Hi everyone –

As folks know, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis is holding their first hearing today! Below and attached, please find message guidance from both the Committee and CAC. Please use these resources as you see fit. Thank you!

\\\\

Message Guidance: House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis

Main Messages from the Committee:

• This is the committee’s first hearing, so we want to emphasize that we’re committed to ambitious climate action: the kind that advances generational justice and ensures young people inherit a healthy climate.
• This is the first generation that has grown up in the climate crisis. They’re taking action in response. We need to take action, too, because the decisions we make today will determine what kind of planet they inherit.
• These aren’t just young people: these are voters, workers, taxpayers, and vital members of our democracy. We need to do what’s possible today as well as what’s necessary for our future.
• One of the first steps we’ve taken is sponsoring the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), which would make sure we honor our commitments to cut dangerous carbon pollution under the Paris climate agreement.

CAC Message Guidance

Core Message: The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis is tasked with taking a sober look at the threats and impacts of climate change, while examining solutions that drive our economy, engage all communities, create clean energy jobs, and hasten the transition to clean, renewable energy solutions supported by the majority of Americans. The committee is also charged with providing policy recommendations to the House on how to effectively address the challenges posed by climate change. The important work of the committee will include examining solutions and suggesting legislative proposals that reduce the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change and protects all Americans from its devastating impacts.

• With climate impacts intensifying and ringing up billions of dollars in damage to communities across the country, it's time to take bold action and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the transition to the clean energy economy.
• For too long, the big polluters have stymied action in Congress to address the climate change national emergency.
• The important strides made by the previous administration - including the popular Clean Power Plan, Clean Car Standards, and other measures that cut carbon pollution and methane pollution from the oil, gas, and coal industries - are being rolled back by the current administration led by former industry insiders and climate science deniers.
• Meanwhile, states, local governments, and businesses have continued to move forward with climate action despite an intransigent Congress and an anti-science administration.
• The new House leadership is taking action - with hearings, legislative proposals to address climate change, and oversight of actions taken by this administration that threaten our health and environment.
• Furthermore, House leaders have introduced H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act, to ensure America honors its Paris Agreement commitments, and to lay the groundwork for future climate action.
• On the other hand, Congressional Republicans are continuing to obstruct progress, deny science, and put polluters before our health and environment.

• Once again, Republicans in Congress are proving to the American people that they have no plan to address climate change and are ignoring the vast majority of Americans who are demanding their leaders take bold, decisive action.
• By packing the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis with climate deniers, Republicans show they’re more interested in using the committee’s platform to question the science behind climate change than they are in solving the economic and public health challenges climate change poses to communities across the country.
• Furthermore, by refusing to take climate change seriously, these Republican members - who represent districts in states like Louisiana that are already feeling the impacts of climate change - are turning their backs on their own constituents.
• The reality is that support for climate action is growing across all age groups, all religions, and all political persuasions -- including nearly two-thirds Republicans who acknowledge climate change. Over 700 local elected officials, businesses, faith and religious institutions, public health organizations, medical professionals, and environmental organizations sent a letter of support to House leadership, calling on Congress to pursue an ambitious climate agenda in absence of federal leadership.
• House Democrats have heeded this call to address our climate crisis by selecting chosen climate leaders to serve on the Select Committee and are continuing to hold hearings on how climate change is impacting American communities, elevating local leaders pursuing solutions to meet America’s Pledge to act on climate and bolster the clean energy economy.
• It is clear is that Congressional Republicans are grossly out of step with the American people and their constituents by refusing to take climate change seriously. The American people deserve leaders who will protect our communities’ health and economies by listening to their demands to act on climate.

###

---

Andrew Postal

O: 202-650-0310 | C: 805-390-3684

apostal@cacampaign.com