Phyllis and Tarah,
Here is the info on the energy bill and the Arctic.
Getting this op-ed in the Register would be great since it competes
against
ethanol.
Let me know if you need more.
Brett
Brett Hulsey
Senior Midwest Representative
Sierra Club
214 North Henry Street, Suite 203
Madison, WI 53703
Phone: 608-257-4994
Fax: 608-357-3513
Cell: 608-334-4994
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: www.sierrraclub.org
Building better communities for a better America
----- Forwarded by Jessica Hodge/Sierraclub on 06/01/2005 04:26 PM -----
Jessica
Hodge/Sierraclub
To
05/23/2005 07:00 Glen Hooks, Rob Smith, Frank
PM Jackalone, Tarah Heinzen, Colleen
Kiernan, Maura Wood, Maureen
Drouin, Leigh Fifelski, Melissa
Damaschke, Joshua Davis, Cesia
Kearns, Kathryn Hohmann, Christine
Phillips, Christa Wagner, Laura
Krebsbach, camilla watkins, Tara
Smith, Kurt Ehrenberg, Emily
Templin, Jessica Gilbertson, Sarah
Lundstrum, Carol Weahkee, Paul
Shively, Nat Parker, Elise
Annunziata, Rachel Martin,
Jennifer
Tuttle, Deanna White, Glen Besa
cc
Brendan
Bell/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
Grant Cope/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
Keren
Murphy/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
Dave
Hamilton/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
Brian
OMalley/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
Maribeth
Oakes/Sierraclub@Sierraclub,
#Field-Action-Council,
[log in to unmask]
Subject
ACT:Energy Bill Field Actions
needed AR, AZ, CO, FL, GA, IA, LA,
ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH,
NM,
NV, OR, PA, RI, SD, VA
TO: Field Staff
FR: Bingaman and Hodge
RE: ACT: Senate Energy Bill "PLAY TO WIN"
AT ISSUE
Following the passage of the House energy bill, the Senate is now taking
up
energy legislation and will likely have a final vote sometime in the
middle
of June. We need to raise the visibility on a handful of key issues that
could successfully monkey wrench the energy bill process and prevent this
destructive legislation from becoming law.
ACTION NEEDED & TIMING
(1) Review target list and implement tactics associated with the primary
issue associated with your Senator.
(2) Call DC issue person contact to discuss specific targeting of your
Senator.
(3) Start May 23, 2005 and finish by June 10, 2005
*************************************************************************
***
***********************************
STRATEGY AND GOALS
GOAL - Defeating the Energy Bill - The energy bill represents one of the
worst environmental assaults in recent history. It is imperative that we
block the passage of this destructive bill.
STRATEGY - Now that the energy bill has passed the House, the fight turns
to the Senate. While we will work to defeat the energy bill in the
Senate,
it is likely that the Senate version of the energy bill will be slightly
better than the House version and will have enough positive provisions to
garner sufficient bipartisan support to pass fairly easily in the Senate.
However, we know that once the energy bill passes the Senate and goes to
conference with the House, the Republican leadership will remove almost
all
of the positive pieces from the Senate version and include many of the
bad
House provisions, effectively forcing Senators to choose between
supporting
a bad conference report and mounting a filibuster. As a result, our
strategy focuses on setting ourselves up to successfully filibuster the
energy bill when it returns from conference.
In order to block the conference report with a filibuster, we need to get
our target group of Senators entrenched behind a group of issues that
will
in effect make or break the energy bill for them. We have chosen issues
that are must haves for the Senate and deal breakers for the House.
. MTBE liability waiver: One of the most contentious pieces of the
energy bill is the liability waiver for MTBE manufacturers which gives
blanket protection to producers of the carcinogenic gasoline additive.
Currently, communities around the country are suing the oil companies
that
produced MTBE which has now leaked into water supplies, in an effort to
cover the estimated $30 billion clean-up cost nationwide. However, House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay has repeatedly insisted on including MTBE
liability protection in any energy bill, in part because the largest MTBE
producer is located in his district and is a major campaign contributor.
The more we can exacerbate the fight over MTBE, the more difficult it
will
be for a conference report to pass the Senate. Effectively, a bill can
not
currently pass in the Senate with the MTBE liability waiver and it can
not
pass in the House if it does not include the waiver.
. Coastal and Onshore Drilling: The House energy bill contains
multiple provisions that put coastal areas and other public lands at risk
to oil and gas drilling. When the energy bill comes to the Senate there
is
likely to be an even bigger fight over drilling off our coastlines and
other special areas. In particular, the coastal drilling provisions
split
the Republican caucus because there are a host of east coast Republican
Senators that oppose offshore drilling in their states.
. Renewable Energy and Oil Savings: We expect that the Senate energy
bill will include a renewable energy standard and possibly some oil
savings
or fuel economy provisions. These provisions are not acceptable to the
House and will likely be removed from the conference report. These
provisions are important to a group of primarily Democratic senators who
want to see clean energy provisions in the bill as a way to 'balance' the
dirty provisions. In addition, many Senators want to be able to point to
an energy bill that cut U.S. oil consumption for national security
reasons.
As a result, this is another wedge issue that we can use to block the
conference report.
. Corporate Subsidies: For many fiscal conservatives, the burgeoning
cost of the energy bill is a particularly thorny issue, particularly as
oil
companies continue to post record profits. While the House passed energy
bill has a lower price tag than last year, we will still try to create a
block of Senators who will insist on a lower spending limit for the
energy
bill.
MESSAGE
The Bush administration's polluting energy bill makes America less safe
by
increasing our dependence on oil, exposing communities to unsafe air and
drinking water, and running up the national debt with billions of dollars
in handouts to polluting industries. America deserves a cleaner, safer,
and cheaper energy policy that invests in innovative solutions like
hybrid
cars, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Putting these solutions
to
work would free America from its dependence on oil and other fossil
fuels,
create new high-tech jobs, and cut consumer energy bills.
TACTICS & TIMELINE
Timeline: Start May 23, 2005 and finish by June 10, 2005.
Senate Tactics
1) CONSTITUENT CALLS: Please generate 30 constituent calls
into
your Senate target. Talking points are attached in the
resources section below.
Media Tactics
1) Submit 2 lte's per week Find volunteers and grasstops to place
them.
2) One Opinion Editorial: We request that you get at least one
opinion
editorial published with, to the extent possible, legislatures, municipal
officials, water providers, state underground storage tank officials and
other grass top individuals. Work with the issue team contact to develop
OPED.
MTBE Optional Tactics:
1) Find and Highlight Individuals: Help find and highlight
individuals, including especially children, people of faith
and
mothers, which have been injured by or exposed to MTBE
contamination. We will provide some states with a list of
potential individual(s). However, your on-the-ground
knowledge
will likely be far more valuable than our list.
We request that you conduct press events, with the press
material that we will provide to you (see below), to
highlight
the individual's story. We request that you conduct these
press events with the heads of local municipalities, water
provides and other grass top individuals, where possible. We
will provide you with a list of potential contacts. Please
send
us any media clips about the event.
2) Environmental and Public Health Letter: We request that
you
take the lead in circulating a sign-on letter to other
environmental and public health organizations that oppose the
MTBE liability waiver. We have provided a draft letter and
state data in the Resource Section. Please send us the final
letter.
TARGETS
Please examine the target list below and see if your Senators are on the
list. If they are a target, please look at the primary issue attached to
their name and follow the tactics laid out in the 'Tactics and Timeline'
section. All of our energy bill work should focus first on our overall
message of opposing the bill, but we want to make our case using
different
provisions highlight specific provisions for different Senators.
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Target | Party | State | Issue |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Lincoln | D | AR | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Pryor | D | AR | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| McCain | R | AZ | Subsidies, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Salazar | D | CO | Renewables, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Carper | D | DE | Coastal, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Martinez | R | FL | Coastal, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Chamblis | R | GA | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Isakson | R | GA | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Harkin | D | IA | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Bayh | D | IN | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Brownback | R | KS | Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Landrieu | D | LA | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Collins | R | ME | Coastal, Renewables, MTBE|
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Snowe | R | ME | Coastal, Renewables, MTBE|
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Levin | D | MI | Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Stabenow | D | MI | Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Dayton | D | MN | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Baucus | D | MT | Renewables, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Burr | R | NC | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Dole | R | NC | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Conrad | D | ND | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Dorgan | D | ND | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Nelson | D | NE | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Gregg | R | NH | MTBE, Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Sununu | R | NH | MTBE, Subsidies |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Bingaman | D | NM | Overall Bill, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Ensign | R | NV | Nukes |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Smith | R | OR | Coastal, Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Santorum | R | PA | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Specter | R | PA | MTBE, Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Chafee | R | RI | Renewables |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| DeMint | R | SC | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Graham | R | SC | Coastal |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Johnson | D | SD | MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
| Warner | R | VA | Coastal, MTBE |
|-------------+--------+-------+--------------------------|
RESOURCES
1. Talking point's
2. Draft LTE's
3. Draft MTBE OPED
4. MTBE state specific information
FUNDING
Type of Funds _____ c3 or ___X___ c4 (indirect lobbying
Funds available from DC based program? __X__ Yes (contact DC issue team
contact for product code)
____
No
(use existing field product codes and funds)
Jessica Hodge
Sierra Club
tel: 202.675.7910
cell: 202.494.8717
[log in to unmask]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp
|
