Recommended Actions for the Week of 20170501

Source: RC

Description: Measure your carbon footprint and develop a long-term plan for major emissions reduction in your own life. Bookmark the calculator and consult it in your decision-making.

Background:  

We have tremendous power to reduce carbon emissions in our own lives. This is not optional, but no one will make us do it.  The transition to clean energy is happening, and needs to accelerate, and we need to be the drivers on the personal and the policy level. This means substantial change in some of our lifestyles, but a low carbon – working toward carbon neutral – lifestyle is different, but also joyful and meaningful. Measurement is accountability.  Commit to measuring, making a plan, and telling your friends. This is our personal responsibility to future generations, but also to marginalized people already affected.  Marching is important, but addressing climate change must be a daily practice for all of us.

Permanent Planet is a locally-developed calculator which addresses just the major contributors to emissions. The developer created the tool in his spare time and there is no monetization of the site.

Source: Adapted from Solar Installers of Washington

Description: Call and/or email Senator Doug Ericksen and ask him to schedule a vote for SB 5499, the “Solar Jobs Bill”. Ericksen killed this bill last year by not scheduling a vote, don’t let him do it again.

Suggested Script:  My name is _______ and I am a constituent of the ____ legislative district.  I am calling to ask Senator Ericksen to schedule a vote on SB 5499, the Solar Jobs Bill. This bill supports our growing solar industry, including 150 jobs in Bellingham and 3,700 in Washington, it leverages $10 million in federal tax credits, reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, stimulates local economies, and moves us toward the future of electricity rather than chaining us to the past. Please tell the senator to come home from his $77/hour job in DC and do his job in the senate.

Contact Information:  doug.ericksen@leg.wa.gov, 360-786-7682

Background:  In 2006, the Washington State Legislature passed a bill providing incentives for residential solar installations. While extremely effective at increasing installed residential solar capacity and driving growth in the solar industry in Washington, the bill has both an expiration and numerous opportunities for improvement. We can continue to grow residential solar in Washington, but we need to get this bill out of Ericksen’s committee! The new bill, as currently written, addresses social justice issues by lowering the barriers for community solar, scales back incentive rates, extends incentive time-periods, and a number of other things.  You can read more at the links below.

Additional Information: 

• Economic and budget impacts of SB 5499
• Bill Summary
• RC AMA with Markus Virta and Dana Brandt on the Solar Jobs Bill

Source: Re Sources for Sustainable Communities

Description: The final public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan will be held on Tuesday, May 16^th.  In the lead-up to the meeting, it is important to email the County Council and ask them to adopt the final amendments to the Comprehensive Plan.

Background: Though the Cherry Point coal terminal has been defeated, Cherry Point is on the map to become an export corridor for crude oil, tar sands bitumen, fracked gas and propane. Faced with proposals from multinational companies seeking to circumvent U.S. law, who may sue the county for rejecting permits and put taxpayers on the hook, Whatcom County urgently needs to make clear policies before new proposals are submitted. Until these policies are finalized, Whatcom County maintains a moratorium on permits for new developments to export unrefined fossil fuel through Cherry Point.  Oil companies lobbied to lift the federal ban on crude oil export. With a drastic rise in oil from North Dakota and Alberta moving to Cherry Point by rail and pipeline, the refineries are positioned to use their shipping piers for exporting crude oil and tar sands. Crude oil export will bring simultaneously more bomb trains, more pipelines, and more tanker traffic through the Salish Sea, while undermining job security for local refinery workers.  But we have legal tools to stop crude export through Washington before it begins on a mass scale. The first step is to pass amendments to Whatcom County’s Comprehensive Plan, an important growth management document which sets policies to direct zoning restrictions on permits for land and water use.

The final Comprehensive Plan amendments for Cherry Point would:

• Prevent piecemeal upgrades for oil exports by requiring “Magnuson Amendment” review of all permits that involve handling petroleum.
• Block any new proposals for shipping piers in the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve.
• Recognize Lummi Nation’s history and treaty-protected fishing rights.
• Complete a legal study by December 2017 to develop recommendations for legal ways the County may choose to limit the negative impacts from crude oil, coal. liquefied petroleum gases, and natural gas exports. New legislation will likely follow completion of the study.

Contact Information: Email council@co.whatcom.wa.us the County Council and ask them to adopt the final Comprehensive Plan amendments for Cherry Point.

Additional Information: Click through for more information on the County Council Comp Plan amendments for Cherry Point and the Magnuson Amendment.

Source: the RC

Description: MONDAY by NOON – Send questions for Attorney General Bob Ferguson to riveterscollective@gmail.com.  We are submitting questions to the moderator!

Background: AG Bob Ferguson, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, is speaking at WWU TOMORROW.  The RC worked with Western to ensure this event will be live-streamed, and to provide an opportunity for members to submit questions.

Additional Information:
See the calendar item below.

Source: The RC

Description: Install the Amplify App on your phone

Background: The Amplify App is an action delivery app, but it delivers OUR actions. RC actions -> Amplify -> You. Amplify is under development by Indivisible San Francisco, and is used regularly by the Rises network in Montana (Missoula Rises, Big Sky Rising, etc.).

Why use Amplify? RC will deliver actions once per week and you will get a notification. We will also (infrequently) send a notification if there is an urgent request. No more searching through the facebook feed!  After you take the action, you click one of the response buttons – “left voicemail”, “talked to staffer”, “did it”, etc. – and then we get counts of how many people are taking the actions. These counts will be a powerful tool in working with elected officials, showing our strength in numbers.

Additional Information:

1. Install the app for iPhone (http://apple.co/2o8cQAG) or Android (http://bit.ly/2neIpnw) (NOT currently available for tablets)
2. Press ‘Create New Account’ to sign up
3. Enter the Riveters Collective invite code: 045-857-672
4. Take an action & cheer others on!

Description: As required by law, the EPA is calling for public comment on the planned rollback of environmental regulations. Comment early and often to show your support for regulations and programs that protect the environment.

Background: The Trump Administration and EPA Director Scott Pruitt have proposed draconian cuts to EPA’s budget and roll-back of science-based regulations that protect us, our families and our environment. EPA oversees implementation of the Clean Water Act; the Clean Air Act; regulation of Toxics, Hazardous Waste Management and Disposal; and Superfund Hazardous waste cleanups. EPA also administers grants for brownfields clean up, environmental research, and environmental restoration–including the Puget Sound National Estuary Program. In accordance with Executive Order 13777 (Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda), EPA is seeking public comment on its evaluation of existing regulation. Comments must be received on or before May 15, 2017. We need to absolutely FLOOD THIS SITE with serious, well-thought-out comments.

Suggested Scripts: Click here for suggested scripts. We’ll update with new scripts as often as we can through 5/15/17, so check back often!