Phone petitioning for a strong clean energy bill

Here's a post from Tama Griffith, Field Fellow here at 1Sky -- Luis

This past Friday, members of 1Sky’s DC Rapid Response Team hit the streets to create a buzz in the offices of four key members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The team of ten met at Dupont Circle and fanned out to ask people walking by to call the committee members to strengthen the Waxman-Markey bill.

Citizens asked these members of Congress to make polluters -- not taxpayers -- pay for pollution; strengthen the near term emissions reduction targets; move beyond dirty coal; and ensure a smooth transition to the clean energy economy for workers, families, businesses, and vulnerable populations.

The callers let the Representatives know that climate change is an issue that goes far beyond the districts they represent and that their support of strong climate legislation is essential to the future of our world. Callers asked the Representatives to recognize the power they have been given on the issue, and to move us to a clean and just energy future.

The action was a huge success. With over 50 calls to four offices in less than 3 hours, the members definitely got the message!

After just a few calls, Representative Hill’s staffer was getting frustrated about all of the calls they were receiving about the bill. We made so many calls to another Representative’s office that they were having trouble getting any other work done. The staffers had to start interrupting callers to let them know that they had been flooded with our calls and that their call would be tallied and their message delivered to the Representative.

We stirred up some chaos to try to make sure Dirty Coal and Big Oil were not allowed to compromise this bill and our future. Phone petitioning turned out to be fun, effective, and a great way to get people involved in influencing national climate and energy policy.

Join us and our climate rockstars in this critical time to move legislation in Congress!