Electric Co-op Today

Co-op members at the grassroots level are responding to a call to action from co-op officials on the issue of federal climate change legislation.

The campaign to ensure co-op voices are heard on Capitol Hill has surpassed 500,000 participants. (Photo By: Newscom)

Early this month, the two-year-old Our Energy, Our Future™ campaign eclipsed a threshold of 500,000 participants.

They have generated nearly 3.3 million e-mails, postcards, letters, and other correspondence to senators and congressmen about the need to keep affordable electric bills foremost in legislative deliberations.

NRECA CEO Glenn English said the numbers show that co-op members intend to hold their elected representatives accountable for action on climate change legislation.

English said that the current phase of the Our Energy campaign is aimed at enlisting co-sponsors for measures to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act.

The act is the wrong tool for greenhouse gas regulation and never was intended for that purpose, he said.

“We urge members and co-op leaders at every level to contact their elected officials in Washington and get them to co-sponsor one or more pieces of legislation that would stop EPA from going down this course,” he said.

As of April 8, the latest week for which NRECA has data, 939 new advocates joined the campaign and 11,285 new messages were sent to Congress.

Tags: Climate Change Legislation, Environmental Protection Agency, Grassroots, Our Energy Our Future