Among those arrested alongside the coal miners was Van Jones, who recently joined United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and Green for All CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins in a powerful joint statement, arguing that Patriot’s bankruptcy “appears to be part of a cynical plot by Peabody and Arch—a scheme choreographed to maximize profits at the expense of their own workers.”

But Peabody couldn’t escape the protests by moving its meeting to Wyoming; a group of UMW members rallied outside, and they were joined by Peabody shareholders affiliated with Powder River Basin Resource Council, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), CO-FORCE (Coloradans for Fair Rates and Clean Energy), and Forgotten People from Black Mesa/Big Mountain in Arizona. Three activists were arrested, including one who dropped a banner that said, “Peabody Attacks: Pensions, Diné Lands, Climate,” highlighting the carbon pollution unlocked by Peabody’s coal mines, the company’s shameful treatment of retired mine workers, and the impacts of Peabody’s Black Mesa, Arizona strip mine on the health, land, and water resources of the Diné (Navajo) People.

A MORE activist drops a banner at Peabody’s annual meeting, April 29 2013. Photo courtesy of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment

Peabody’s strip mines in Wyoming are also damaging creeks and aquifers. LJ Turner, a Wyoming rancher who lives near the North Rochelle Mine said, “Peabody’s chickens have come home to roost. For too long, Peabody has ignored the true cost of its coal mines in the Powder River Basin, but now Congress and others are starting to pay attention to the impacts of mining on people, our air and land, and the climate.”

Hear more from LJ Turner in this video produced by Earthfix, part of their ‘Voices of Coal’ series:

Peabody denies that moving its annual meeting to Wyoming was about avoiding scrutiny, insisting instead it was ”to show off its largest properties, including the North Antelope Rochelle mine,” and as Peabody’s press release states, to tout the company’s “leading position in the largest and lowest-cost U.S. coal region.”

So why are costs so low at Powder River Basin mines like Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle?

Well, North Antelope Rochelle is a massive strip mine operation, the largest coal mine in the United States with 108 million short tons extracted last year. Like all of its coal mines in the Powder River Basin, workers at the mine are not represented by a union (Peabody sees union representation at its mines as a threat, warning in its annual report for investors, “If some or all of our current non-union operations were to become unionized, we could incur an increased risk of work stoppages, reduced productivity and higher labor costs.”)

Another major reason: Peabody is taking advantage of the absurdly cheap prices for publicly owned coal offered by the Bureau of Land Management’s corrupt coal leasing program. When it was originally leased in 1992, North Rochelle Antelope coal went for just 21 cents a ton. Last year, Peabody was able to expand this massive mine by adding the North Porcupine and South Porcupine tracts, paying just $1.10 and $1.11 a ton respectively. BLM explicitly justified its decision to lease those coal tracts because it claimed doing so would help “meet the national coal demand.” Yet Peabody executives are quite clear about their plans to export Powder River Basin coal abroad – a Peabody Vice President told the Casper Star Tribune that at Monday’s meeting, “company representatives planned to tell shareholders of the upside of potential plans to export coal around the globe.”

That “upside” is presumably Peabody’s desperate hope that it can stop losing money by selling more coal to Asian markets – if it can beat the broad and growing opposition to coal export proposals in the Pacific Northwest. In the “downsides” column for coal exports we might include mile-long coal trains disrupting communities and local economies, health impacts from coal dust and diesel pollution, threats to sensitive ecosystems and important fisheries, infringement on tribal rights, and enormous amounts of carbon pollution.

So that’s Peabody: cheating workers out of the health care they were promised, and then dismissing their protests by declaring the matter “will be decided in bankruptcy court, not the court of public opinion.” Leasing coal owned by US taxpayers for around $1 a ton so it can strip mine it and ship it to Asia. Destroying aquifers used by Wyoming ranchers and Navajo People, and then refusing to even listen to their concerns. And all to extract coal that will end up polluting our air and water, dumping carbon pollution into our atmosphere, and acidifying our oceans.

It’s not hard to see why Peabody executives would try to hide their shareholder meeting in Wyoming; “the court of public opinion” is just a threat to their business model. A more important question is how long Peabody’s operations, and those of the rest of the coal mining industry, can continue to withstand the increased public scrutiny it is facing from citizens, journalists, and elected officials. Recent front page stories in the Seattle Times and Los Angeles Times show the impacts of coal mining in Montana, and how ranchers are fighting back against the industry’s coal export proposals. The federal coal leasing program is under three federal investigations, while the list of public officials calling for a comprehensive review of coal export proposals grows longer each month. And in recent weeks, over 135,000 people have joined the call for a moratorium on federal coal leasing, following a letter sent to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on her first day on the job by the leaders of several environmental, health, consumer rights, and community organizations.

In other words, if the coal industry “require darkness” to pursue its plans for increased coal exports and leasing, let’s shine some more light.

In a post entitled “Five lies they’re telling you about the Mayflower pipeline spill,” he said: “What I thought I’d talk about today are the top five inaccuracies being spread by anti-fossil fuel activists seeking to capitalize on this unfortunate event.”

Nevertheless, let’s have a look at what Ken Cohen has said we’re lying about.

First, he writes of a…

“bizarre charge…that ExxonMobil is relying on a law that exempts diluted bitumen from taxes that support the Oil Liability Trust Fund and thereby will avoid paying for the cleanup.”

What Cohen is referring to here is a loophole that makes tar sands oil exempt from an 8-cent-per-barrel tax that supports the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.  Oil Change International, along with NRDC and Earth Track, released a report last year on this loophole, entitled “Irrational Exemption”, and the Democrats of the House Natural Resources Committee also have a report out on this as well (not to mention a bill that’s been introduced to close the loophole).

So in that context, I’m not sure why it would be bizarre to suggest that ExxonMobil, or any oil company, would do whatever it can to avoid paying taxes. After all, it spends millions lobbying Congress and contributing to campaign coffers every year to do just that.

But in any event, it’s good to see that we’re all on the same page about the loophole that allows companies to avoid taxes on tar sands that would otherwise help fund the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. The oil industry often says they don’t receive subsidies from the government, but yet as Mr. Cohen admits, apparently they do.

One wonders, perhaps Exxon will agree that this is an unacceptable loophole and announce their support for closing it?

Next, Mr. Cohen writes:

“Let me start by saying ExxonMobil will pay for the cleanup. Period. Full-stop.”

Desmogblog lays out the facts in stark detail, but the long and short of it is we’d be fools to take Exxon at their word on this. The history of their actions after many oil spills shows otherwise. To highlight just a few:

Exxon Valdez, 1989:

“The Exxon Valdez spill was in 1989, they still, 21 years later, have not paid the [full] amount awarded in court (a mere $500 million) to those affected and in fact over 8000 people have died while waiting for compensation.”

Jacksonville, MD, 2006:

“Exxon Mobil Corp has won the reversal by Maryland’s highest court of a $1 billion punitive damages award stemming from an underground leak at a gas station, and also won the reversal of portions of nearly $650 million of compensatory damages awards.”

Yellowstone River (yes, THAT Yellowstone) tar sands spill, 2011:

“Still pending against the company is a lawsuit from a group of riverfront property owners who are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages over allegations that the company failed to properly clean up after the spill…Attorneys for Exxon have asked U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings to dismiss the case. A decision is pending.”

Further along in his post, Cohen says:

“The second inaccuracy here is that oil spilled in Mayflower is diluted bitumen from the Canadian oil sands. The crude that spilled is Wabasca heavy oil and it’s from Alberta near the area where there is oil sands production.”

Our friends at NRDC have already torn apart this name game in great detail. Check out the details in this blog post from Anthony Swift.

Sorry Mr. Cohen – as the saying goes: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Although, tragically in this case the tar sands spilling in Arkansas is tarring ducks and preventing them from swimming, quacking and in a lot of cases even really looking like ducks.

Cohen then writes:

“So, as a result of the fact that the crude that spilled in Mayflower is conventionally produced heavy oil, it is considered taxable under the Oil Liability Trust Fund.”

Now, let’s allow Cohen’s assertion that Wabasca heavy oil is not tar sands – even though it is, as CrudeMonitor lays out on its website and in the screen capture below – and therefore Exxon is being taxed on it.  Frankly, we’d love to be proven wrong if this is the case.

So here’s a challenge to ExxonMobil: Show us the proof that ExxonMobil is paying taxes into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for all of the Wabasca heavy crude (aka tar sands) that ExxonMobil is shipping in pipelines around this country.  Prove us wrong.

Seriously, we would be happy to be proven wrong here…but I’m afraid given Exxon’s history of spreading misinformation, we’ll need to see the proof.

Cohen ends, saying:

“So to sum up – We’re paying for the cleanup. The oil is conventionally produced heavy crude. And it’s considered taxable.”

To sum up from my end, I’d simply say:

1. I’ll believe they’re paying for the cleanup when I see it. But folks in Valdez, Maryland, and Yellowstone may not be so kind.
2. Wabasca heavy crude is tar sands by a different name. If tar sands isn’t so bad, why the name game to avoid calling it what it really is?
3. If ExxonMobil is paying taxes on Wabasca heavy crude (aka tar sands), show us the proof.

In short: Prove us wrong, Exxon.

But while Exxon is proving us wrong would make me a temporarily happy “anti-fossil fuel activist”, the truth would remain that Exxon is spilling dangerous oil all around the country, raking in buckets of government subsidies every year, and imperiling our futures every single day.  I wish we were lying about that, but unfortunately the proof is all around us.

Far too often in Washington, policy decisions are influenced by big money — wealthy corporations spend millions on lobbying, public relations, and campaign contributions to get their way. Big money helps explain why your cell phone and cable TV bills are so expensive, why small investors are still unprotected from Wall Street abuses, why taxpayers subsidize incomprehensible waste, like the $33 billion a year we spend on for-profit colleges that often ruin students’ lives.

But one of the worst affronts to our democracy, and one of the worst dangers to our world, is the way that dirty energy companies — oil, gas, coal — have mercilessly lobbied and spread misinformation to prevent action on climate change. It’s bad because it’s obvious that extreme weather is already producing the hottest years on record and wrecking communities and killing people in violent storms. It’s bad because there is overwhelming agreement among scientists that the burning of fossil fuels is helping to cause this global warming, yet little is being done to change our ways. To add insult to injury, though, consider this: Some of the most powerful lobbyists working to deny these problems and block solutions were trained and equipped to be lobbyists on the taxpayers’ dime.

What I mean is that Members of Congress, congressional staff members, and other federal officials are increasingly using their tenures as paid public servants to qualify themselves to be lobbyists for corporations, including dirty energy firms. They learn the policy issues, the legislative process, the art of back room deals while receiving government salaries. They build ties in the government office suites, the government dining room, and the government gym, with the poor saps who decide to stay behind in government jobs. Then they turn around and reward the taxpayers who financed their training by walking through the revolving door — by selling themselves to corporations that often trash the public interest.  Even worse, they sometimes appear in public forums as wise public statesmen, such as on energy issues, without disclosing relevant conflicts of interests, such as that they are paid advocates for oil, gas, and coal companies.

Exhibit A: Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Republican of Mississipi, who gained his Washington skills and status over 40 years on the federal payroll — essentially, you built him — and now lobbies for companies that are generally part of the problem, not the solution, on energy and climate change.     

Lott is a master at getting paid to represent dirty energy companies in private offices while posing in public as an energy expert seeking sensible bipartisan solutions. Last month Lott took that effort to a new level by sponsoring a purported blue ribbon commission report that reads more like an energy industry strategy document.

After working five years as a congressional staff member in Washington, Lott served 35 years in Congress, 16 in the House and 19 in the Senate. He became the Republican leader in 1996 but stepped down under pressure in 2002 after praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist run for the White House.

Lott abruptly resigned from the Senate in December 2007, less than two years into his fourth Senate term. Some pundits speculated that Lott chose that moment to resign because of a looming deadline — Senators still around after the start of 2008 would be covered by a new ethics law that prohibits former Members of Congress from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Lott responded that the new law ”didn’t have a big role in that decision.” OK, not a big role.

Within 20 days of his resignation, Lott had formed the Breaux Lott Leadership Group with former Democratic Senator John Breaux (LA).  The firm has represented a large number of energy companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Entergy, General Electric, National Propane Gas Association, Plains Exploration, Shell Oil, and America’s Natural Gas Alliance. In 2010, Breaux Lott sold itself to mega-lobbying firm Patton Boggs, which itself also represents energy companies including ATP Oil & Gas and Total.

Breaux Lott also brings in millions lobbying for clients in the telecommunications, pharmaceutical, defense, aerospace, and other industries — AT&T, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, FedeEx, etc. In addition, Lott is a resolute paid advocate for the aforementioned toxic for-profit college industry; although his public excuses for the industry aren’t very persuasive, Republic Report has him on camera explaining how he charms his former Senate colleagues one by one into backing his clients.

At the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, “leadership” is the euphemism for lobbying and influence-peddling. Its website explains that the firm ”has policy expertise in all energy issue areas – ranging from oil and gas exploration to working with high-level officials of the Administration, Department of Energy and Mineral Management Service.  Our access to energy policy makers in Congress is one of our strongest attributes…. Senators Breaux’s and Lott’s unmatched network in the area of energy related matters.”  Translation: These guys made a lot of friends when they were Senators. Now their friends can be your friends, for a fee.

Lott has leveraged not just his congressional relationships but also his congressional cash. He has drawn from the $1.3 million left over in his Senate campaign coffers to make contributions to current Members of Congress, even while he’s sought to influence Congress as a lobbyist.

But while he touts his insider access in selling his services to attract energy industry clients, Lott also puts himself forward as a wise leader ready to solve America’s energy challenges. He has appeared jointly to discuss energy policy issues with his business partner, Senator Breaux, on Fox News and on MSNBC, where Lott called for “more drilling.” In neither case did the former Senators, or the networks presenting them, disclose that both men are paid lobbyists for energy companies.

Lott is also the co-chair, with former Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), of the Energy Project Board at a Washington think tank called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). Last year the National Journal reported that the former Senators “are working together on a blueprint for energy legislation” and that “their effort could gain traction: Both are held in high regard by their former colleagues, and the BPC is a serious player in the energy debate.”

In touting this initiative, Lott told the National Journal that he now drives a Mini Cooper and claimed to have cut his utility bill by making his “old house” more energy efficient. He also seemed to acknowledge that climate change is real. But he counseled for caution and consensus on addressing the problem, rather than the kind of determined effort suitable to an urgent challenge. Lott’s advice to President Obama? “He needs to do it without throwing out there things that are controversial at the gate. Don’t be putting out markers saying, ‘We need this, that, or the other.’” But when it comes to producing energy, Lott takes a more insistent approach; in a TV appearance with Dorgan, Lott said, “I want produce more of everything. I want more oil, more gas, more coal, more hydro, more nuclear. I’m willing to look at alternative fuels and all that….”

BPC released the Lott-Dorgan energy report at an event a few weeks ago. It finds that “climate change is a significant issue” — but then does nothing with that insight. Instead, this bipartisan report calls for acceleration of oil drilling offshore and on federal lands, as well as implementing new standards to allow expansion of the hazardous practice of underground hydrofracking for natural gas. The report includes no recommendation to cap or tax the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

That the Lott-Dorgan-BPC energy report is tilted toward the dirty energy industries, and expresses no urgency regarding climate change, should not come as a surprise. Like Lott, Democrat Dorgan is an energy lobbyist, the co-chair of Government Relations at the firm Arent Fox, where he represents oil companies including Denbury Resources and Noble Energy. And the Bipartisan Policy Center seems to make a specialty of presenting politicians-turned-corporate-lobbyists as advocates for sensible, moderate solutions to policy issues.

Lott’s fealty to his paid corporate clients goes so far that he has even incensed his fellow conservatives. As a Senator, Lott aggressively opposed the Law of the Sea Treaty, which addresses the rights and obligations of countries in the world’s oceans. Senator Lott claimed that the treaty would undermine U.S. sovereignty and hurt the U.S. economy. But lobbyist Lott was hired by Shell Oil to push for Senate ratification of the treaty, a reversal that drew a rebuke from the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

In short, it appears that Trent Lott sells his influence, his reputation, his principles, and, sometimes, his responsibility, including to address the urgent climate change issue.  And who built this lobbyist? We did.

This article also appears on Huffington Post and Republic Report.

Yesterday over 100 people from dozens of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware groups joined together in one of the most empowering actions I’ve been part of in a long time. For two and a half hours, led by Maya Van Rossom and Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeepers Network, we nonviolently and creatively took over the latest meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission.

We took this action because of the DRBC’s complete failure, so far at least, to deal with the 13 natural gas pipelines that are being built or are planned to be built through the Delaware River watershed. These pipelines will bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania and elsewhere to major east coast markets and, the gas industry hopes, to export terminals for sale overseas.

Yesterday, when it became clear that the commission had no intention of even discussing this issue despite official requests over several months from Delaware Riverkeepers and other groups, the no-fracking movement literally stood up and made their voices heard. One by one, from the audience, people got up to speak, following one another, without commission permission but eventual commission acquiescence. Dozens did so.

The stories people told were inspiring. There was the father of Alex Totorto speaking passionately about his son and others locking down and tree sitting to try to prevent the cutting down of trees to build the Tennessee gas pipeline. There was Maya Van Rossom articulating clearly and in commission language why this was their responsibility and how they had so far failed to do their job. There were speakers who pointed out that there is still a DRBC moratorium on fracking in the Delaware River basin and that it was hypocritical or worse for the commission to then allow all these fracking pipelines to go through the area. There were young people in their 20’s and one man who looked to be in his 80’s. There was a woman who sang a song for the commission and talked about how she didn’t have anything to give them in writing but she was giving them her heart via her song.

None of it visibly moved the commission. After two hours of heart-felt testimony, the commission chair literally said nothing about that testimony and proceeded to try to move ahead with their planned agenda. They didn’t respond to Maya Van Rossom’s request that they put the issue of the Tennessee gas and the other planned pipelines on this agenda. But we weren’t done.

Prior to the meeting a song sheet with the words to This Land Is Your Land had been distributed, and as the commission chair used her microphone to try to conduct business, we all stood up and began loudly singing this Woody Guthrie song. We moved forward towards the commission, blocked about 10 feet away from them by security personnel. Within a couple of minutes, the commission was forced to stop attempting to do their business and, instead, they sat silently as, for the next half hour, until they officially adjourned, we sang and chanted. We sang This Land several times, as well as We Shall Not Be Moved and We Shall Overcome, substituting in those civil rights songs appropriate verses for this 21^st century struggle for a clean energy revolution, for our threatened Mother Earth and all of its life forms.

James Connolly, the Irish nationalist, socialist and labor leader martyred after the Easter Uprising in 1916, wrote over 100 years ago about the importance of song to a genuine mass movement. He wrote, “No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinct marks of a popular revolutionary movement.”

The fracking movement is popular, and it is growing in strength and in organization. Just this past weekend there was a highly successful national conference in Dallas, Texas organized by the Stop the Frack Attack network, attended by 300 or more people from around the USA. There was no question at this conference but that this movement is about nothing less than a revolutionary change in where we get our energy and who controls it. We need to move away from centralized, dirty, climate-wrecking fossils fuels to clean, renewable energy sources like the sun and the wind, all happening as part of a process of a truly democratic transformation of society.

One of our chants yesterday as we stood, sang and chanted close to the commission was this one: “Tell me what democracy looks like; This is what democracy looks like.” People speaking up, speaking from the heart, refusing to stand by and allow injustice and destruction to take place without a fight, putting what is right for us and future generations before anything else. This is truly what democracy looks like, and we need more of it.

-Christopher Fry, A Sleep of Prisoners

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus and the MC at yesterday’s massive Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C., talks all the time about this being the climate movement’s “lunch counter moment.” And, thank God, it looks like he has been prophetic.

“Lunch counter moment” refers to the point in 1960 when the African-American freedom movement took off. It did so when young black people all over the South began sitting in at segregated public lunch counters, refusing to leave until served. For these actions, they were beaten, spat upon, arrested and more by white racists and racist power structures, but their courage and nonviolent direct action galvanized a south-wide and then national movement which, five years later, forced the federal government to pass a Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act outlawing legal segregation.

Without this movement, Barack Obama would never have been President. Much more importantly, without it we would not have seen the end of 1950’s McCarthyism, the rise of a powerful anti-war movement, women’s movement, environmental movement, lgbt movement and more.

The climate movement’s lunch counter moment: what was it about Feb. 17 in DC which makes it realistically possible that history will record this action as the launching pad for the “yes, we did,” massive popular movement which literally pulled human society back from the cliff of looming, catastrophic climate disruption?

Numbers: Size is sometimes important, and it definitely was yesterday. All the main organizers expected tens of thousands, but I don’t think too many expected 40,000 to 50,000. Especially given the incredibly cold weather, this was a huge accomplishment for our movement.

Determination: It was really cold yesterday, with a wind chill that had to be around 10 degrees at times when that wind whipped across the mall, and it did so often. Yet the crowd kept growing all morning and into the early afternoon, and virtually no one left. People could have said, after an hour or two, well, this is important, and I’m glad I came, but I’ve got to get to somewhere warm. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. For four hours, from 12-4, for some longer, we persevered and, indeed, we stood (and jumped) strong.

Unity: The Sierra Club is to be commended for their courage in calling for this action right after the November election and for the resources which they threw into it, as is 350.org, the Hip Hop Caucus and many of the 168 organizations that both formally supported it and worked hard to mobilize. Despite tensions and differences, the coalition held together and, as a result, yielded the powerful harvest of the day.

Geographic breadth: People were there from all over the country. Over 150 buses came from 30 states, some of them on the road for over 24 hours one-way. And with the 20 or so solidarity rallies mainly in faraway locales, this breadth was magnified.

Diverse Leadership: It was truly refreshing to have Rev. Yearwood MC this rally, clearly in his element, to hear the powerful statements from the Canadian First Nation leaders Chief Jacqueline Thomas and Crystal Lameman, and Van Jones urging young people not to be “chumped,” to demand that Obama follow through and get real both in word and action on climate. Although the crowd did not have the full diversity needed, it is important that the surging climate movement is supporting and bringing forward leadership coming out of communities of color on this issue.

Not just the pipeline: The tar sands Keystone XL pipeline was the prime issue that brought this effort together, but it was much more. It was a vision of a future where our energy sources are clean, renewable and democratically controlled by the people, not dirty fossil fuel, corporate honchos. It is a vision which opposes all of the extreme energy extraction industrial processes: mountaintop removal, oil drilling in the Arctic ocean and in deep water offshore, fracking, as well as tar sands. Everyone understands that victory on the pipeline is just the first step, the turning point, towards what we urgently need.

Multi-tactical: Finally, it was striking to experience the activities which took place in the week leading up to February 17. It began with a civil disobedience action on Wednesday, close to 50 people locking themselves to the White House fence, highlighted by Sierra Club leader Mike Brune taking part, the first time in their 120-year history that they have done so. The next day, with Bill McKibben and Mike Brune there to offer words of support, US Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer publicly announced their introduction of a “gold standard’ fee-and-dividend bill that Boxer hopes will go to the floor of the Senate this summer. And then came yesterday’s massive demonstration.

The students who sat in at the lunch counters in February of 1960 and who then formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, were clear that to defeat segregation they would need to engage in essentially non-stop organizing and action. Today’s climate movement must do the same, and more need to figure out how they can do more on a personal level. We need to step up nationally coordinated actions at the scale of the problem, this year, this spring. “Affairs are now soul size.”

It’s not a good time to be a coal industry executive in the US. Last year, wind power made up nearly half of all new installed electricity generation, and domestic coal use is on the decline year after year. With dimming prospects at home, companies are in a race to export US coal to foreign markets. Some of the coal companies pushing to export US coal are relatively well known, especially for their long history of environmental and labor abuses - think Peabody and Arch. But until now, little has been known about Ambre Energy, the Australian company pushing two of the controversial coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon. A new report from the Sightline Institute, “Ambre Energy: Caveat Investor” digs deep into the inner workings and shaky footing of this startup – and for the communities and investors weighing Ambre’s promises, the results are not pretty. The report details the many challenges facing Ambre in its aspirations of becoming a true planet-destroying coal titan.

In a letter to Senators Wyden and Murkowski, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar promised that DOI’s Inspector General will “aggressively pursue any company found in violation of the laws and regulations related to the valuation of Federal coal.”

This internal investigation follows another investigation currently underway at DOI focused on the coal leasing program run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Without proper oversight, sham “auctions” run by BLM have allowed coal companies to secure taxpayer-owned coal for around $1 per ton. According to a report by Tom Sanzillo of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, this has amounted to a $28.9 billion subsidy over the last 30 years. In addition to DOI’s internal review, the BLM’s coal leasing program is also under review by the General Accounting Office.

It appears that coal companies are trying to bilk taxpayers at every available opportunity, and so far our federal regulators seem to have been asleep at the wheel. Hopefully these investigations signal that they are starting to wake up. After all, there are some pretty aggressive drivers out there – here’s how a spokesperson for one of the coal companies tried to defend their approach: “In my neighborhood, I don’t stop at every block. I could. But that’s not where the stop signs are. You can say you don’t like the regulations, but we play by the rules.”

With the US coal industry desperately seeking shortcuts, we need more vigilance at the Department of Interior – and probably a few more stop signs.

   To date, the religious and faith leaders who have agreed to be with us include:

           Rev. Richard Cizik, President of The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good

            Rev. Bob Edgar, CEO, Common Cause; Former head of National Council of the Churches

         Rev. Michael Ellik, Judson Memorial Church, NYC; Occupy Faith/Occupy Sandy

         Green Hevra community members

         Rev. Philip Lawson, Pastor Emeritus, Easter Hill UMC Church, Oakland, CA; National Council of Elders

         Rev. John Merz, Rector, Ascension Episcopal Church Brooklyn, NY; Occupy Faith/Occupy Sand

         Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Social Justice Organizing Program,  Re-constructionist Rabbinical College

         Nipponzan Nyohoji Buddhist Community

         Jacqui Patterson, NAACP – Director, Climate Justice Initiative

         Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

         Dr. Rajwant Singh, Sikh Council on Religion and Education

         Father Louie Vitale OFM, Franciscan Friar, Co-founder Nevada Desert Experience

         Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., President, HipHop Caucus, Washington, DC

In addition, the following are among the individuals and organizations endorsing this action:

         Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director, NETWORK

         Dr. James Hansen

         Interreligious Eco-Justice Network of CT

         Chief Oren Lyons, Faith keeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation

         People of the Onondaga Nation

         Bill McKibben

         National Council of the Elders

         The Shalom Center

January 15^th marks the 84^th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose profound words speak directly to us as we witness the devastating effects of climate change:

“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words:  ’Too late’.”

Fifty years ago, our country faced a crisis of racial inequality in America that posed a basic threat to justice and democracy. Religious communities and others acted, and we made a difference.

Today’s deepest crisis is the danger facing the web of life upon our planet, including the human race – especially the poorest and most vulnerable.  We are particularly concerned about the effects on local communities and our planetary future of destructive, extreme energy extraction: mountaintop removal, fracking, Arctic and deep sea offshore oil drilling, and tar sands mining.

Out of our moral commitment to protect and heal God’s Creation, our religious communities need to be calling for a set of first-step changes that will sow the seeds of greater change, by committing the President and Congress to vigorous action.

The Interfaith Moral Action on Climate – a collaborative initiative of religious leaders, groups and individuals that came together in 2011 in response to the pressing need for more visible, unified, prophetic action to address the climate crisis – is issuing such a call for January 15^th, and has organized the following activities:

11:00 am* – Gathering for everyone at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

(1313 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC)

12:00 pm – Religious Procession to the White House 

(1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW)

12:30 pm – Prayerful Vigil in front of the White House - Asking that the President and the nation find the strength and wisdom to steer us away from the Climate Cliff

Please note:  Some participants may feel called to risk arrest by nonviolently disregarding the conventional regulations and assuming positions of prayer in the area near the White House fence.

As they do so, others of us will create a powerful circle of prayer in support of those engaging in dignified, nonviolent civil disobedience.

To our President and Congress we will address the prophetic words of Dr. King spoken at another moment of crisis: “This is a time to break the silence!”  And we will call on them to break the silence by taking necessary actions, such as these:

1. Permanently refuse permits for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, because tar-oil is among the most dangerous of the planet-heating forms of carbon

2. Call a National Summit Conference on the Climate Crisis that includes leaders of business, labor, academia, religious communities, governmental officialdom, science, and other relevant bodies

3. Publicly support and advocate for a carbon fee that will generate hundreds of billions of dollars, with provisions to ensure that working families and the poor are not harmed by higher carbon prices; for an end to subsidies to the coal, oil and gas industries; and for substantial subsidies for research, development, and use of renewable, sustainable and jobs-creating clean energy sources.

We hope you will join us on January 15^th, and ask that you visit our website: www.interfaithactiononclimatechange.org to register your support and/or plan to participate.  Please also feel free to contact us at cynthiaharris4930@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns.

With blessings of shalom, salaam, pax, paz, peace,

Members of the IMAC Steering Committee

Rev. Tom Carr, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church, Hartford, CT, Interreligious Eco Justice Network, CT

Rev. Terry Ellen, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in the National Capital Region

Ted Glick, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Cynthia Harris, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate

Dr. Mark Johnson, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Fr. Paul Mayer, Climate Crisis Coalition

Ibrahim Ramey, Muslim American Freedom Society

Karen Scott, Center for Liberty of Conscience

Lise Van Susteren, MD, Advisory Board, Center for Health and the Global Environment,  NWF

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, Philadelphia, Pa.

*NOTE:  Instruction and training for those planning to engage in non-violent civil disobedience at the White House will be offered on 1/15/13 at 10:00 am at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, (1313 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC) prior to the 11:00 am Gathering there.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first public action of any kind, on any issue, after the November 6 election was on the issue of the climate; specifically, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. On Nov 18 3,000 people marched around the White House behind a football-field long, mock pipeline on which was written, “no tar sands pipeline.”

350.org was the primary organizer of this action. At it, Allison Chin, President of the Sierra Club, announced their and 350’s plans for a major demonstration in DC on February 17^th on the President’s Day weekend. We will be calling upon President Obama to step up now and be the leader we need on this urgent issue.

Religious and spiritual leaders are also stepping it up. On January 15^th, in front of the White House, they will join together in a “Pray-in for the Climate” organized by Interfaith Moral Action on Climate.

It is significant that religious leaders and voices are stepping forward to take action in this way. Fifty years ago, our country faced a crisis of racial inequality in the USA that was a basic threat to justice and democracy.  Religious communities and others acted, and we made a difference.

Today’s deepest crisis is the danger facing the web of life upon our planet, including the human race – especially the poorest and most vulnerable.

January 15th is close enough to Inauguration Day (January 21) to make the connection with what the President should be doing in his second term, and far enough away that the action won’t drown in the media swamp

January 15^th is also the actual birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would be 84 on this day if he had not been killed in 1968 while leading the civil and human rights movement. The action will be carried out in the spirit of his work.  We will gather at 11:00 am at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, a few blocks from the White House.  At noon, we will walk there in a religious procession and join our voices in a prayerful vigil.  We will be praying that President Obama and all of us find the strength and wisdom to lead our country and world away from the Climate Cliff.  
 
Please note that some participants may feel called to risk arrest by nonviolently disregarding the conventional regulations and assuming positions of prayer in the area near the White House fence.

We expect to be joined by survivors of Superstorm Sandy and their religious leaders from communities like the Rockaways and Staten Island in New York.

What will we be urging that the President do to meet the needs of this critical hour in planetary time?

1.  Permanently refuse permits for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, because tar-oil is among the most dangerous of the planet-heating forms of carbon

2.  Call a National Summit Conference on the Climate Crisis that includes leaders of business, labor, academia, religious communities, governmental officialdom, science, and other relevant bodies

3.  Publicly support and advocate for a carbon fee that will generate hundreds of billions of dollars, with provisions to ensure that working families and the poor are not harmed by higher carbon prices; for an end to subsidies to the coal, oil and gas industries; and for substantial subsidies for research, development, and use of renewable, sustainable and jobs-creating clean energy sources.

We invite and urge all people concerned about the climate crisis to join us on January 15th at the White House.

To our President and Congress we address the prophetic words of Dr. King spoken at another moment of crisis:  “This is a time to break the silence!”

For more information: contact Cynthia Harris at cynthiaharris4930@gmail.com.  Please also visit our website: www.interfaithactiononclimatechange.org.

Woman: “Do you still think the rising of the seas is funny?”

Romney: “I never imagined such a thing is funny.”

Man: “Is climate change still a joke to you?”

Romney: “As a matter of fact, if you’d like to — I know you’re filming — if you’d like to see my view on global warming, I wrote a book, and there’s a chapter on global warming and you’ll see what I think we can do to deal with it.”

Man: “What are you going to do to address global warming?”

This confrontation marks the fifth time in two days that Romney has been questioned about climate change. On Thursday, a protester interrupted Romney during a speech in Virginia Beach, shouting “Romney! What about climate? That’s what caused this monster storm! Climate change!” Also yesterday, student activists asked Romney about his plan to address climate change at three different campaign stops, in Roanoke, Doswell, and Virginia Beach, VA. Romney dodged the question each time, referring the voters to his book.

Despite Governor Romney and President Obama’s reluctance to address climate change during the presidential campaign, Hurricane Sandy and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement of President Obama has renewed attention to the impacts of climate change on the United States, and the candidates’ plans to address the crisis.

In addition to a warming atmosphere and oceans that are loading storms with more energy and rainfall, global warming is raising sea levels and increasing the damage from storm surge and coastal flooding. A US Geological Survey report found that sea levels are rising three to four times faster on the Atlantic Coast than globally, putting several major US cities at greater risk.