Dear NRDC Action Fund Activist,

This summer, the impacts of climate change were felt more severely than ever before. Dangerous, record-breaking wildfires and heat waves spread across the U.S., Europe and around the world. Devastating floods in the U.S. and Pakistan destroyed whole communities, killed many people, and disrupted lives. And it’s getting more severe by the year.

Fortunately this summer, we also saw a historic climate victory. Congress passed — and President Biden signed — the most sweeping climate and clean energy law ever created in the U.S. The Inflation Reduction Act invests billions to expand clean energy and electric vehicles, clean up dirty power plants, create clean energy jobs, protect public health, and invest in communities.

This landmark law represents major progress. It positions the U.S. to cut climate-busting greenhouse gas pollution by a whopping 40% by 2030, and puts us much closer to America’s goal of a 50-52% cut.

But this climate law is the beginning, not an end. There’s more to be done — at the federal and state levels — to get the rest of the way to our climate goals, and combat environmental racism. And the window is closing fast to confront this crisis before it’s too late.

Now, we need the Biden administration to seize the momentum and run with it. That means making sure the Inflation Reduction Act is implemented in a way that maximizes its impact and delivers benefits to the people who need them most. And it means using their existing authority to issue new standards and rules that can clean up power plants, industrial pollution, the transportation sector, and more.

Send a message to President Biden and key cabinet officials thanking them for their desperately needed climate leadership — and urging them to seize the momentum to further expand clean energy and cut pollution.

Specifically, the climate experts at the NRDC Action Fund and our sister organization NRDC have laid out this blueprint for what the Biden administration must do next in our climate fight:

1. Ensure key federal agencies llike the EPA, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and others implement the climate law as aggressively as possible. Analysts expect the climate law to spur 150% growth in solar and wind energy this decade, 190,000 new clean energy jobs by 2030, and an 8% drop in home energy bills.
2. Launch new and even bolder plans to cut climate pollution from cars, trucks, and dirty power plants; reduce climate-busting methane pollution from culprits like the oil and gas industry; enact stronger energy efficiency standards for appliances; protect carbon-absorbing forests in the U.S. and around the world; and more.
3. Implement last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law — which provides billions in much needed infrastructure spending — in ways that further cut our carbon footprint and make communities and infrastructure more climate resilient. The water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, leaving more than 180,000 people without safe drinking water, is a devastating reminder of the deadly consequences of chronic underinvestment in critical infrastructure.
4. Make sure the U.S. does its fair share globally by not only meeting our goals to cut carbon pollution, but by supporting other countries around the world. Developing nations contribute the least to the problem but suffer the most, and have the least resources to confront it. As one of the world’s biggest polluters, the U.S. has a responsibility to help them get access to the technology, know-how, and financing to rapidly cut their own pollution and help adapt to the worsening climate crisis.

And right now is an especially important time to be doing more. Midterm elections are quickly approaching in November — and with them, the pipeline funneling millions of dollars in campaign contributions from fossil fuel lobbyists to climate-denying candidates who are hellbent on watering down this landmark climate law and blocking further clean energy development.

That’s why voters like you — people who care deeply about climate change — need to get to the polls and vote for climate champions in November.

It’s no wonder that the fossil fuel industry fought back against this climate law, and hard. After all, they have record profits to protect: Second quarter profits for the world’s biggest oil companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and others — were up an astonishing 288% compared to last year. All that happened while the rest of us bear the brunt of outrageous energy prices.

President Biden and Congress made climate history with the Inflation Reduction Act — now it’s time to build on it. That’s how we are going to confront the climate crisis, and deliver a cleaner, healthier, more equitable world for people everywhere.

Thank you for your help to get it done.

Sincerely,

Manish Bapna, President
NRDC Action Fund