Moveon: contact Senators re "Please FILIBUSTER to stop the energy bill."

[papau]

"Please FILIBUSTER to stop the energy bill." <2>
Give some reasons why you're concerned -- such as the secrecy
surrounding the bill, or the harm it would cause, outlined below.

Please take a moment let us know you're calling, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade3.html?id=2127-3047713-2uTxPdYBKSg2GhuYyBO9dA
Keeping a count will help us stop this bill.

The bill is littered with at least $20 billion in subsidies to the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries. Although the bill is still being analzyed as of this writing, one credible estimate puts the subsidy figure at well over $100 billion. <3>

This bill won't solve America's urgent energy problems -- the need to reduce our dependence on oil by shifting to renewable energy sources, the need to make America's energy supply more reliable, and the need to protect all of us who pay utility bills from Enron-style fraud.Instead, it will make matters worse in most of these areas.

In recent negotiations, it's also become a vehicle for massive attacks on clean air and clean water laws, which would risk our families' health and pollute the environment our children will inherit. As Anna Aurilio of U.S. PIRG put it, "The big winner is big oil. The big loser is anyone who breathes, pays a utility bill or drinks water." <4>

Here are key excerpts from a recent story in the Washington Post <5>:

No Home Runs in Energy Bill - Little Impact Expected for Imported Oil, Pollution, Power Grid

The energy bill before Congress is a bulky tome of more than 1,000
pages, with thousands of provisions affecting every corner of the
country. But for all its size, industry officials and environmental activists of widely divergent viewpoints generally agree that it will have only a modest impact on the nation's most pressing energy problems, including its reliance on foreign energy supplies, an overburdened electricity grid and fuels that pollute the air and may alter the atmosphere.

For those who want to deal aggressively with the dangers of climate change and air polluted by auto exhausts, power plants and factories, the bill is a disappointment.
...

...conservation savings... amount to only about three months of U.S. energy consumption between now and 2020, according to a preliminary estimate by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The bill's GOP authors dropped a Senate-approved plan to require
large utilities to steadily increase their use of energy from clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar power...

The bill does not require improvements in the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, the main guzzlers of gasoline made from imported oil. The current 27.5 miles per gallon average for cars could even decrease in the next decade because of several provisions in the bill, according to some analysts...
...

The legislation's most far-reaching feature may be the repeal of the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which limits utility
industry mergers. The act's repeal is a top priority for the electric power industry and the Bush administration, and if the bill passes, a wave of mergers and acquisitions could follow...



Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act is a big problem.
Trashing this vital regulation on utilities would worsen the conditions that enabled the recent Northeast power blackout. <6>

The bill would also roll back the Clean Air Act, allowing the air we
breathe to stay polluted, in virtually any area where air pollution is a problem. This change would lead to thousands of additional asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits nationwide. <7>

And it would threaten our drinking water sources, by letting polluters off the hook for contaminating groundwater with pollutants like MTBE, and by lifting Safe Drinking Water Act curbs on injecting diesel fuel and other chemicals underground during oil and gas development. <8>

These are just a few of the energy bill's worst features. For a
comprehensive list of problems, based on the latest analysis, see:

http://www.moveon.org/energy-woes.pdf

We've got to urge our Senators to reject this bill. The only way to
stop it is with a filibuster, the Senate's tactic of last resort to
stop especially dangerous proposals from becoming law.

Please call your Senator(s) now, Urge them to:

"Please FILIBUSTER to stop the energy bill." <2>

Please let us know you're calling, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade3.html?id=2127-3047713-2uTxPdYBKSg2GhuYyBO9dA

Voting on this bill is expected to begin today. Please call now.

Thanks for all you do.

Sincerely,

-
P.S.: You can now see the bill at:
http://energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill2003/energybill2003.cfm

Notes:

<1> "On October 25, 2001, 98 out of 99 voting senators hurriedly passed the 342-page Patriot Act I - without any public debate and before most of them had read it." http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0313/lee.php

<2> For more information on filibusters, see:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html
The New York Times has called for a filibuster on this energy bill, at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/opinion/29MON1.html

<3> We've posted a cost analysis by Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office: http://www.moveon.org/energy_policy_cost_fact_sheet1.pdf

<4> As reported in the New York Times, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/politics/16ENER.html?th

<5> For the full Washington Post story, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46456-2003Nov15.html

<6> For more on the Public Utility Holding Company Act, see:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy/page.cfm?pageID=118

<7> Source: U.S. Public Interest Research Group. See:
http://www.moveon.org/energy-factsheet-pirg.pdf

<8> For details, see: http://www.foe.org/camps/leg/current/energyfacts.html