It’s time for Congress to rescue Earth from big oil
To the Times: Recently Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon surveyed her constituents asking what they think the most pressing issue is. This is my response to her survey.
I appreciate you taking interest in what issues we the people, and not corporations, find important and needing attention with your most recent survey inquiring what issue is most pressing.
First, I want to thank you for co-sponsoring HR1 the For the People Act that will help fix our democracy. Second, personally I can’t imagine what is more important that saving our planet from climate change. If we don’t address climate change now, glaciers continue to melt, seas rise, heat waves, droughts, fires and hurricanes intensify, soil and water become more polluted, mass migration becomes more frequent, and natural resources become scarce. If humanity is headed toward the sixth mass extinction, what other issue can compare? The fossil fuel industry has positioned themselves in our government regulating themselves. The EPA is removing protections, passing incomplete permits and working during the historic shutdown to advance the fossil fuel industry. Most of the countries on Earth are making carbon cutting a priority, becoming carbon neutral in a about decade!
We need trustworthy and honest Congress people to stand up and protect not just us here in Delaware County, or even the whole United States of America, but the whole Earth! Now Rep. Scanlon please consider standing up and advocating your priority for the environment by cosponsoring the Green New Deal and/or the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. Both are crucial to attempting to halt climate change. Lastly I ask you take Sunrise’s “no fossil fuel money pledge”.
Here in Havertown our bipartisan nine commissioners unanimously voted to pass a resolution calling for 100 percent renewable energy this past October. We wasted no time switching to carbon-fee nuclear energy, with hopes to purchase renewable when the remainder of the contract expires. We are installing two private municipal electric car chargers at our township building and two public chargers at the Skatium. We are currently running a Solarize Southeastern PA campaign, getting residents to install solar panels on their homes by the end of the year to taking advantage of a 30 percent tax credit, as well as assisting businesses to take advantage of PA EPA grants from the Volkswagen settlement and a Peco rebate, for installing electric car chargers. I would be happy to help you install one at your office and receive up to $10,500 back in grants.
Maybe we can’t get the current federal government to stop profiting along with the fossil fuel industry today, but we can change from the ground up. The next part of my ground is your ground! We need our county and the state to fight the fossil fuel industry and start doing the right thing. We must put an end to projects like the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, PennEast pipeline and the most dangerous: the Mariner East Pipelines: ME1, ME2, ME2X and the currently active “frankenpipe” (a patched together assortment of existing pipelines stated as ME2) all carrying NGLs here in Delaware and Chester County from damaging our state!
We need to stop oil, gas and coal: no more new projects and stop bailing out the old ones! Your constituents don’t want to risk their lives while Sunoco and Energy Transfer Partners profit, all to make plastic! The Earth is headed to destroying humanity if we don’t act soon and swiftly. There is no time to waste. Trump’s Air Force will not find a Planet B for us in time. This is our only planet and it’s about time we take care of it. I don’t want to see my children suffer in the future, do you?