Other Action Requests and Alerts

Posted 7/29/2003

From: Peter Schurman, MoveOn.org [moveon-help@list.moveon.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 3:08 PM

Stop the big-oil energy bill

Dear MoveOn member,

Congress is now debating the Bush administration's energy bill -- a bill that would increase our dependence on oil, not reduce it.

The energy bill would also increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Last year, MoveOn members played a key role in stopping a terrible energy bill. This week, the Senate is considering a similar bill. Your Senators need to hear from you today.

The Senate energy bill would:
- Give more than $10 billion in tax breaks to the oil, coal, gas and nuclear industries; 
- Raise new risks of nuclear weapons proliferation*; 
- Fast-track oil and gas drilling on our wild lands and coasts; 
- Fail to put America on the path toward clean, renewable energy; 
- Repeal a major law protecting electricity consumers from California-style price gouging**; 
- Worsen global warming.

The House has already passed an energy bill that's even worse -- for example, the House bill would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Senate bill, if it passes, would be combined with the House bill, so it would bring certain environmental disaster, while exacerbating our national security challenges.

Please call your Senator(s) now, at:

Senator Robert C. Byrd 
DC Phone: 202-224-3954 
Local Phone: 304-342-5855

Senator John Rockefeller 
DC Phone: 202-224-6472 
Local Phone: 304-347-5372

Be sure the staff members know you're a constituent. Then urge your Senator(s) to:

"Please OPPOSE the energy bill." If you have time and inclination, you may also want to ask your Senator to support these four amendments, which could help reduce the energy bill's harmful impact:

1. Please support the Bingaman-Jeffords amendment to require that America get 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020; 

2. Please support the Edwards amendment allowing states to maintain stricter clean-air requirements than the federal government. 

3. Please support the McCain-Lieberman amendment to cut global warming pollution. 

4. Please support the Cantwell amendment to protect consumers from price gouging by big energy companies.

Please let us know you're calling by clicking here.

Senate Republican leader Bill Frist is pushing for a vote on the energy bill by the end of this week. Please make your call today.

Congress is about to go on recess, so this may be the last call we ask you to make until September. Thanks for all you do.

Sincerely,

- Peter Schurman Executive 
Director 
MoveOn.org 
Tuesday, July 29th, 2003 

P.S.: For more information on the energy bill, click here.  

*: The bill raises new nuclear proliferation risks by reversing a ban on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The US banned this practice during the Ford administration because of concerns that the separated materials could be used to make nuclear weapons. Now North Korea is doing just that. The Senate energy bill would to jump-start this practice, training new scientists how to do it and creating the technology to spread the capability. **: the Public Utilities Holding Company Act. _______________

This is a message from MoveOn.org.