than 3,000 signatures from Virginians who want to see Dominion take concrete steps towards developing offshore wind power. In addition, more than 60 Virginia businesses and organizations have already pledged their support for offshore wind energy.

Sign the petition today, and if you own a business or non-profit, please add your business' name to our platform sign-on letter here.

Fear and money, as these past few years of recession have made abundantly clear, are two very powerful political forces especially when combined. And as we're seeing right now in places like Wisconsin, powerful political and corporate players are hard at work exploiting fears over money to advance their political agendas. It's the worst form of cynical political ploys

Crossposted from Alternet.org

For visions of America's energy future, we tend to look to the nexus of the current world energy order

If President Obama is right and the U.S. is facing a new "Sputnik Moment", we shouldn't have to look too hard to find examples of foreign countries rocketing past us with the new competitive technologies of the 21^st century. Not hard at all. In fact, when it comes to the technology sector at the top of the President's list