Talking points to call your Congress Representative about the Clean Energy Bill

MoveOn.org - Because Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

Call on Congress to Pass a Strong Clean Energy Jobs Bill to Jump-Start Job Creation in New Jersey

Congress is currently considering a clean energy jobs bill that has the potential to start us on the path to a new energy economy. But Big Oil and Big Coal are working hard to keep us reliant on dirty energy for decades to come.

We ask you to contact our Senators and Congressman to urge them to lead the nation and serve their constituents by working to strengthen the bill so it creates clean energy jobs here in New Jersey, with more money-saving energy efficiency and more reliance on cleaner, cheaper sources of energy like wind and solar.

It's important to let our elected officials know that we support the WAXMAN-MARKEY ENERGY BILL. If they know that their constituents support it, they'll be more likely to keep fighting for it. Plus, other senators and congressmen who are on the fence will take notice, too.

Here are some points to help you make the call

Talking Points for Clean Energy Jobs

There are real, tangible benefits in craeting a clean energy economy in New Jersey: we'll get new, high-paying jobs that can't be outsourced, a stronger local economy, and savings for local residents. Clean energy is a growth industry that provides better-paying jobs—and more of them—while lowering the cost of utilities for the average household. And every local business will benefit from a stronger economy and lower energy costs that aren't set by big oil and coal companies.

If Congress passes a strong clean energy jobs bill, successful businesses in New Jersey will grow and we will be able to put people back to work. A new energy economy means we'll ramp up manufacturing for solar and wind equipment, get people back to work making homes and buildings more energy efficient, and expand businesses to install clean energy technology at our homes, schools, post offices, and other public buildings.

A strong clean energy jobs bill would mean that these businesses will be able to compete with big oil and coal companies that have gotten rich by getting government tax breaks for decades. A strong clean energy jobs bill will level the playing field and mean that innovative companies can compete in the marketplace against giant oil companies.

We urgently need legislation to move us to a clean energy economy. But the bill that recently passed the Energy & Commerce Committee isn't there yet and it might not be enugh. Big Oil and Coal have weakened the bill as they work to keep our country hooked on old, dirty and expensive energy sources. We urge Congress to strengthen the American Clean Energy and Security bill so it moves us to cheaper, cleaner energy sources like wind and solar, and creates the clean energy jobs we need to jumpstart our economy and invest in America's long-term prosperity.

Listed below are the names, phone numbers and Web sites for New Jersey’s two senators and the three Congressmen who represent different parts of Hudson County. You have to go to their Web sites to e-mail them. If you don’t know who your congressman is, you can go to the Web site of Project Vote Smart -- http://www.votesmart.org/. It’s a fabulous resource.

Senator Frank Lautenberg
Newark Office 973-639-8700 Washington Office 202-224-3224 http://lautenberg.senate.gov/

Senator Robert Menendez
Newark Office 973-645-3030 Washington Office 202-224-4744 http://menendez.senate.gov/

Rep. Albio Sires
Jersey City Office 201-222-2828 Washington Office 202-225-7919 http://www.sires.house.gov/

Rep. Steve Rothman
Jersey City Office 201-798-1366 Washington Office 202-225-5061 http://www.rothman.house.gov/

Rep. Donald Payne
Jersey City Office 201-369-0392 Washington Office 202-225-3436 http://www.house.gov/payne/



For a summary of the current version of the bill please go to:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php - scroll to the announcement on May 15th that has the latest info on the Bill, including a Summary or
http://apolloalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/apollo-summary-of-waxman-markey-bill-041009-3.pdf - has a very quick reference summary

CLEAN ENERGY JOBS DAY

MoveOn.org - Because Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

Political Action Green Initiative Meeting

Jersey City/Hoboken Council


CLEAN ENERGY JOBS DAY

Call on Congress to Pass Strong Clean Energy Jobs Bill to Jump-Start Job Creation in Hudson County

The clean energy jobs bill, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is expected to come to a vote in the House of Representatives this summer. If passed, the bill will allow successful businesses in Hudson County to grow and we will be able to put people back to work, reduce electricity and heating costs for local households, and keep America competitive in the global economy.
In order to drive home this point, on:

Thursday, May 28, at 10:00am
Room 104 in the Babbio Center at Stevens Institute of Technology
1 Castle Point on Hudson, Hoboken

Small-business leaders and residents of Hudson County will host a meeting with local clean energy companies to talk about their businesses and how investments in a clean economy will have quick economic benefits and create local jobs

A new energy economy means we'll ramp up manufacturing for solar and wind equipment, get people back to work making homes and buildings more energy efficient, and expand businesses to install clean energy technology at our homes, schools, post offices, and other public buildings. Businesses like, 3rd Rock Systems & Technologies, which installs solar panels on large commercial areas (including Stevens Institute) then sells power to companies cheaper than PSE&G, are already based here and are looking to expand their business and workforce.

Please join us and show your support for new jobs and a cleaner world
To sign up for this event go to: http://moveon.org/
click on Upcoming Events (bottom right side), type in your zip code and follow instructions

Light refreshments will be served at 9:30am - Meeting will start promptly at 10:00am

N.B. - The Babbio Center was built with sustainable technologies, a showcase “environmentally conscious” structure

CLEAN ENERGY JOBS DAY - MAY 28TH

The Jersey City - Hoboken Council of MoveOn will hold a forum in which  
local companies have been invited to make presentations on their  
involvement with MoveOn's current focus -Clean Energy and Clean Jobs.  
These companies cover a wide spectrum of this industry from solar and  
geothermal energy to green home and office design.  They will talk  
about what they do, how their business creates jobs, and how they will  
be affected by pending legislation.

The forum is planned for Thursday morning, May 28 at 10 AM.  We expect  
it to be held at Stevens Institute in Hoboken but aren't yet firm on  
the location.

Even though it is a work day, we hope to see as many of you as  
possible.  Please sign up via the MoveOn website. 

 

http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=93828&id=

 

 

Since the location  and even the time could change, please be sure to re-check the website  
1-2 days before the event.

Thanks very much.

Greensburg, Kansas is Officially Green

Read the article at

http://www.nrel.gov/features/20090508_greensburg.html

UPDATE ON CLEAN ENERGY DAY - May 6th - CONFERENCE CALL

I just wanted to bring you up to date on what we discussed during the conference call last night.

MaryAnn has contacted a few businesses that we might showcast on May 28th - Clean Energy Day

She is going to collect all their information on a Google doc that we can all share
It seems that there are a few of them very interested.

Also Jacquie Germany is going to do a presentation on her business which is green design for the home (we posted her presentation on google docs for us to take a look at and see if it would work.)

Andy Velwest also contacted a company which does home design and green inspections and he'll get more information on that.

We will probably organize the Clean Energy Day as a big media day but instead of touring green businesses we were thinking of using one green business facility to hold a kind of a mini conference where all the invited clean energy businesses will do a presentation on their business and explain what they are doing, how the new bill would impact them, how they can create jobs and what kind of jobs they would be creating, etc...

We are still debating the pro and con of this format but we should discuss it further.

While we wait for the list of businesses participating to be finalized:

- Tom Rosensweet will start to alert our members and other groups about this event, so that we will try to have several people participate. The goal is 15/20 people. The event is on a working day (Thrusday) in the morning so we are not sure what kind of turn out we will have but we are hoping people will still participate if at all possible. It would be great if you could get veterans, unions and other group working with people that need jobs, to attend this event. It might be a good chance for them to hear about possible future jobs in details.

- Rossella and Bill I will compile a list of Media that we can contact as soon as we have all the deatils about the Clean Energy Day.

We'll have another conference call next Wednesday at 7:00pm to finalize all the details and put the planning into motion, I hope you will have time to participate.

We'll keep you posted if anything else comes up.
If you'd like to participate to the Conference call please send an e-mail to jc.h.council@gmail.com and we'll send you the number to call.

Obama’s Emissions Plan Needs Tweaking, E.U. Climate Chief Says

Obama’s Emissions Plan Needs Tweaking, E.U. Climate Chief Says

Read More:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/obamas-emissions-plan-needs-tweaking-eu-climate-chief-says/#more-8089

Discussion Draft Summary - The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

Here's the link to the discussion draft of the Clean Energy bill being duscussed in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The bill is over 400 pages but this is a pretty good summary.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090331/acesa_summary.pdf

Undecided reps on House panel hold key to climate bill

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-05-02-undecided-reps-on-house-panel/

It don't mean a thing if you ain't got those swings

Posted 7:07 AM on 2 May 2009by Kate Sheppard

HEALTHCARE AS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE

Extracts from:www.pnhp.org

Memo to Obama by John P. Geyman, M.D., is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington, and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

"........My special concern, however, is for our failing health care system and how it is pricing health care beyond the reach of ordinary Americans. Our system has come to the point where none of the many incremental reforms will work. The business model of insurance has failed, and we need to rebuild the system on a social insurance model.

Let me be direct. Although we have many dedicated health professionals, an abundance of the latest technologies, and many fine hospitals, health care has become just another commodity to be bought and sold in a deregulated market based on ability to pay, not medical need.

As you well know, industry profits handsomely from the status quo, raking in money through insurance, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and so on. Industry has a war chest to defend itself and demonstrates its political power each time any new reform is brought up.

But the situation has become dire. There is no end in sight in controlling health care costs as they soar upwards at three or four times the cost of living and family incomes. We have had three decades of incremental attempts to rein in costs, including managed care and consumer-directed health care. None have worked. We have a solution in plain sight — single-payer National Health Insurance (NHI). Market stakeholders are fighting it fiercely, but it’s the only real reform that has a chance to work.

Most of your advisers will likely caution you that NHI is too radical for Americans to accept, that you need to be more centrist, and that it is not politically feasible. But therein lies your trap. You will be persuaded to add one more incremental attempt to fix things, which will not work, will cost more than ever, will delay real reform, and will add to the pain of so many along the way. Your moment of opportunity will have been lost.

Beyond ideology, these facts support NHI as the treatment of choice in 2009.

• Premiums alone for private health insurance have grown by more than 100 percent since 2000, and are projected to consume all of average household income by 2025, clearly an impossibility way before then.
• According to the Milliman Medical Index, the typical American family of four spent $15,600 on total health care costs in 2008, fully one-quarter of the typical combined family income of $60,000; most consider 10 percent of family income to be the threshold of underinsurance.
• The administrative overhead of private insurers is five to nine times higher than not-for-profit Medicare (average for commercial carriers 19.9 percent, investor-owned Blues 26.5 percent, Medicare 3 percent).
• The inefficiency and bureaucracy of our 1,300 private insurers are not sustainable (e.g., according to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, there are 17,000 different hea1th plans in Chicago).
• Private insurers offer much less choice than traditional Medicare; there are near-monopolies in 95 percent of HMO/PPO metropolitan markets, enough to trigger anti-trust concerns by the United States Department of Justice.
• Because of costs, about 75 million Americans are either uninsured of underinsured, with large segments of the population forgoing necessary care and having worse health care outcomes; the United States now ranks nineteenth among nineteen industrialized countries in reducing preventable deaths from amenable causes.
• Wall Street is already questioning the future prospects of the private insurance industry; as of November 18, 2008, the average share prices of the top five private insurers were down by between 60 percent and 77 percent, compared to the Standard and Poor’s 42 percent.

I expect that none of this is news to you, but what is neglected by almost all economists, “experts” and pundits is that there is already plenty of money in the system, that we waste about one-third of our health care dollar on our inefficient multi-payer financing system and on unnecessary care, and that NHI will save money, not cost more. NHI is the most fiscally responsible thing we can do now about health care. The Conyers bill in the House (H.R. 676) will be financed by payroll and progressive income taxes that will be less than what individuals and employers now pay. The health insurance industry is being propped up by government subsidies to the employer-based system and to privatized public programs. NHI can save some $350 billion through administrative simplification, while offering coverage for all necessary care, full choice of provider and hospital, and mechanisms for cost containment through bulk purchasing, negotiated fees, and global budgets.

NHI by itself will not solve all of our health care problems, but it will provide a structure (as no incremental approach can) to enable other necessary steps. These include acceptance of health care as a right, transition to a not-for-profit system, reimbursement reform, rebuilding of primary care, evidence-based technology assessment, and quality improvement. None of this will be possible by using reforms that leave an obsolete private insurance industry in place, as is more fully discussed in my recent book “Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry is Dying, and How We Must Replace It.”

FDR almost went for NHI in the mid-1930s, but he backed off, mainly due to the AMA’s opposition. Today, the AMA is marginalized with a membership of no more than 30 percent of physicians, and a majority of American physicians now support NHI. Implementing NHI in your presidency can be your FDR-size legacy. It has become an economic, moral, and social imperative. Overnight NHI can bind us together as one society, all of us in the same boat. We can afford it. Yes, we can!"

UPDATE ON 5/2 MEETING and GREEN JOBS CAMPAIGN

• 
  During the meeting on Saturday May 2nd,we came up with a general canvas for what we need to do to organize the Clean Energy Job Day on May 28th.
  On Wed. May 6th at 8:00pm we will have an Organizing Conference Call with all of you who could not attend the meeting and we'll iron out the final details.
  Please join our Organizing Conference Call this Wednesday to help out with this effort. Even if you can't attend the event on May 28th, we would be very grateful if you could help us out by making a few phone calls.
  
  General ideas for the Clean Energy Job Day.
  
  The goal of this event is to pressure congress to strenghten and support the clean energy jobs legislation. This event will take place on May 28th around 10am. We'll showcase at least 3 clean energy businesses. We'll ask the businesses to give our delegation a tour and we'll try to get media coverage for the event.We'll take pictures during the tour.We'll send the pictures and comments to legislators.
  
  
  We need help from our members
  
  · We need somebody to call the businesses and ask them if they are interested in participating and showcasing their business
  · We need somebody to call the media and get them to the event (our media coordinator will help with calls details and a list of media outlets we need to call)
  · We need members to call other community groups, unions, political groups to ask them for their support and if they can send some somebody to join us during the event
  · We need to identify speakers who will explain to the attendees and the media what this action is all about.
  · We need to have at least 15 people attending on May 28th around 10:00am, which is a Thursday and might be a tough day to take off from work
  
  All these calls need to happen within 10 days, but they should not take much time.
  Please join our Organizing Conference Call this Wednesday to help out with this effort.
  
  Even if you can't attend the event yourself we will very grateful if you could help us out by making a few phone calls.
  Details about the conference call to follow.

UPDATE ON 5/2 MEETING and GREEN JOBS CAMPAIGN

During the meeting on Saturday May 2nd,we came up with a general canvas for what we need to do to organize the Clean Energy Job Day on May 28th.



On Wed. May 6th at 8:00pm we will have an Organizing Conference Call with all of you who could not attend the meeting and we'll iron out the final details.


Please join our Organizing Conference Call this Wednesday to help out with this effort. Even if you can't attend the event on May 28th, we would be very grateful if you could help us out by making a few phone calls.

General ideas for the Clean Energy Job Day.

The goal of the Clean Energy job Day is to pressure Congress to strenghten and support the clean energy jobs legislation. This event will take place on May 28th around 10am.

We'll showcase at least 3 clean energy businesses.

We'll ask the businesses to give our delegation a tour and we'll try to get media coverage for the event.We'll take pictures during the tour.We'll send the pictures and comments to legislators.

To organize this event we need member to help us out.

• 
  
  We need somebody to call the businesses and ask them if they are interested in participating and showcasing their business


• 
  
  We need somebody to call the media and get them to the event (our media coordinator will help with calls details and a list of media outlets we need to call)


• 
  
  We need members to call other community groups, unions, political groups to ask them for their support and if they can send some somebody to join us during the event


• 
  
  We need to identify speakers who will explain to the attendees and the media what this action is all about.


• 
  
  We need to have at least 15 people attending on May 28th around 10:00am, which is a Thursday and might be a tough day to take off work for many people
  All these calls need to happen within 10 days, but they should not take much time.
  Please join our Organizing Conference Call this Wednesday to help out with this effort. Even if you can't attend the event yourself we will very grateful if you could help us out by making a few phone calls.
  Details about the conference call to follow.More details and info can be on our blog at http://jerseycity-hoboken-moveon.blogspot.com/
  Thank youRossella AquilaCouncil Coordinator

HEALTHCARE REFORM

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is a member of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Health Care, which is holding a hearing tomorrow morning, Tuesday, May 5.
Call his office or e-mail him to tell him you want a public option (just like Medicare) as a part of the healthcare reform bill to be passed this year. This option will allow Americans to have a health care option like Medicare. Without this option in the bill, America will be stuck with private insurance plans that are crippling our country.
Tell Sen. Menendez you want a public healthcare insurance option! Please pass this on to friends and family in NJ!
ideas@menendez.senate.gov.
OFFICE LOCATIONS:528 Senate Hart Office BuildingWashington, D.C. 20510202.224.4744202.228.2197 fax
One Gateway Center,Suite 1100Newark, New Jersey 07102973.645.3030973.645.0502 fax
208 White Horse Pike, Suite 18Barrington, New Jersey 08007856.757.5353856.546.1526 fax

Clean American Dream

WEBCAST at our Organizing Meeting

Connect to a MoveOn.org national conference call where we'll hear an update on the Power Up America campaign -- including recent successes in our small business organizing drive, and what lies ahead in the next few weeks.

http://s3.moveon.org/audio/webcast.mp3