Welcome to the Sierra Club's Grassroots Energy Activist Page! > Smart Energy Solutions

Here you will find updates on pressing campaigns, background materials, talking points, and action alerts you can use to advocate for energy conservation, renewable energy production, cleaner vehicles, cleaning up our electricity grid, and curbing global warming.

The best way to get involved in this campaign is to join our weekly energy activist calls on Tuesdays at 8:30 pm. On these calls we discuss current developments in energy and global warming policy, the status of our priority legislative campaigns, and progress across the country toward local solutions to global warming. To join this group, please send an email to Allison.forbes@sierraclub.org.

In Focus Issue: Extending Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Tax Credits Beyond 2008

Bring clean energy tax incentives across the finish line! In the past year, Congress has fallen just short on more than one occasion of extending crucial production and investment tax credits that will maintain the robust growth of clean energy industries. Both Houses have now introduced packages that include these incentives, but we need you to urge your Members of Congress to get this legislation across the finish line!

If Congress doesn't act NOW to extend these incentives, private investors could pull funding from renewable energy projects due to a lack of investment security. Congress must pass a package soon to provide investment security for clean energy industries that will create jobs, cut global warming pollution, and move America toward a new, clean energy future.

Take a few minutes to send an email to your members of Congress urging them to support a clean energy tax package.

Take Action Materials

Urge your members of Congress to support a clean energy tax package.
Use these talking points to place a call to your members of Congress.
Use this sample to place a Letter to the Editor in your local paper urging your members of Congress to do the right thing.

Background materials:

Blue-Green Jobs Report: Find out how many jobs a robust investment in renewable energy would create in your state.
Senate letter.
Sierra Club press release on failure of Senate to include clean energy in stimulus package.
National Venture Capital Association letter in support of clean energy tax incentives.
Edison Electric Institute Letter in support of clean energy tax incentives.
Governors' Letter in support of clean energy tax incentives.
Clean energy industry study on jobs lost if Congress does not extend tax incentives.
Latest News in Clean Energy Incentives.

Customize these talking points to ask your members of Congress to cosponsor the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008.

Take Action: Call your members of Congress and ask them to support clean energy!

The rapidly growing renewable energy industry provides much-needed jobs and boosts local economies. A study by the Blue-Green Alliance shows that the right investments in renewable energy would create over 820,000 new jobs nationwide, including _###_ jobs here in [STATE].

Allowing critical renewable energy and energy efficiency incentives to expire this year could cause the renewable energy industry to crash, robbing us of green collar jobs and clean energy. Now is the time to support new green jobs and the renewable energy industry. The House voted to extend these tax incentives three times in the past six months; now it is the Senate's turn pass a package that all of Congress can support.

Clean energy incentives will stimulate the economy, create jobs, spur investment, help solve global warming and promote long-term development and growth in the clean energy industry. It's vitally important to both our economy and our environment that our members of congress support a clean energy tax package.

Priority Campaigns for 2008: Passing a clean energy tax package and a national Renewable Electricity Standard

In 2007 we helped to pass a monumental energy bill, the centerpiece of which increased automobile fuel economy standards to 35 mpg by 2020. We also won a majority of support in the House to establish a national renewable electricity standard (RES) and renewable energy tax incentives. The RES and energy tax package passed the House twice � once in August and again in December as part of a comprehensive energy bill. Unfortunately, a filibuster on the energy bill in the Senate led lawmakers to drop the RES provision and tax package from the final energy bill, which eventually passed out of both chambers and was signed by the President.
>> Find out how your Senator voted and give them feedback.

Ample opportunities exist for either chamber to revisit the clean energy tax package passed by the House in 2007. Similar to the extensions mentioned above, this package would extend investment and production tax credits and enable a rapidly growing green energy industry to expand. Both House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid pledged to devise a strategy in 2008 that would help both houses to pass a clean energy tax package as well as a national renewable electricity standard (RES).

A strong national RES is critical to boosting renewable energy production in the U.S. We must move away from dirty, polluting sources of energy and invest in our clean energy future. Across America, we depend on dirty coal often imported from the Midwest or, in the case of Southeastern states, from other countries. Alternatively, renewable energy comes from clean, home-grown sources and will provide much-needed jobs and a boost to many economically depressed areas � particularly those hardest hit by the recent exodus of domestic manufacturing.

The Udall-Platts bill (HR 969) proposes a national renewable electricity standard of 20% by 2020. The bill currently has 160 cosponsors and was passed at a lower percentage (15%) twice in the House last year. Another opportunity for generating renewable electricity in the U.S. is Senator Klobuchar's bill (not yet introduced) which calls for 25% of our nation's electricity to come from clean sources by 2025.

Even better, you can schedule a meeting with your member of Congress' district office! Below we provide talking points, meeting tips, and detailed background information to keep you well informed and up-to-date on pressing energy needs. Use these materials to educate yourself and persuade your elected officials to vote right on a clean energy future!