Take the Pledge to Build Club Power
Oil Industry Tries to Avoid Reducing Pollution
Calling for Coast Campaign Volunteer Leaders
Got Frequent Flyer Miles?
Be a Clean Energy Pioneer
Take the Pledge to Build Club Power
By Kathryn Phillips
This election year you have a great opportunity to build Sierra Club’s influence and power in Sacramento without leaving the comfort of your home county. Simply take the pledge to volunteer at least 10 hours between now and November 4 for a candidate the Club has endorsed.
During an election year, candidates we have endorsed in legislative and statewide races need help identifying supporters. Then they need help making sure those supporters actually vote, either through absentee ballots or by going to the polls on Election Day.
To do this, most campaigns rely on a small army of volunteers. This is especially true in very competitive races.
Club members can show how valuable a Club endorsement is by volunteering in an endorsee’s campaign. And Club staff advocates in Sacramento know from experience, that when a legislator knows that Club members have helped on campaigns, those legislators are more responsive to Club advocates.
Plus, volunteering in campaigns is fun. You’ll meet great people and learn more about your community and the issues that move it.
So take the pledge, and then go to our endorsements page for links to candidates’ websites and information about volunteering for each campaign. Ten hours over the next four months: A small investment with a big payoff.
Oil Industry Tries to Avoid Reducing Pollution
By Annie Pham
While most of the major businesses in California are participating in the AB 32 cap-and-trade program led by the California Air Resources Control Board (CARB) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the oil industry remains defiant and determined to drill its way out.
Passed in 2006, AB 32 continues to be the state’s greatest tool for combatting climate change. Through the implementation of this law, the state has been able to promote cleaner renewable energy, more fuel efficient modes of transportation, and various ways to reduce California’s reliance on fossil fuel.
One of the programs the state has launched to achieve these goals is the cap-and-trade program, which sets a limit on total emissions from regulated industries and requires those industries the choice of lowering their emissions to that limit or buying credits for excess emissions. CARB has methodically been bringing polluting industries and products into the cap-and-trade regulatory system over several years.
In January, transportation fuels will be brought under the cap. And in response, the oil industry has begun to rebel.
The industry is waging a serious marketing campaign to exclude its products from the cap so that it can escape the need to do its part to cut pollution. One of the most recent elements in this regulatory escape effort emerged when Assemblymember Henry Perea (Fresno) organized a sign-on letter with 16 legislators (all Democrats) asking CARB to delay including transportation fuel under the cap-and-trade program.
Transportation contributes 40 percent of California’s carbon pollution. If the state is to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals—goals we all depend upon to help contain the speed and effects of climate disruption—it is essential that the oil industry play its part and comply with the program established to help clean up that industry’s fuels.
The legislators’ letter is likely not the only step the oil industry and its allies in the legislature will take to enable the industry’s campaign to avoid regulation. Rumors already abound that there will be an effort at the end of this year’s legislative session in August to gut and amend a bill to exempt fuel from the cap-and-trade program.
It’s never too early to let your legislators know that you want to see AB 32 fully implemented to reduce California’s greenhouse gas pollution. In July, legislators will be back in their districts for a month. They need to hear from constituents like you that the oil industry must not be allowed to escape its responsibility to cut fuel pollution in January.
You can find links to your legislative representatives and their district office addresses on the right sidebar of this page of our website. If you are uncertain about who your Assembly and Senate representatives are, you can find that here.
Calling for Coast Campaign Volunteer Leaders
If you care about California’s coastal environment, and you have expertise in coastal issues, we may have a great opportunity for you.
Sierra Club’s Our Wild America Program’s California Coast Campaign is looking for a few skilled volunteers to join the team that advises our staff working on that campaign.
The volunteer team, called the local delivery team (LDT), helps the staff and other volunteers push for preserving coastal natural areas and access to those areas, establishing a new National Marine Sanctuary along the San Luis Obispo Coast, and protecting California’s coastal regions from fracking and other extreme oil extraction.
LDT members are well connected to California’s coastal communities, and use their grassroots knowledge, issue expertise and connections to inform the campaign and help craft strategies and tactics that ensure the campaign’s success.
The LDT meets about six times a year, usually by telephone conference calls, and is staffed by Mike Thornton, our California Coast Campaign organizer. This is a volunteer position. Your pay is the satisfaction of being part of an important effort to protect California’s incredible coastal environment.
Current team volunteers are smart, respectful of diverse opinions, informed, and willing to go the extra mile to help achieve the California Coast Campaign’s goals. If this sounds like you, please apply.
If you are interested in applying to become a member of the Local Delivery Team for the California Coast Campaign, contact Mike Thornton via email atmichael.thornton@sierraclubcalifornia.org or by phone at 916-557-1106.
Do you have frequent flyer miles you’re not planning to use? Consider donating your miles to Sierra Club California.
Your miles could bring a community activist to the Capitol for testimony about lack of access to safe drinking water or your miles might send a staff organizer to help coordinate strategies to campaign for a National Marine Sanctuary.
If you’d like to give the gift of frequent flyer miles to Sierra Club California, visit your airline’s frequent-flier program online or call its toll-free number to find out exactly how you can donate your miles. Then be sure to let Meg Johnson know when you’ve made the donation (meg.johnson@sierraclub.org).
(Note: because your frequent flyer miles are a perk or reward, you cannot legally deduct them from your taxes. They would be considered a gift and not a tax-deductible donation by the IRS.)
You can reduce California’s carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 20 years, simply by going solar.
When you go solar with a company that is a trusted Sierra Club partner, you get a special discount and at the same time, send funds back to Sierra Club California. It’s a win-win-win!
Go to sierraclub.org/solarhomes for more information and to get started.
  |
Thank you for being a part of our work! You may securely donate online or by sending a check to Sierra Club California at 909 12th Street, Suite 202, Sacramento, CA 95814.
