Part One – David Mizejewski Talks Rainforests with Martha

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Part Two – David Mizejewski Talks Rainforests with Martha

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Dr. Running was surprised.

“Disbelief was the primary reaction,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’ve never been canceled before. But it was almost comical. I had a pretty candid discussion with the superintendent and the school board, and they said there were some conservative citizens who didn’t want me to speak.”

The irony here is that the superintendent, who canceled the speech, claimed that the reason he had to do so was the lack of time to explain the situation to those who complained.  To appease the concerns of the complainants, they could have easily brought on a global warming skeptic scientist, to speak alongside Dr. Running.  The question then is, how easily?  Perhaps its as hard to find a skeptic scientist in Montana as it is in Texas.

Fortunately, a student at the high school is fighting back.

The controversy here intensified when a local student’s article criticizing school officials was published Monday on the student-created “Class Act Page” of The Great Falls Tribune, a statewide daily.

“I was insulted as a high school student prepared to enter the world I need to hear both sides of the story,” the student, Kip Barhaugh, 17, said in an interview Tuesday. “I don’t feel there is another side. Global warming is not a controversial issue, it’s a fact. We need to be prepared to deal with it.”

Kudos, Kip.  I think its pretty impressive that a high school student would step up like that.

Seldom did we come away from a campaign event, rally or town hall meeting without a global warming question having been posed from the floor or, failing that, asked along the rope line.  Often, the question came up spontaneously, not having been asked by members of our team at all.

Our “stop global warming” signs, stickers and supporters were omnipresent and appear to have made a difference.

As the Presidential candidates head now to Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida, here are 10 parting reflections on what I think may have occurred in New Hampshire.

1. Cast then count. Cantankerous New Hampshirites indulge in a quaint habit of actually casting their ballots before counting them.  TV anchors, however, love to count the ballots before they’re cast.  In New Hampshire, Gallup, Rasmussen, Zogby, Pew and the media who feed on their stats forgot that polls are snapshots of a specific time and place, not crystal balls.  Gee, did the public get sucker-punched into upside-down expectations about the Hillary Barack outcome.  Proclaiming “hey, this is OUR Primary, not yours (media),” Granite Staters did what they did, giving Clinton a three point win.

2. Response rate. A corollary of Ogden Nash’s “if called by a panther, don’t anther”: if called by a pollster, ask em how many hang-ups or ‘no-responses’ they got before they got you.  I’m told the raw “response rate” in the New Hampshire polling was weak, the number of undecideds was huge and persisted right into the voting booth, and the leaners were just that: “leaning, not settled”.  Another, vaguely related, curiosity: if pollsters know that cellphones have replaced landlines for a significant number of voters, how come they still don’t acknowledge a cell phone factor in their margin of error caveat?

3. We don’t make things worse. The 63 % turnout (of registered voters) shattered the 2000 record.  In spite of that, I met several people who didn’t vote in the Primary because they just couldn’t decide whom to pick. This had never occurred to me.  These voters were so conscientious! They said the Primary was too truncated, too compressed this year.  A few didn’t want to do damage by casting an irresponsible, unthoughtful vote.  The selection was almost too juicy.  All assured me they’d vote Nov 4th.  Fascinating.

4. Toast. Beware, too, the glib prognosticator.  How well I recall FOX news’ gleeful obituary for John McCain in mid-summer as McCain, out of money, fired his top advisors.  “Stick a fork in him; he’s done,” crowed FOX.  Well, McCain done well: finished first by 6% in NH, pretty good for someone who was well done dead meat in July.

5. Apogee? Normally, I subscribe to the adage “trend is you friend” in politics.  Momentum is huge for a rising candidate like Obama leaving Iowa.  But at some point momentum peaks, then stalls.  Hillary’s do-or-die get-out-her-vote juggernaut (abetted by balmy weather and the Shaheen machine), apparently had a momentum of its own, equal to or greater than Obama’s.  Why is Hillary so perennially underestimated?  A lot of women to cast a “shame on you” vote to rebuke male contenders and a media that appeared to be ‘piling on’ in celebrating Hillary’s predicted demise.

6. Double Digits. The media in asserting to attentive New Hampshire that Obama could win by double digits, became a player not a reporter.  At all the Dem events I attended, people feasted on their bounty of available picks.  They were genuinely torn.  They liked em all.  So when it looked liked Obama might have a big surplus, some of those votes may have strayed to Hillary to be sure an Obama win wouldn’t be interpreted as a humiliating repudiation of the Clintons.  Similarly, some independents, originally expected to add to Obama’s surge may have chosen to help McCain in what was perceived to be an even closer Republican contest.  Obama’s predicted coronation fell victim.  There may have been animosity among the combatants, but for the most part, there wasn’t antipathy among their supporters.  Look for that to change as the field winnows and the race gets more complicated.

7. Laundromat. One of the sweetest stories I heard came from an Edwards staffer who was gladdened to find John’s retired millworker parents at the Portsmouth Hilton’s front desk early one morning trading dollars for quarters.  They insisted on doing their own laundry before embarking on another 18 hour day bolstering their ardent, albeit wealthy, son.

8. Stamina. I was repeatedly amazed as I witnessed the freshness and resilience of virtually all aspirants.  They were always “on”.  No down time.  Little sleep.  Day after grueling day, they acted as if each event was their first, not the tenth, of the day.  And they’ve been doing this for months straight.

9.  Foreign press. I never attended a rally or town meeting where there wasn’t a phalanx of awestruck foreign correspondents or a European TV crew.  The intense, retail aspect of New Hampshire’s every-voter-matters is a phenomenon. Warts and all, it’s envied around the world.

10. Heart. I was shameless in asking literally everyone I encountered if they’d voted yet, what their top issue was, and if they wanted to recommend anyone.  The answers I got were almost invariably cheerful and respectful.  Mostly, voters demurred on either revealing their choice of trying to influence mine.  A toll collector counseled “Just do what your heart tells you to do.”  I conclude there was a lot less “strategic” voting going on, and an awful lot of people just following their heart.  What a privilege to see New Hampshire up close exercise our birthright with such enthusiasm, good will and deliberation.  Bravo democracy.  Bravo New Hampshire.  But I hear South Carolina is a different matter.

Three out of four winters, NH hardly has a pulse in January.  Everyone’s either trying to ice fish or cuddle with a wood stove.  This year “Live Free or Die” Land is throbbing palpably.  The state is about to blow its cerebral cortex picking the next President.

I just came from something billed as an Obama “Derry Stand for Change Rally”.  I expected big, and it was: 2,500 waited … and waited.  Obama, mobbed everywhere now, arrived in the Pinkerton Academy gym in the southeastern NH sprawl of Derry an hour and a half late.

“Change” is all the rage now.  I was there for Climate Change.  The Global Warming mafia got more stickers on more unsuspectings than all the AARPers, Single Payers and STOP THE WARriors combined.  Derry toddler Connor Santora clutching his dad Franc’s hand is proof.

What I found most surprising about the Obama rally (having attended a bunch all fall for pretty much everybody running), was that when he asked the question “Who’s still deciding (on who you’re gonna vote for Tues)?” easily, 40%, maybe 1,000 people (of every age, stripe and ethnicity) raised their hands.  I was astounded.  Granite Staters take their “front-porch-candidate-testing” wicked seriously.  No one’s gonna stampede New Hampshire into doing anything they don’t decide to do for themselves.  Attendees I met were there to listen, learn and kick the tires.  Way to be, democracy!

I was lucky enough to have my son Sam agree to allow us to use his head for multiple messaging: Boston Red Sox logo and Stop Global Warming pin on his cap.  Note Barack Obama on stage in background.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardiner sez this is the weekend New Hampshirites settle and decide.  But this year is more volatile and compressed (on both the R and D side) than anything I’ve ever witnessed.  Stay tuned.  Bill predicts Iowa-like huge turnout.  I plan to attend a John McCain “Mac is Back” rally in Hanover at noon Monday to see if Global Warming comes up as an issue, and how McCain, now the alleged NH frontrunner, addresses it as he woos the base.

1.  A company called Nanosolar has created solar panels that are more efficient than coal.

“With a $1-per-watt panel,” [CEO Martin Roscheisen] said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.”
According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

2.  Congress passed a landmark energy bill, which does the following:

The bill increases vehicle fuel economy standards by 40 percent and will save consumers $40 billion a year at the pump and help spur innovation and new American jobs. Its improved energy efficiency standards covering a wide range of products, lighting and buildings will also benefit American consumers.
The Energy Bill also improves provisions that boost homegrown biofuels and reduce our dependency on oil. The improvements include performance-based standards to ensure biofuels significantly curb global warming pollution and help to ease some of the impacts of biofuels production on wildlife and native habitats. National Wildlife Federation has advocated for these additional standards as important protections for the future of wildlife.

3.  Al Gore co-hosted Live Earth:  The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis:

Live Earth was a monumental music event that brought together a global audience on July 7, 2007 to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth staged concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg – as well as special broadcast events in Antarctica, Kyoto and Washington, DC – and featured feature more than 150 of the world’s best music acts – a mix of both legendary music acts like The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna with the latest headliners like Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson.

Gore also shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

4.  Investments in green technology more than doubled over the past year:

While the coal and nuclear industries spent the year petitioning the government for handouts, people with their own money on the line flocked to the hottest investment since the internet: green tech. Where 2006 saw $1.2 billion dumped into the clean-tech sector, 2007 saw $2.6 billion in the first nine months alone.

5.  Nine Midwestern governors and the Premier of Manitoba signed an historic greenhouse gas accord:

This has powerful implications not just for state and regional progress, but for global warming policy nationwide.
In addition, it lays out a detailed road map of supporting policies and regional partnerships to acheive the following, amongst other things:

25 by 25 in renewable energy and fuels (25% by 2025).

2% energy from efficiency by 2015 and 2% per year thereafter.

Carbon pipeline sited and permitted and carbon storage regs by 2012, all new coal plants to capture and store CO2 by 2020.

6.  Over 5,000 college students came together at Power Shift 2007 to demand action on climate legislation.  This Discovery Channel video explains.  Here is another video of NWF’s own Derek Brockbank, at Power Shift.

7.  In Bali, world leaders expressed their willingness to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  NWF CEO Larry Schweiger explains:

Bali laid the groundwork for developing a fair climate plan that addresses the needs of nations representing those most vulnerable to the very real consequences of global warming. It also set the stage for deploying on a global scale the kind of clean energy technology needed to move beyond a fossil-fuel based energy future.

8.  The Climate Security Act has gone further than any climate bill has ever gone in Congress.  A vote is expected in the full Senate in the next few months.

“This evening’s vote marks a new era in Congress and a new approach to global warming. After years of empty promises in Congress, this evening’s victory is a sign that the leadership and political will are at hand to get the job done.
“The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Cali., has sent to the full Senate meaningful global warming legislation that would quickly put the nation on the right path to reducing the pollution causing global warming.

Learn more about the markup at Hill Heat.

9.  Al Gore and Richard Branson announced the Virgin Earth Challenge:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a competition offering a $25 million prize for the first person or organization to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the Earth’s atmosphere to avoid global warming. The prize was conceived and financed by Sir Richard Branson, a successful British entrepreneur, and was announced in London on 9 February 2007 by Branson and former US Vice President and 2007 Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, creator of the 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth on climate change.

This prize has created incentives for some amazing technologies.

10. All of the major Democratic candidates for President have plans to combat climate change.  Grist has some excellent tools to compare and contrast:

Compare the candidates’ green positions using our handy chart.  And watch video of some of the candidates speaking at the first-ever presidential candidate forum focused on climate change and energy policy, cosponsored by Grist.

But it turns out the White House’s green party only lasted until sundown. Just moments after network nightly newscasts started to air the footage of the meticulously-staged signing ceremony, President Bush’s own Environmental Protection Agency blocked the effort of California and other states to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. While the new federal energy law would require an average fleet fuel economy of 35 mpg by 2020, California officials estimate their new emissions standard would achieve an average of at least 36 mpg by 2016.

With a single ruling, the White House simultaneously turned its back not only on the Clean Air Act, 18 governors and states (representing half of all Americans), and more than 100,000 public comments, but according to the Washington Post, the EPA contradicted its own staff:

“Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson yesterday denied California’s petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, overruling the unanimous recommendation of the agency’s legal and technical staffs.”

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately promised legal action:

“While the federal energy bill is a good step toward reducing dependence on foreign oil, the President’s approval of it does not constitute grounds for denying our waiver.   It is disappointing that the federal government is standing in our way and ignoring the will of tens of millions of people across the nation. We will continue to fight this battle.  California sued to compel the agency to act on our waiver, and now we will sue to overturn today’s decision and allow Californians to protect our environment.”

As Grist’s David Roberts details, it’s hard not to conclude this decision was based more on politics than policy:

“This flies in the face of the clear language of the CAA and the just-passed energy bill, both of which explicitly reserve for California the right to exceed federal fuel economy standards. It also directly contradicts rulings in several recent court cases. Johnson’s legal reasoning has no support outside of Bush administration political appointees.

In short, as Johnson all but admitted, this decision was made based on a “policy preference” of the White House — exactly what was prohibited by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mass. v. EPA.”Look, President Bush deserves credit for signing the energy bill. As he himself said, the energy bill is “a major step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations of our country a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure.”

But his EPA deserves the heat it’s getting for its indefensible decision. The blatant contradiction leads to a legitimate question. Are energy independence, climate action, and a clean energy future only goals when the spotlight is shining and the pressure is intense?

The package–which passed the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in the past week–will help reduce America’s oil dependency and take an important step toward reducing global warming pollution.

Listen to NWF Global Warming Director Jeremy Symons talk about the bill on the The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dec. 18. (mp3)

Ray Suarez: “Is this going to make enough of a dent in the emissions problem in the United States?”

Jeremy Symons: “It’s a down payment on stopping global warming, but we’re not done fighting. We need those provisions and we need a comprehensive bill to reduce global warming pollution. And we need to get that done next year.”

What is Good About the Energy Bill?

Historic Fuel Economy Standards for Cars and Trucks:

For the first time in more than 30 years, Congress increased fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for new cars and trucks. These provisions will save American families $700 to $1,000 per year at the pump, with $22 billion in net consumer savings in 2020 alone.

This is the first increase by Congress since the days of 8-track tapes–marking a significant advancement in our efforts to address our energy security and laying the groundwork for climate legislation next year.

Renewable Fuels Standard:

The energy bill included a new commitment to homegrown biofuels and updates the program to achieve strong greenhouse gas performance standards and includes significant protections for wildlife and biodiversity.

Specifically, the bill includes a prohibition on the conversion of native ecosystems to the production of energy crops. The greenhouse gas performance standards–20% less GHGs for corn ethanol, 50% less for advanced biofuels, and 60% less for cellulosic ethanol and the requirement that land-use changes be accounted for in these targets–help ensure biofuels will contribute to solving global warming.

Incentives for Hybrids:

The energy bill establishes a plug-in hybrid/electric vehicle tax credit for individuals and encourages the domestic development and production of advanced technology vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Landmark Energy Efficiency to Bring Down Costs:

The energy bill includes landmark energy efficiency provisions that would save consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars through 2030.

It would require more energy efficient appliances, such as dishwashers, clothes washers, refrigerators and freezers, and would speed up Energy Department action on new efficiency standards after six years of delay. It would require improved commercial and federal building energy efficiency and assist consumers in improving the efficiency of their homes.

A Skilled Green Workforce:

This package creates an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program to train a quality workforce for “green” collar jobs–such as solar panel manufacturer and green building construction worker–created by federal renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives. Major investments in renewable energy could create 3 million green jobs over 10 years.

Making Coal Part of the Solution:

The energy bill includes an initiative that takes aggressive steps on carbon capture and sequestration to take the carbon out of coal–authorizing a nationwide assessment of geological formations capable of sequestering carbon dioxide underground and expansive research and development, including large-volume sequestration tests in a variety of different geological formations. First time ever the incentives for more efficient coal use include a requirement for carbon sequestration.

In addition, it lays out a detailed road map of supporting policies and regional partnerships to achieve the following, amongst other things:

• 25 by 25 in renewable energy and fuels (25% by 2025).
• 2% energy from efficiency by 2015 and 2% per year thereafter.
• Carbon pipeline sited and permitted and carbon storage regs by 2012, all new coal plants to capture and store CO2 by 2020.

Six governors (from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas) and the premier of Manitoba signed the accord. The governors from Ohio, Indiana and South Dakota signed on as observers. There was a strong bipartisan message, and a strong message particularly from Iowa Gov. Chet Culver about how important it was for Presidential candidates to address this issue.

Part of this momentum can be attributed to all of the exposure conservation and environmentalism have had over the past several months.  Whether it was Live Earth or The Nobel Prize, global warming and other environmental issues have dominated the headlines in 2007.

Regardless of the many victories we’ve already seen this year, the real magic is about to take place.
On Wednesday, the House will vote on an energy bill with several great provisions.

1. Protects wildlife and public lands from oil and gas development.
2. Includes a Renewable Electricity Standard of at least 15 percent by 2020.
3. Includes a fuel economy standard requiring cars to go at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

Tell the House to pass the energy bill with the above provisions.  This will be a great first step toward a comprehensive solution to climate change.  Stay tuned, because the Senate will be voting next week.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee will vote on the Climate Security Act.  This strong piece of global warming legislation has the bipartisan support necessary to get further than any global warming bill has before.

On Saturday, the National Wildlife Federation is hosting an awareness-raising fundraiser called Turn the Tables on Global Warming.  This event, featuring several popular DJs, is taking place at Fur Nightclub in Washington, DC.  You can learn more on the myspace page.  If you don’t live in the area you can still take the 2% pledge.  This pledge says that you will only support candidates who support the 2% solution (pdf) to global warming.

Next week, thousands of NGOs, government officials and policy experts will meet to discuss climate change in Bali.  As an NWF employee in our international department points out, if we don’t establish and join international carbon emission agreements, our domestic progress will do little good.  Hopefully we can see some progress coming out of the discussions in Bali.

Thank you to all of the activists who have worked to make such progress possible.  It is more important now than ever that we keep fighting to protect wildlife and our planet.  I ask that you take action now to protect wildlife for our children’s future.

Technorati Profile

The first is from NWF President and CEO Larry Schweiger. It was originally addressed to NWF board members, staff and supporters, but it seems appropriate here.

When I returned to National Wildlife Federation three years ago, we were all alarmed by what was happening around us.  The conservation movement was mired in scores of defensive battles to prevent rollback of the bedrock laws that have protected our wildlife and our environment. As we were fighting those important battles, the greatest single threat to wildlife and our children’s future was being ignored and neglected by politicians everywhere.

That issue is global warming.  Scientists’ warnings – and the warning signs we began to witness in the natural world – were being ignored by politicians and the media.  Global warming still had the baggage of multi-million dollar misinformation campaigns from oil companies and other polluters  that were casting this as a partisan issue.

There are some who will question our support of the Lieberman-Warner bill until we get all the changes we would want to make it a perfect bill.  I welcome the questioning because it means that the dialogue about global warming has risen to a new level.  People are angry that we have gone so long without acting.  They should be.  I am angry too.

However, we also need to listen carefully to what scientists are telling us about solving this problem.  We are facing a planetary crisis with a firm deadline and there is no time for delay.  Every day we wait, the risks grow and action becomes more difficult.  Why?  Our emissions are going up when they need to be going down.  According to the Bush Administration, our emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States will actually increase by one-third by the year 2030 if we don’t turn things around fast.

Scientists are warning us that we must act within the next few years to cut our emissions by two percent every year.  We need to hit that pivot point – the time when our emissions go down instead of up, as soon as possible. We need strong legislation that reduces global warming pollution and we need it now.

That’s why I am optimistic about America’s Climate Security Act.  Unlike past votes in Congress for measures that would have merely stopped emissions from growing, this bill actually puts us quickly on the downward trajectory of cutting emissions from large emitters by two percent per year from current levels.   And, it is the first bill to include all large emitters, not just power plants.

What’s more, this is the first legislation with specific measures to address impacts on consumers, particularly low- and middle-income families.  The bill devotes an estimated $350 billion through the year 2030 from polluter payments to help consumers reduce their energy consumption through efficiency.  We need to make sure legislation does not put the burden on those least able to carry it.  And we need to make sure that everyone has access to the economic opportunity created by this clean energy revolution.

The bill also includes essential provisions for protecting America’s fish and wildlife, great waters, and other natural resources from the climate changes that can no longer be avoided.  Healthy wetlands and other habitat are critical for wildlife and serve to protect our communities from the impacts of storms, droughts and other climate extremes brought on by global warming.  A rapidly changing climate is adding additional pressures to ecosystems already stressed by development, pollution and invasive species.   The Lieberman-Warner bill requires polluters to pay into a fund that devotes more than $160 billion through the year 2030 to protecting wildlife and America’s great waters.

Despite the many benefits of this bill, National Wildlife Federation has been seeking improvements. Some we have achieved, such as stronger goals in the coming fifteen years for reducing pollution.  We must get moving quickly, and not postpone the heavy lifting decades into the future.

National Wildlife Federation has fought hard for many of the strongest pieces of the bill and worked with the sponsors to improve this bill at each stage of the process.  And we have done it by building support and encouraging leaders like Senators Lieberman and Warner to step forward.

I am convinced that we will not meet the urgency of the climate crisis if we allow criticism to block progress.  We must focus on what unites us and not on what divides us.  By acting now we can re-adjust our aim as we go forward.  It is easier to turn the wheel of a car that is rolling than one that is sitting still.  Movement begets movement.

Additionally, getting a Senate vote on a substantive global warming bill will help raise the profile of the issue nationally as voters turn their attention to what candidates are saying about global warming.  As long as there is no action on global warming, it is very difficult to tell where candidates stand on this issue.  The climate crisis must become one of the top tier issues for Americans in this presidential campaign.

Read the full letter here.

The second,  is from seven environmental groups, to the Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  The seven groups signed onto the letter are:  National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Union of Concerned Scientists and The Wilderness Society.  This letter shows the strong support the bill has.

Dear Members of the Environment and Public Works Committee,

We are writing to highlight the mounting urgency of action on global warming and
encourage prompt action by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. A
new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warns that the global
buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has accelerated unexpectedly rapidly in
this decade. Similarly, recent evidence from the Arctic demonstrates that the greenhouse
gases already in the atmosphere are changing our climate far more rapidly than scientists
have predicted.

These and other findings underscore the need for prompt action to reduce the pollution
that is causing global warming. Time is running out for effective action, and we need to
get started now. The Department of Energy is forecasting that U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions will increase by more than 30% by 2030 without action. The longer we delay
action, the greater the impacts and risks, and the more dramatically we will have to cut
emissions in future years to achieve the same results.

Consequently, we applaud Senators Lieberman and Warner for their leadership and the
subcommittee for debating S. 2191 with the goal of reporting a bill to the full committee.
We further applaud Chairman Boxer for seeking to expeditiously report a bill out of the
full committee this fall. We would also like to thank Senator Baucus for his expressed
support of S. 2191.

We acknowledge and thank the sponsors for making important improvements in the bill
from their August outline. We also thank Senators Sanders and Lautenberg and other
members of the subcommittee and committee who are working to strengthen the bill as it
moves through the process.

It is vitally important that the Senate have a full and open debate on global warming
action. We therefore ask all members of the Environment and Public Works Committee
and its subcommittee of jurisdiction to work together to deliver a strong, bipartisan bill to
the full Senate this year.

Read the full letter here.