Join fellow Sierrans on Monday, March 2nd to lobby key General Assembly members to ensure strong environmental legislative victories in 2015! Sign up today!
We need interested volunteers to come to Annapolis on the evening of March 2 to make personal visits to legislators and ask them to vote green on specific bills that will make a difference in Maryland’s environment. Don’t feel you have expertise? No worries! We will supply you with training and fact sheets. But remember –- the most important thing you can contribute is your personal interest in just showing up. Legislators might not care if you are an issue expert, but they do care that you are an interested voter concerned enough to visit them!
Details
When: Monday, 2nd, 2015, 5:00 - 8:00 pm
Where: TBD
RSVP - www.mdlobbynight.com
Questions? Contact: doreen.paster[@]mdsierra.org'
Our priorities for 2015 are to:
1. Address climate change by increasing clean renewable energy in Maryland and decreasing dirty energy from incineration.
Increase the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 40% by 2025. (Fact sheet)
Ensure that the RPS promotes only clean sources like wind and solar energy, and does not incentivize energy from dirty incineration-based sources. (Fact sheet)
Encourage community renewable energy by eliminating barriers to community-based (school, apartment building, open field, etc.) solar and wind energy projects.
Encourage energy efficiency and right-to-know by establishing an energy benchmarking and disclosure right-to-know program for commercial buildings.
Protect Maryland from health risks from fracking by extending the moratorium until a complete suite of fully-protective regulations are in place (ban on public lands and within certain distances of sensitive receptors, transport/disposal, public disclosure of chemicals, monitoring, etc.).
2. Support a clean and economically-vibrant Chesapeake Bay.
Continue to defend the Bay from pollution from contaminated run-off due to impermeable (paved) surfaces.
Protect and enhance the Bay, by reducing manure pollution from industrial agricultural operations.
3. Protect honeybees by banning the use of neonicotinoids (honeybee-killing pesticides) except for certified applicators, and requiring labelling of plants grown with neonicotinoids.
4. Increase health protection equity for Maryland’s most vulnerable and overburdened citizens by increasing awareness and consideration of cumulative environmental risks.