Contact your Senators about Build Back Better!
If you are worried sick over the ongoing gutting of the climate provisions (among many others) in the Build Back Better bill in Washington DC, thanks largely to Senator Joe Manchin, you are not alone. One of our parent volunteers wrote the letter below and emailed it to both her senators (Senator Merkley and Senator Wyden). She gave us permission to share it here on the blog and invites anyone who feels similarly to use it as a template and email their senators to encourage and exhort them to stand firm for a climate bill that will get us to 50% reduction of the United States’ carbon pollution by 2030. The laws of physics—and our children’s future—demand nothing less.
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Dear Senator,
I am writing to you today as a parent who has witnessed the severe, debilitating, and sometimes fatal climate crises of this past year--including devastating wildfires, heat waves, and drought here in the Pacific Northwest—that are only going to get worse with inaction. And I am outraged that one senator, your colleague Sen. Manchin, is holding the entire world hostage right now by refusing to accept the clean electricity program in the current Build Back Better Act—our best chance at averting climate catastrophe. I will not sit by as my kids' futures—not to mention the current and future well-being and even survival of individuals and communities around the world, including here in Oregon—are being traded away for some short-term gain for the fossil fuel industry and those who benefit financially from it. We literally have less than a decade to turn this thing around, and I expect you to do everything in your power to get the clean electricity program back on the table.
I know you are an ally when it comes to climate action, so I don't need to convince you how important this is—or to remind you of the global implications of Biden arriving in Glasgow next week without strong climate legislation (namely, the clean electricity program) in hand. The reason I'm writing is to ask you to do one of two things: Either, first, find whatever it is that Sen. Manchin needs to get on board and put it in the bill. I'm assuming and hoping there are already provisions in there for the creation of green energy jobs in West Virginia and other areas dependent on fossil fuel extraction/production. Whatever is currently in there, let's go further, so that Manchin cannot say no and still claim to speak for the best interests of his constituents. Or, if nothing will ever be enough to make him change his mind, put your own foot down and refuse to vote for the Build Back Better Act *without* the clean electricity program and other critical climate provisions in it. I know there's a lot at stake in this bill and the infrastructure bill, lots of important programs, and the Democrats need it to pass somehow--but this is just too important. Climate change is no longer "just" an environmental issue—it's a security issue, a health issue, an economic issue, a racial justice issue, a housing issue, an immigration issue—and we don't have much time, as you know. Passing the clean electricity program as part of this legislation is our only real chance as a country of meeting our GHG emission goals consistent with staying under the 1.5-degree (Celsius) threshold before irretrievable climate catastrophe sets in.
I stand in solidarity with the young people on hunger strike across from the White House right now who are calling on you to do what you must to deliver on meaningful climate action, as if their and others' lives depend on it—because they do.
Thank you for doing the right thing.
Sincerely,
Molly