On Wednesday, January 29, 2014, in our first ever Telephone Town Hall, EDF President Fred Krupp and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy discussed President Obama's January 2014 State of the Union address and what it means for the environment. Fred and Administrator McCarthy took questions from EDF members in real time.

Moderator
Elizabeth Thompson, EDF Vice President of US Climate and Political Affairs

Speakers
Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator
Fred Krupp, EDF President

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Featuring:
Richard Denison, EDF Senior Scientist
Elizabeth Thompson, President, Environmental Defense Action Fund
Sarah Vogel, Director, EDF Health Program

The late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) achieved a true breakthrough with the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, which he introduced last month with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA): the first chemical safety reform bill to garner bipartisan support. The sad news of Sen. Lautenberg’s death does not change EDF’s commitment to removing hazardous substances from products we use every day.

EDF experts Richard Denison, Elizabeth Thompson and Sarah Vogel discuss the legislation and what is at stake in passing chemical reform.

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Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President, EDF
Diane Regas, Senior Vice President for Programs, EDF
Vickie Patton, General Counsel, EDF
Elizabeth Thompson, Vice President for U.S. Climate and Political Affairs, EDF President, Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF)

President Obama made an historic climate policy announcement in a speech at Georgetown University on June 25th. Join us to discuss what it means for carbon pollution rules and energy policy.

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Featuring:
David Gergen, Senior Political Analyst, CNN
Fred Krupp, President, EDF
Elizabeth Thompson, President, EDAF

No matter the outcome of November 6, EDF & EDAF stands ready to find a
bipartisan path for advancing environmental solutions. Please join CNN Senior
Political Analyst David Gergen and EDF & EDAF leadership for a conversation
about the outcomes of the key races and what this means for an EDF & EDAF
environmental strategy.

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Date: Thursday, January 15th, 2009, 4:00 p.m. EST

Featuring:
David Yarnold, Executive Director
Mark Brownstein, Managing Director of Business Partnerships
Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director

Listen to breaking news regarding the U.S. Climate Action Partnership—news that we believe could be a game-changer in Environmental Defense Fund’s efforts to pass strong and effective climate change legislation.

United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is a group of businesses and leading environmental organizations that have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

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This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, legislative director at Environmental Defense Fund.

This afternoon, the Senate approved a procedural motion that forces the Senate to take up the Climate Security Act. But the Senate is the Senate, and people who are set on ignoring the urgent need to act are using Senate procedures to slow down progress.

The speeches continue. We anticipate that the debate about the bill itself will start Wednesday or Thursday.

This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director at Environmental Defense Fund.

Operation Climate Vote

This post is part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

A bill has to pass both the House and the Senate to become law (see our previous post on how a bill moves through Congress). A climate change bill hasn't yet been introduced in the House, but the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act already has passed out of committee in the Senate.

Whether the bill is brought to the Senate floor for discussion and vote is up to majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev), and Reid has taken this step. The bill will be considered by the full Senate in the first week of June.

Will it pass? It's possible, but we need your support!

We have a shot at getting 60 votes, according to one of the bill's sponsors (see Greenwire article, subscription required). Right now 45 senators are likely to vote for the bill, with 15 more tilting in our direction. Your donations allow us to:

• Work with Senate leaders to ensure that carbon reduction targets aren't weakened.
• Secure those necessary swing votes in the Senate.
• Lobby House leaders to move global warming legislation out of committee.
• Keep phone calls from constituents coming to maintain pressure on House leaders to bring a bill to the floor.
• Generate earned and paid media to keep the issue in the public eye and keep our leaders focused on the need to act.
• Continue to build and mobilize our online constituency through action alerts and other channels.

If you're thinking it's not so important to pass a bill this year because the next administration will be more favorably inclined, think again. We can't afford to wait. For details on why, check out our series "Why a Bill in 2008".

This is the second in the series of weekly teleconference calls with Fred Krupp and key program staff on the rapid movement of meaningful national legislation on global warming. The call was held on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 1:30 PM Eastern.

Featuring

• Fred Krupp, President
• Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director

Learn More

• Podcast of our first call of Lieberman-Warner updates
• Overview of Climate Security Act from our Climate 411 blog
• Comparison chart of all climate bills in the 110th Congress

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When you subscribe, you'll automatically receive any new podcasts right to your iTunes library without having to check back here.

This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director at Environmental Defense.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

November 1, 2007, may go down as America's D-Day in the fight to avert the global warming crisis. A key Senate subcommittee just passed the Lieberman-Warner America's Climate Security Act (S.2191) – a bipartisan bill to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution.

The full Environment & Public Works Committee is expected to take up the legislation the week of November 12, so it could come to a vote by the end of the month. With this bill we have a real chance of passing a mandatory cap on emissions in this Congress!

The bipartisan support for America's Climate Security Act gives it a strong chance of passage – the best chance of any bill we've seen so far. We're working around the clock to make sure the Senate and eventually the House seize this opportunity to pass meaningful legislation to stop global warming.

Thanks so much to the tens of thousands of activists who are supporting our work. We'll keep you posted on new developments.

This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director at Environmental Defense.

The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) just issued an analysis that says we don't have to choose between solving the global warming crisis and protecting the lowest-income Americans. We can do both through a well-designed cap-and-trade system.

According to CBPP, just 14 percent of the revenue from auctioning emissions allowances would be sufficient to shield vulnerable households and address the needs of the poor. We can have a strong climate policy and still afford to protect the most vulnerable among us. This insight is an important contribution to the global warming debate.

Still, we shouldn't lose sight of something this analysis doesn't consider – namely, the enormous impact climate change could have on the poor if we fail to act.

This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director at Environmental Defense.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

The US Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP) ran its first newspaper ad [PDF] last week in the widely read Capitol Hill newspapers Roll Call and the Politico. The ad urges Congress to "take prompt action" to reduce America's global warming pollution and recommends a "cap-and-trade program that achieves emission reductions at the lowest possible cost."

The ad is a clear signal that the partnership of 27 major corporations and 6 leading environmental organizations is eager to assert itself in the political debate and to push the global warming solutions agenda forward.

Environmental Defense co-founded US-CAP earlier this year to bring environmentalists and businesses from a variety of industries together around a common set of principles for effective global warming action. Since its launch, the number of companies and organizations involved in US-CAP has more than doubled.

The businesses involved in US-CAP have combined annual revenue of more than $2 trillion. The participation of this diverse group of successful businesses willing to promote meaningful global warming legislation directly challenges the tired argument that there is an inevitable trade off between the environment and the economy.

Smart global warming policy can cut emissions without significantly harming the economy. In fact, there is tremendous potential for economic growth as America transforms and adopts new energy and efficiency technologies.

There is no greater proof of this than the participation of so many Fortune 500 companies in US-CAP.

This post is by Elizabeth Thompson, legislative director.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

As we launch our campaign to demand a vote on a national global warming cap and trade bill this year, some may ask why now? And why cap and trade?

Both good questions. Here's why.

First, scientists tell us that even if we cut global warming emissions to zero tomorrow, there is enough carbon dioxide pollution accumulated in the atmosphere to increase global temperatures for decades to come. Every additional ton of carbon we emit accelerates this warming trend.

To stave off runaway, catastrophic global warming, scientists tell us that we must stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide pollution in the earth's atmosphere at or below 450 parts per million. To reach this target, America needs to cut its CO2 pollution around 80 percent by 2050.

That's an average of 2 percent reduction per year if we start now.

However, even after Congress passes a global warming cap and the president signs it into law, it will take another couple years to develop and implement procedures to effectively administer the law.

So, it will be 2010 at the earliest before we begin achieving real emissions cuts, even if we pass a law tomorrow.

The longer we delay, the deeper we have to cut to hit our 80 percent reduction target by 2050.

Which brings us to the second question, why cap and trade? Simply put, cap and trade offers the best chance we have to cut emissions quickly and economically. It sets the hard cap but then encourages companies to develop new technologies and efficiencies to cut emissions. (Here's a more detailed description of how it works.)

The key advantage to cap and trade is that the more a company reduces its emissions, the more money it can either make or save. Across the whole economy, the most efficient ways to cut pollution will be put into practice most widely, most quickly.

Most importantly, a cap is the only system that guarantees the emissions reductions that scientists say we need. Other approaches guess at what will cause the necessary cuts, a cap mandates it.

Scientists have described the urgency. Cap and trade is the most viable and effective solution. It's up to us to keep the pressure on for real action this year.