Take Action: Investments in Efficiency Targeted for Cuts

A couple years ago, the Maryland legislature passed this sweet bill called the Healthy Air Act to clean up our dirty electricity generation. Part of what made the bill so excellent was that it mandated that MD join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (fondly known as RGGI, and pronounced ReGGIe, like the name), the first ever carbon cap program in the United States.

Now that the pollution permit auctions are starting to happen, and the dollars are rolling in, we’re running into some trouble. Last year, the MD General Assembly passed a law stating that the revenues from RGGI would be divided between energy efficiency programs and low-income ratepayer relief. Now that there are budget shortfalls left and right, the RGGI funds – specifically the part that has been set aside for investments in energy-efficiency programs – are being raided. Most of the money is being transferred into additional rate-relief programs.

So why are we worried? With electricity bills on the rise, the threat of global warming, and the economic crisis we’re dealing with, energy efficiency is the clear solution to helping us use less energy, lower our bills, AND do good for the environment at the same time. Funding efficiency programs will lower bills for ratepayers. Permanently.

Oh, and this will also create green jobs – doing things like this:

We can help people pay their bills and lower their bills at the same time, but only if we stick to the plan set forth by the general assembly last year.

Want to take action? If your Senator serves on the Budget Committee, or your Delegate serves on the Appropriations committee, they need to hear from you TODAY. The committees will take up this question in the budget early next week, so it’s important that they hear from as many of their constituents as possible telling them not to steal $70 million from energy efficiency, so take a minute to take action. (don’t know who your Senator/Delegate is? find out here!) Seriously. Take action now!

Powering Past Coal

It was tremendous to be part of the crowd of thousands of people demonstrating last Monday, March 2nd at the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant on Capitol Hill. But I wonder how many of those who have heard about this action or who even took part are aware of the role that the Power Past Coal campaign played in making it a success.

power past coal

In mid-November, 2008 I traveled to Charleston, West Virginia for the first national climate meeting following the election of our nation’s first African American President. Representatives were there from two dozen groups, many of them Appalachian-based, others national groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Energy Action, 1Sky and Rainforest Action Network. Over the course of a day and a half we came up with a plan for “100 Days of Action to Power Past Coal.” This campaign began on the day after Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Continue reading

Police Arrest Climate Protesters in Brussels

by David Sassoon, from Solve Climate

Photographers Phillipe Reynaers and Eric de Mildt shot these pictures today of a protest in Belgium which was organized by Greenpeace to pressure EU finance Ministers to help developing nations tackle climate change. It was yet another example of the growing frequency of civil disobedience in support of climate action.

 

Last week in the Washington, D.C., thousands of protesters risked arrest to surround the coal-burning power plant that supplies Congress with electricity in the largest act of civil disobedience in support of climate action on US soil. The capital’s police force declined to make any arrests.

Continue reading

EPA & Clean Cars

Right now, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering reversing a Bush administration decision that has prevented California and other states from taking action to reduce global warming pollution from cars – they’re holding a hearing on this very issue today, March 5th. In addition, the EPA is taking public comment before making a ruling.

What does this mean? It means that MD, DC and the 11 other states that passed the California standard for stricter vehicle emissions can actually start implementing this law, something that was blocked by the EPA under our friend George W.

So what can you do? The We Campaign has a petition going to the EPA, showing people’s support for the California clean cars waiver. Check it out. By which I mean: take a moment to sign it – it’s another small step in the right direction.

Clean Water: A blow against mountain top removal mining

black mountain, mtr
In what could be a major victory for Virginia’s mountains, the Clean Water Protection Act was introduced in the Senate today with a record 115 co-sponsors. The act would outlaw the act of dumping mining waste into streams, a crucial and destructive step in mountain top removal mining.

607 Virginia students attended Power Shift this weekend, and lobbied their representatives to end the destructive practice of MTR. Many of these students are from areas in Virginia that have been devastated by this practice, which blows the tops off mountains and dumps the waste in the valleys and streams below, just to get at a seam of coal that could be only 4 inches thick. Wise County, where Dominion is planning to build a new coal plant, has already seen

Kicking Congress' Ash

By Bill McKibben, crossposted from Gristmill

Snow doesn’t dampen turnout for anti-coal rally in D.C.

The day’s scorecard:

1) Largest anti-coal action yet in the United States: Thousands and thousands of people flooding the streets around the Capitol Hill power plant.

2) Largest demonstration in many years where everyone was wearing dress clothes: The point was to stress that there’s nothing radical about shutting down coal-fired power. In fact, there’s everything radical about continuing to pour carbon into the air just to see what happens.

3) Smallest counter-protest in world’s history: By my count, the Competitive Enterprise Institute managed to muster four demonstrators for its “celebration of coal” rally, which is about the right size. (But they were kind of sweet; they had signs that said: “Al Gore, Not Evil, Just Wrong.”)

4) Number of arrests: None, zip, zilch, nada. The police said so many demonstrators showed up that they had no hope of jailing them all. So we merrily violated the law all afternoon, blocking roads and incommoding sidewalks and other desperate stuff, all without a permit or a say so. We shut down the power plant for the day. And we’d pre-won our main victory anyhow, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid preemptively cried uncle last week and announced they weren’t going to burn coal in their plant any more.

5) Quantity of broad smiles afterwards: Almost unlimited. And in the air, there was the strong sense that we can do this. Really. What fun.

Bill McKibben, a Grist board member, is co-founder of 350.org, and author most recently of Deep Economy.