We see more alarming effects of human-driven global warming in our communities every year and believe the federal government should do more about it. Eighty-one million of us voted for President Biden knowing our country needs urgent action to preserve our livable planet from multiple climate crises. Democrats have prioritized improving the lives of the poor and middle class since FDR was president. That has included protecting our environment and trying to get the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes to fund that effort. “The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them,” said President Carter. In 1979, he proposed legislation to achieve the goal of deriving 20 percent of our energy from solar power by the year 2000, to be funded in part by a Windfall Profits Tax.
But Big Oil had other ideas. They backed Ronald Reagan, who told Americans we could forget about all that as he pushed renewable energy solutions off the table. After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had issued its dire warning in 2014 that we had twelve years to act to stave off further accelerated global heating, in 2016 Trump pushed us backward for four more years. For a century Big Oil has sloshed buckets of campaign funding through the halls of Congress to seduce legislators to subsidize Big Oil and under-fund renewable, sustainable energy. Big Oil has spent hundreds of millions fostering climate denial to avoid responsibility. Big Oil has encouraged our government to spend billions of dollars on wars to defend foreign oil supplies. Their greed has cost the American people trillions of dollars and countless lives. Change is long overdue.
Our Democratic president and our Democratic legislators need to stand up and make it clear they will fight corporate greed to stave off climate catastrophe for our children and grandchildren. As president, rather than encouraging the increased use of fossil fuels, Biden should use his executive power to impose energy-price controls to combat inflation during this war. Now is the time to accelerate a fundamental economic shift away from fossil fuels towards green, renewable energy.
Tell your Members of Congress and President Biden: Commemorate Earth Day by Fighting FOR a Livable Planet and AGAINST Price Gouging
Good Bills for a Better Congress: For the People Act: All the People
As Democrats, our top priority is equality: equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal voting rights. When every person has an equal opportunity to vote, Democrats win. Americans favor protecting our reproductive rights; protecting the civil rights of all Americans no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation; making sure the ultra wealthy pay their fair share of taxes; and preserving a liveable planet. That’s why Democrats’ first bill in both houses of the current Congress—H.R.1 in the House and S.1 in the Senate—was the For the People Act.
The importance of voting rights couldn’t be clearer than in states whose legislatures have been captured by the Republican Party. Where democracy is under attack, so are the people.
Take their campaign against LGBTQ+ people, for example: From “bathroom bills” to banning trans kids and teenagers from sports to a couple of states outright banning trans kids from existence, the Republican Party is on a full-tilt campaign to make state after state unsafe for trans people, for intersex people, for gay and bisexual people, and ultimately for all people. They do this to distract from their other unrelenting assault, the one on democracy—from voter suppression to gerrymandering to shortened hours to banning giving water to voters as they wait in line.
A real democracy protects the rights of its citizens. Protecting the full rights of LGBTQ+ Americans is popular, and the Republican campaign against them is deeply unpopular, even among Republicans—which is why the assault is most intense where Republican politicians are most protected from being voted out. We have to restore democracy to protect our rights.
The comprehensive For the People Act, with its vote-by-mail, same-day, and online voter registration, pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds (all things we have in California that should be available in every state), curbs on partisan gerrymandering, and strict ethical standards for all branches of government, would protect, improve, and sustain a democracy that helps us all thrive.
There are so many outstanding bills that will never make it past Republican obstruction in the 50/50 Senate. So instead of asking you to take action on bills like this right now, we’re making a list of bills our next Congress can and should enact, if we can hold our House majority and increase our Senate majority. Find the For the People Act, and others that might inspire your friends and family to vote in the midterm elections, on our new list of Good Bills for a Better Congress.
|
|
If you’re interested in participating in activities like drafting letters to our Members of Congress and developing our strategy for influencing them, the Indivisible SF Federal Working Group is where it happens. Our next meeting is on Thursday, April 28. Details on how to register below.
ISF Federal Working Group meeting: Thursday, April 28, 7:30–9 PM. Register here to join our regular Zoom meeting, where we work together to develop strategies for influencing our Members of Congress and the Biden administration to support a progressive agenda. All are welcome to participate and contribute, even if you’ve never attended an ISF meeting before.
Wednesdays and Saturdays: Bay Area Coalition Phone Banks: Our friends at Swing Left need your help talking to voters about the upcoming primaries and midterms. Join Swing Left and the Bay Area Coalition on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings to make calls to voters in California and around the nation. Sign up for a shift:
- Wednesday, April 20, 5–7 PM
- Saturday, April 23, 10 AM–12 PM
- Wednesday, April 27, 5–7 PM
About this week’s photo
If you’ve seen our newsletter posts on Twitter and Facebook, you might have noticed that we include a photo or graphic with each issue.
Today’s image is Earthrise, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders’ photo of the earth over the moon’s horizon. This photo was important to the environmental movement that led to the foundation of Earth Day in 1970. The photo was featured in an article from WTTW in 2020.
|
|
|
Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
If you'd like to support our all-volunteer team:
|
|
|
|
