>>If you say one thing today — As the House and Senate now move to conference or final negotiations to merge the spending bills, Americans are counting on them to put our kids’ health and the great outdoors before corporate polluters. Our families need Congressional leaders to abandon the poison pill policies and budget cuts in Trump’s budget and the House bills that continue to poison the appropriations process.

 

>>If you do one thing today — Urge Energy and Water conferees to pass a final spending package free of budget cuts and new anti-environmental riders using this toolkit here. 

 

On the Horizon…                                                                            

July 27-Sept 4: House recess

                                                                                                    

Sept 4-6: Kavanaugh hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee

Sept 5: Energy and Water Conference Meeting 

  

Sept 24: Cars hearing in Fresno, CA

Sept 25: Cars hearing in Dearborn, MI

Sept 26: Cars hearing in Pittsburgh, PA 

Sept 26: PFAS Oversight Committee Senate Hearing 

 

September 30: Government funding deadline

Letters

• Sign onto the lette urging Farm Bill Conferees to reject all riders that attack our clean water, particularly those that would eliminate the Clean Water Act Pesticide General Permit and the Clean Water Rule by clicking here 
  
  • Deadline: COB Wednesday 8/29
• Sign onto this letter opposing ESA riders in FY19 appropriations bills
  • Deadline: COB Friday 8/31

Help Needed:

• Amplify  new report from CAP today on the culture of corruption at the Department of the Interior. The paper frames Interior as a Favor Factory that is benefiting former clients and campaign donors of senior department officials, including Secretary Zinke and Deputy Secretary Bernhardt. Some sample social media is below if you can help amplify. Thanks!
  • A #CultureOfCorruption in @realDonadTrump’s @Interior Department may be resulting in lucrative rewards to the political patrons & past clients of Secretary Zinke, Deputy Secretary Bernhardt, and other senior Trump Administration officials. https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w
  • NEW from @amprog: Trump’s @Interior Department is a Favor Factory that benefits the past political donors and lobbying clients of senior administration officials 💰💰💰  https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w#CultureOfCorruption #InvestigateZinke
  • A #CultureOfCorruption runs deep in Trump’s @Interior Department. Congress must take legislative action to tighten ethics standards and strengthen enforcement of conflict-of-interest laws. #InvestigateInterior https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w
  • .@SecretaryZinke’s @DOIDepSec, David Bernhardt—previously a lobbyist on issues he now oversees—appears to be a central figure in @Interior’s carefully constructed clientelistic system for dispensing political favors. Read more on Interior’s Favor Factory:  https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w
    
  • .@Interior’s #CultureOfCorrutpion starts at the top with @SecretaryZinke, but it certainly doesn’t end there. Former lobbyist and current @DOIDepSec, David Bernhardt is using the revolving door to run the show at Interior https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w
  • Tsk, tsk. #DirtyDavid & #StinkyZinke are running @Interior as a favor factory & hiding it’s inner workings from public scrutiny. Congress must rebalance power in favor of the people and end this #CultureOfCorruption https://ampr.gs/2w7sj6w #InvestigateInterior
• Farm Bill fight
  • Sign up to participate in lobby meetings with conferees. Meeting signup and tracker can be found here
• • Community toolkit to urge Senate conferees to reject the House Farm Bill can be found here including promoting the new community and Senate letter 
• Dirty Power Plan 
  • Latest CAC resources here (including tweets to amplify, email templates, social guidance, and call tool)
  • Updated messaging here

Intel

• The Energy and Water Approps conference committee is hard a work on a deal before conferees meet on 9/5
• Senator McCain will lay at the Capitol on Friday before a service at the National Cathedral on Saturday 

Cars fight

• The Cars NRPM was published in the federal registar on Friday and starts a 60 day comment period until October 23 
  • >> Several groups have issued extension requests. The Clean Cars Campaign has a sample letter if you are interested in issuing one. 
  • The campaign is focused on the quality of comments over quantity
  • Get creative! Comment collection events/strong grasstops voices drive messaging around the rule during the comment period  
• The hearing dates and locations have changed and are finalized
  • Sept 24: Cars rule hearing in Fresno, CA (state authority and climate message) 

  • Sept 25: Cars rule hearing in Dearborn, MI (economic and consumer message)
    

  • Sept 26: Cars rule hearing in Pittsburgh, PA (economic and consumer message)
    

• Hearing preparation!
  • >> Please help recruit people to go to the hearings and testify to drive the narrative in the room 
  • Reach out to Aminah at azaghab@partnershipproject.org if you are intereted in helping drive turn out 
• CAC cars Resources

  • Cars Social Guidance (English)

    Cars Social Guidance (Spanish)

    Cars Template Email and Comment (English)

    Cars Template Email and Comment (Spanish)

    House call tool available at the hyperlink or direct calls through 1-866-829-9627

    House call tool email template

     

Dirty Budget Fight 

• Energy and Water conference will be the first test to see if Senators can actually keep poison pill riders out of the final package. If they fail, then we face a much more difficult challenge with the remaining bills like Interior-Environment which we could see go to conference in September 
• Use this toolkit to issue target-specific guidance for these conferees to make sure they pass a final spending package free of budget cuts and new anti-environmental riders.

Topic	Agency	Status	Deadline
Cars replacement rule	EPA	Open	10/23
ESA regulations	DOI	Open	9/24
DOE emergency authority	DOE	Open	N/A