This week 49 Democrats all voted together to oppose Bernard McNamee – Trump’s climate denying FERC nominee. It might not sound like a big deal, but it really is. Drew explains why in this video and you can chip in to help.
We only have a few hours to Stop McNamee for good, so I’ll make this fast:
Something amazing happened late yesterday in the US Senate: After weeks of our calls, emails, deliveries, protests and a personal visit from me and a team of BXE activists to Chuck Schumer Monday Every Democrat in the Senate took a stand for climate action.
Specifically, they all — even the Joe Manchin — voted NO on the vote to end debate on Bernard McNamee’s nomination. He’s Trump’s climate-denying nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, check out this video from Bernie Sanders, or read the back posts if you need a refresher.
Now, we have until about Noon to add one or two Republicans to that unified Democratic front, and we can actually stop McNamee for good. Three Senators are key to this fight: Susan Collins, Jeff Flake and Joe Manchin.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video recorded right after our meeting with Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s office. Something we said must have struck a chord, because after that meeting Schumer gave a strong speech against McNamee. It’s just what we needed to reflect the growing Democratic outrage at Trump’s climate-denying, fossil fuel loving nomination0 as part of a thinly veiled scheme to subsidize coal and nuclear power to the tune of ratepayers (like you and me) paying an extra $34 billion dollars.
But here’s the thing – 49 Senators, EVERY. SINGLE. DEMOCRAT. voted NO on the cloture vote for McNamee. 51 votes in favor of McNamee was enough to advance the nomination, but I have to pause a second and remind you what a big deal this is. 49 Democrats didn’t vote NO on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. 49 Democrats in the Senate did not vote for climate legislation in the US Senate under Barack Obama. 49 Democratic Senators have never, ever, voted as a block on climate change before.
Today, at 12 noon, the actual vote, up or down on McNamee, will take place. It’s a very long shot, but we have a chance to win that vote. These Senators are critical, so we’re giving you three ways to contact each of them.
Not Sure what to say? These calls can be super short – the most important thing is to tell them to vote NO on McNamee. Some special wording for our three priority Senators is below, provided by our friends at Beyond Extreme Energy:
For Susan Collins, the message is this: “You can’t say, ‘The federal government cannot afford the billions of dollars in additional funding that is going to be needed if we do not take into account and start acting on the serious consequences of climate change,’ and then support an outspoken climate denier and fossil fuel extremist. Vote no on McNamee!.”
For Jeff Flake, the message is this: “You can’t support allowing all energy sources to compete on an even playing field, and you can’t believe that picking winner and losers is not the federal government’s job, and then support anti-renewables McNamee. Vote no on McNamee!”
And for Joe Manchin, the message is this: “Thank you for voting yesterday against cloture on debate over Bernard McNamee. Today, you need to be consistent and, since Republicans shut down debate, vote no on McNamee. Do the right thing again today!”
Last I just want to leave you with the words of a song a young(er) climate activist taught me at the Cuomo Walk the Talk action earlier this year. It seems appropriate to today:
They told us that it’s all over
They told us that the world gets colder
They told us it’s too much on our shoulders
We believe that we will win
We believe that we will win
Something amazing happened Tuesday morning at the international climate talks known as COP24: As government delegates filed into the conference hall for the third day of the global climate talks they were confronted by people representing communities from all around the world demanding true climate justice.
The action brought together key members of the global climate justice movement centered around the People’s Demands for Climate Justice, our collective worldwide call for real, just climate solutions. And you just have to see it to believe it:
Later that day, our team also held an official an UNFCCC press conference to unveil the People’s Demands for Climate Justice. We called on all governments to put the People’s Demands at the heart of their climate negotiations and ensure that the roadmap for implementing the Paris Climate Accords delivers real, just solutions that put people first.
We think that the People’s Demands — which more than 250,000 people including many thousands of 198 methods supports signed onto — are a great place to start. Together, we’ll make sure policymakers reject the dangerous schemes peddled by Big Polluters and the Trump administration.
The panel of experts came from many parts of the world – and you can read a whole account of their actions at the panel and elsewhere from our partners at Corporate Accountability International. Each spoke to the importance of the demands. Here are some comments of note from our panelists:
“We fight fossil fuels not just because it causes climate change, but because it also wrecks lives on the ground, and that’s what it’s done for centuries.”
— Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International.“Through the climate crisis, our nature, land, and forests have become business opportunities for bankers and corporations. 1.5 or 2 degrees are mere dangling carrots. The ongoing negotiations and ministerial declarations are shifting the focus away from the pathways to real solutions.
The lands, territories, and forests where indigenous people, communities, and women are in the front lines, vulnerable to climate shocks, but resilient enough to respond with their own actions, using their customary practices, traditional wisdom, and knowledge. However, our rights, governance, conservation and restorations practices are not recognized and supported, since they neither bring credits, nor profits.
Real solutions need real support. If you can’t ensure our rights, our governance, and our initiatives, keep your hands off our territories and our forests. REDD+ is not conservation. Bioenergy is not alternative energy. Plantations are not forests. We will resist such false solutions, and struggle to advance real solutions will continue.”
— Souparna Lahiri, Global Forest Coalition.“Without real money for real action, the urgent transition the world needs to make will be impossible to achieve. The alternative was set out recently by the world’s leading scientists: rising temperatures that will leave many low-lying countries and cities to disappear under the sea, and threaten life for people in countries all over the world.”
— Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International“I don’t think any of these demands will be possible if we do not address the elephant in the room: The influence and participation that corporations have in this place. […] Governments must live up to their responsibility to serve people, not corporations, but they are not. […] We see this because there are no rules in this space [at the UNFCCC climate talks] to limit the participation of corporations.”
— Nathalie Rengifo Alvarez, Corporate Accountability“People have the solutions, not Big Polluters. It’s time government heed our call and act for people, not the corporate bottom line.”
— Lidy Nacpil, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development
Day 3 at #COP24 starts with the launch of the #peoplesdemands for #climatejustice
🚫 Keep fossil fuels in the ground
❌Reject false solutions
✔ Just, people centred solutions
💰 Pay climate finance
🚫 No polluters in climate talks
🌍 Developed countries do their fair share pic.twitter.com/HPeOhNqtZA— Caroline Rance (@CaroRance) December 4, 2018
If you’re one of the more than 30,000 people who already signed our petition stop Bernard McNamee: Thank you. (If not, sign here)
You’ll remember that just last week McNamee was under fire in a Senate Energy Committee over a speech he he gave calling for a “unified campaign” to support fossil fuels. He also falsely claimed that renewable energy “screws up” the grid and and described any legal opposition to pipelines and cliamte change as a “constant battle between liberty and tyranny.”
Trump and his puppet Mitch McConnell know that Mcnamee’s nomination will never stand up to public scrutiny – so they’re rushing a vote McNamee today — Monday December 4! But they may have overplayed their hand.
Senator Maria Cantwell and allies from the Energy Democrats have vowed to fight, and there’s a chance we can stop this nomination on the Senate floor, but only if we call right now! Dial (833) 261-7330 right now and tell your Senators to vote NO on Bernard McNamee?
Not sure what to say? These can be quick calls there are two basic points you need to make:
Your calls today are part of a coordinated series of actions to get Senate Democrats, in particular, to step up on climate. Here’s a quick explainer recorded early this morning.
I’ll be all over Capitol Hill today and posting regular updates through Social Media. Check it all out and keep up with us on our Facebook page, but here’s a quick Rundown:
Manchin, you may recall, was the only Democrat to vote for McNamee last week in the committee — yet another example in a long line of how out of touch his is with Democrats and common sense on climate change. But, because of the archaic rules that govern the Senate, and because Democrats lost seats in the senate last month, when the new Congress is sworn in there’s a real chance Manchin — the only Senator to have publicly shot a climate bill in a campaign ad, with a rifle — would be the leading Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Manchin, like McNamee, is a test of Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats willingness to lead, and fight, on climate change.Which is why I’ll be amplifying the Sunrise team’s action this morning, and going to Schumer’s DC office this afternoon to re-iterate their demands and ask Schumer to lead the fight to stop McNamee, Block Manchin, and act on Climate.
And there is reason to be hopeful – since other Democrats in the Senate are leading on this issue. In fact, if you want to end your day on an optimistic note, tune in with us for Senator Bernie Sanders’ live town hall on climate change tonight at 7pm Eastern. Bernie will be joined by Bill McKibben, Shailene Woodley, climate scientists and more. I’ll be there live and you can tune in with us online here.
Did you see this? Donald Trump gave a rambling, incoherent, interview to the Washington post in which he (amongst other things) once again denies the science of climate change — including the report from his own administration released last Friday which shows that the climate crisis is already hurting and killing Americans.
It’s got to stop. And you can help deliver a clear, unambiguous rebuke to Trump at next week’s climate talks – called the COP24. Here’s how: Trump’s team is planning a sideshow event that actually promotes fossil fuels at world’s biggest meeting on how to fight climate change. While everyone else is talking about the new US and UN reports on climate change and how we only have 12 years to fix the problem Trump wants to talk about how to pollute more and get rich off the resulting death and destruction.
But we’re ready for him – Trump did the same thing at last year’s talks, and a brave delegation of youth, indigenous and frontline climate activists shut him down. Now, that same delegation is headed to the COP24 talks, and they need you to sign on to back them up. Click here to sign on to the People’s Demands for Climate Justice.
These demands have been shaped by people’s movements from around the world that are directly experiencing climate change’s impacts. Early supporters include the Indigenous Environmental Network and Plataforma Boliviana frente al Cambio Climatico.
It’s been years in the making, but we only get one chance to deliver them, and deliver them as a rebuke to Trump’s recent climate denial. We need to show that people everywhere, including in the U.S., widely echo and support these demands – and right now, your name is missing. Can you sign on today so we can deliver your name to the United Nations next week?
Last year I wrote a great post about what’s really at stake with climate change, and why I was starting 198 methods to push the fight in the US. It’s still great, and you should go read it if you haven’t already. I sent it out as a fundraiser on GivingTuesday, and got some positive feedback.
This year, I didn’t want to send a Giving Tuesday email for two basic reasons:
But there’s also some exciting new info to share from the last few weeks – so without further ado, here’s an updated take on why you should donate, the state of the climate movement, and why I think that world needs one more non-profit environmental group (this one) — all as told through 3 charts and a big picture. Check it out and if you like it, click one of the links below to donate – and if you’ve saved your payment information, your donation will go through immediately:
As you’ve probably guessed – the situation hasn’t improved much under the last 12 months of the Trump Administration. When Obama left office, we’d pledged to cut emissions 50% below 1990 levels. That was a good promise, but we weren’t on pace to do it. And that pace is nowhere near what was needed to keep us below the 2° Celsius goal of the Paris climate agreement.
Trump pulled us out of Paris in 2017, but the news actually got worse in the last few weeks when the UN released an updated projection confirming what we’d been saying all along – that we need to actually cut emissions MORE to keep us under 1.5° Celsius. And we need to do it FASTER hitting those decarbonization targets in the next 12 years to get us on pace.
Here’s an updated chart showing where we were last year, and where we are now:
Then, last Friday (right about the time everyone was getting their #GivingTuesday emails ready) the US chimed in with their second National Climate Assessment. Again, the news here is bad, but not new. Despite the Trump administration’s attempts to suppress climate science, and Trump and his cabinet’s ongoing climate denial, this report from 10 different US agencies confirms the basics above – The temperature is already rising; We’re causing it; And we need to act fast, and very boldly, if we want to stop it.
If we do nothing, the red line is what we can Temperature increase of 6-8° Farenheit (3-5° Celsius) That would make the planet more or less un-livable, at least for most of us. Seas would drive millions of us off the coasts, wildfires would burn dozens at a time across the west, and pollution (ozone in particular) and heat waves would kill tens of thousands of people every year across the midwest.
The blue line is about what the Paris agreement called for: namely aggressive action to cut US emissions and keep us below the 2° C target. The green line shows the very steep cuts it would take to get to 1.5° C or lower.
Here’s the good news though: Despite all Trump’s posturing, things are already turning around. In the developing world (yucky term but most of the world’s people live in the global south, so hang with me a sec) Installations of wind and solar power are actually happening faster than new fossil fuels. There’s a revolution going on around the world, even if we’re not a part of it here in the US (yet). And it totally dovetails with the message we’ve been delivering to so-called climate leaders since this fall’s Global Climate Action Summit: We already have the solutions we need – and the youngest. poorest, and brownest communities with the most to lose from climate change are already showing what’s possible.
Last there’s this photo from NASA of the recent Camp Fire in California that I can’t get out of my head. The fires this year are already the biggest and deadliest in history – and they’re just what was predicted by the UN and US climate forecasts above. But it’s not just towns like Paradise that burned – all of California was blanketed in smoke from the fires. And no matter who you are or where you live, you’re seeing more impacts from climate change right now today that you were a year ago.
That can be terrifying – that the scope of the problem we’re facing is so vast. But it’s also unifying. There’s no more ‘safe harbor’ from climate change in America. You can’t retire to Florida, or emigrate to Canada to avoid it. We will drown, burn, or rise, TOGETHER.
And that’s my main hope – that the presence of climate disaster all around us every day will move people to take real actions to fight the crisis. And we have done some things in the past year:
Sure, Trump will still be crazy: he told the Washington Post this week that “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.” I don’t know what that means, but I know not to get too hung up on every crazy, false and unreasonable thing he says. I’m focused instead on the things we can do. And, as I noted in an earlier post on the election, I think we’ve got even more opportunities in 2019 than we had in 2018.
In particular, I think now more than ever we need digital support for direct action that centers the climate crisis. We saw that over and over again – from protests in North Carolina where we live-streamed the action so more people could participate, to the Global Climate Action Summit, where we used new media tools to super-charge the call for real climate leadership.
If you’re one of the more than 27,000 people who have already signed on to our public call to stop Bernard McNamee, Thank you. (if not sign here) But now I need your help to delay, and possibly derail McNamee’s nomination.
Many of you have already called the Senate Energy Committee to opposed McNamee (thanks again!), but new evidence has come to light and the Democrats on that committee are asking to delay McNamee’s vote on Nov. 27th.
Here’s the gist:
In between stints at the Department of Energy, McNamee worked for a right wing thing tank funded by the Koch brothers and Exxon called the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). In that speech McNamee falsely claims renewable energy “screws up” the grid and environmental groups want to “return us to … administrative tyranny.” TPPF tried to delete the video, but some enterprising reporters dug up a copy, and a pro-renewables think tank released the whole thing last week while the Senate was on Thanksgiving recess.
Now, the Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (SENRC) say they need time to review this new evidence and ask McNamee questions about it before they can vote.
The whole thing is so damning that even Republican former FERC officials and conservative lawyers say that it should disqualify McNamee, but Lisa Murkowski, the Republican chair of the committee is pushing ahead with a vote!
Can you call the Committee at (202) 224-4971 right now and ask them to cancel the vote and reject Mcnamee’s nomination?
Not sure what to say? These can be quick calls there are two basic points you need to make:
Already called or ready for more? Click here for the instructions from 2 weeks ago on how to call through all the members of the committee and ask each of them to vote no! Only the hearing date has changed, all the other info is still pertinent.
PS – want to see what the fuss is about? Here’s the whole video of McNamee’s speech:
PPS – friends from BXE will be in the hearing room tomorrow – if it goes ahead. Click here to stay tuned to their Facebook page for updates after 10 am eastern tomorrow.
Next month, representatives from every country in the world will meet to decide how to implement the Paris Agreement at the COP24 UN climate talks. Donald Trump is the only world leader to have rejected the agreement, and the science of Climate Change.
The most recent report from UN Scientists clearly shows that we have only 12 years to achieve a massive transformation in our entire energy economy. The People’s Demands for Climate Justice is one such solution. And I need your help to make sure it’s seen and read by all the delegates before millions of people around the world experience climate devastation.
Our best chance is to demonstrate a groundswell of support for the People’s Demands for Climate Justice — a joint global call to government delegates demanding that this year’s climate talks actually lead to meaningful, just climate solutions. Will you sign on with thousands of people from around the world right now?
These demands have been shaped by people’s movements from around the world that are directly experiencing climate change’s impacts. Early supporters include the Indigenous Environmental Network and Plataforma Boliviana frente al Cambio Climatico.
We need to show that people everywhere, including in the U.S., widely echo and support these demands.
Please add your name now to demonstrate your support — and to ensure that the Paris Agreement isn’t weakened by Trump and his fossil-fuel cronies.
If you’re one of more than 25,000 people who signed on to block McNamee -THANK YOU. Together with allies we’ve already delivered your signature and lobbied every member of the committee to vote no. And thanks to you we’ve got a chance to stop the nomination: But we have to act fast.
Every day, new corruption and malfeasance about McNamee emerges – the kind of scandals and abuses of power that could convince Senators to block him.
McNamee’s only chance to get confirmed is if nobody notices or asks questions. So we need your help to make sure that doesn’t happen. Can you make a call or send a tweet (they answer them like calls) to members of the Senate Natural Resources Commitee before the hearing tomorrow morning?
Here’s who to call and how:
If you’re looking for more info, our team has published a ton of detailed explainers over the last few weeks, check them out below. A quick recap is that Donald Trump nominated Bernard McNamee to be the next commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) because he passed a ‘litmus test’ by swearing allegiance to fossil fuels and nuclear power.
McNamee isn’t qualified, heck he doesn’t even admit climate change is a real and urgent threat. But that doesn’t matter to Trump and team — they see McNamee as a perfect crony — someone they can install at FERC who will help them ram through subsidies for coal and nuclear power too extreme for most Republicans.
There’s a trail of corruption leading from now-chair-again Neal Chaterjee, to his hand-picked FERC chief of staff, Anthony Pugliese, right to McNamee.3
McNamee’s nomination is obviously be part of a plan to ram through more fossil fuels. And FERC’s Republican majority is clearly complicit. But we can stop them if we make calls today, and Senators get serious at the hearing tomorrow. I’ll be there to do everything I can to make sure they do – now I need you to make a call to back me up.
Want more?
Donald Trump has nominated Bernard McNamee – a deeply unqualified, republican-hack, and climate-denier – to fill the vacant Republican seat at the Federal Energy Regulatory commission (FERC). The Senate is moving at “warp speed” to ram this latest dastardly, destructive nomination through.
McNamee’s confirmation hearing has been scheduled for November 15 at 10am. We’re headed to DC now with friends from Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) to deliver more than 13,000 signatures opposing McNamee. If you haven’t signed yet, now’s the time!
If you agree that we can’t afford one more climate-denying Trump nominee in charge of our energy policy, sign here to tell the Senate: vote NO on McNamee and stop Trump’s FERC!
I wrote a longer piece with more footnotes and references that make the case for why and how Trump is stacking FERC with partisan fossil fuel warriors. Check it out and keep telling everyone that this is not normal, it is not ok, and it is essential that we take action in this time of climate crisis.
You may also want to check out the excellent explainer on McNamee from our friend Karen Feridun at Berks Gas truth.