Our 2024 Lobby Day made a difference

By Flannery Winchester

On June 11, CCL volunteers held 442 citizen lobby meetings on Capitol Hill. In the weeks since then, we’ve seen an exciting amount of legislative movement — the PROVE IT Act was introduced and is gaining cosponsors; clean energy permitting reform has made huge bipartisan strides; and our secondary ask bills are surging forward with more support as well.

CCL’s Vice President of Government Affairs, Ben Pendergrass, joined CCL’s monthly meeting to share the details and help us understand the impact our Lobby Day made. Watch Ben’s remarks here, or read on for the highlights:

 

PROVE IT Act introduced and gaining cosponsors

The PROVE IT Act is a bill that would direct the Department of Energy to measure the carbon intensity of certain goods produced in the U.S. and abroad. It’s vital that we have high-quality information so that we can negotiate effectively with trading partners who are beginning to implement carbon border tariffs, like the European Union. CCL has supported this bill since it was first introduced in the Senate in the summer of 2023.

This bill was one of our primary asks for our 2024 Lobby Day. “There has been organized, well-funded opposition to the PROVE IT Act,” Ben said. He said that our meetings on Capitol Hill, along with the efforts of our allies, “acted as a strong counterweight to some of that opposition.” 

Thanks in part to those citizen lobby meetings and our ongoing support, the House version of the PROVE IT Act was introduced by Utah Republican Rep. John Curtis on July 9, 2024, with robust bipartisan support. The bill had 20 original cosponsors, well balanced between Republicans and Democrats. 

Our CCL liaisons continued to reach out to congressional offices, reminding them of our support and urging them to cosponsor the bill. At the time of this blog post, 15 more members of Congress have signed on as cosponsors — 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats.

Permitting reform makes huge bipartisan strides

Our other primary ask in this summer’s lobby meetings was for Congress to finish the job on clean energy permitting reform. “It is critical to speed up the process for building America’s clean energy infrastructure,” our leave-behind materials told lawmakers. “Changes to the current process for permitting energy projects must be made so America can lower greenhouse gas emissions and ensure American households have access to affordable clean energy.”

We’ve been beating the drum for bipartisan clean energy permitting reform for months now, including at our Conservative Climate Leadership Conference & Lobby Day this spring. CCL conservatives held 47 meetings, urging Congress to move forward on permitting reform and on supporting energy technologies that would not create more carbon pollution. This included the ADVANCE Act. The bill “will strengthen America’s leadership on nuclear energy and provide climate leadership on the world stage,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told E&E News.

Soon after our most recent round of citizen lobbying in June, the ADVANCE Act passed the Senate with a vote of 88-2. “That was a huge bipartisan win,” Ben pointed out. 

CNN reported that the ADVANCE Act “represents one of the most significant actions Congress has taken to advance clean energy since Democrats narrowly passed the Inflation Reduction Act almost two years ago.” The bill was signed by President Biden a few weeks later and is now law.

Then, on July 22, Senators Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) took a huge leap forward in this policy area by introducing the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024. The bill includes measures in all the areas our volunteers raised during their June meetings. CCL endorsed it and jumped into action to call relevant senators and ask for their support in a quickly approaching committee markup and vote. 

We’ll dive into this bill specifically in another blog post coming soon, but suffice it to say — our primary ask about clean energy permitting reform was heard loud and clear by Congress, and they’re taking action!

Secondary asks surge forward

Our June Lobby Day also included several bills as secondary asks: 

The Increased TSP Access Act, which deals with helping agricultural producers, like farmers, fully utilize current conservation and climate programs.
The Seedlings for a Sustainable Habitat Act, which would support the development of seedling nurseries to improve and expand reforestation efforts.

The Increased TSP Access Act gained six new cosponsors in the weeks after our Lobby Day. “That brings us to exactly 30 Republicans and 30 Democrats” on the bill, Ben said during CCL’s July meeting. As of this blog post, one more representative has jumped on, for a total of seven new cosponsors! 

Early drafts of the Farm Bill text include the text of this bill, too, which is a sure sign that our advocacy is helping it move forward.

The Seedlings for a Sustainable Habitat Act has also gained seven cosponsors since our Lobby Day. 

“We got an email from the lead sponsor of the bill within 30 minutes of a volunteer group meeting with an office that became a cosponsor,” Ben shared. That peek behind the scenes shows just how quickly our lobbying can make an impact! 

Next stop: Lobbying in the lame duck period

Congress is in recess now, as they are each August. Since it’s a presidential election year, much of the energy and attention in Congress will be focused on campaign season between now and Election Day in early November. That means CCL will also be shifting our election season activities into high gear, asking climate questions at candidate events and mobilizing environmental voters with our Election Engagement Action Team.

After the election results are in and we know how the balance of power will shift for the incoming Congress, we’ll be ready to make another citizen lobbying push for the policies we support. Mark your calendar for our Fall Conference, taking place online Dec. 6-8, followed by our virtual lobby week, Dec. 9-13.

As our Summer Conference and Lobby Day showed, when we show up, we make positive change. Let’s keep it going later this year!

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