This is a follow up on A Siegel's earlier diary on this last night: Re Energizing ... ENERGIZE AMERICA ... which deserved more attention than it garnered.
To put it simply: a senior member of Congress has approached and met with several members (kossacks) of the Energize America team.
We have been asked to turn many of the EA2020 Acts and concepts into draft bills for legislative action.
This is a call to kossacks that are interested in shaping legislation.
For those of you that are not familiar with Energize America, it is the energy plan which was collectively drafted by kossacks over the past year and a half, and was presented publicly during the YearlyKos convention. The diaries during which policy proposals were proposed, discussed and evaluated publicly are as follows:
- Energize America - Achieving U.S. Energy Security by 2020 (Draft Five), May 18, 2006
- Energize America - A Blueprint for U.S. Energy Security (Fourth Draft), December 13, 2005
- Energize America--A Democratic Blueprint (Third Draft), November 6, 2005
- Reenergize America - A Democratic Blueprint (Second Draft), October 18, 2005
- Building together an effective Dem energy policy (I), September 30, 2005
The full text of EA2020 and the presentation at YK can be downloaded from the EA2020 website.
Since the last version was drafted, there have been a number of conversations with Congresspersons or candidates on the topic of EA, and various discussions on how to bring it to a new level by further improving it and, more importantly, getting it publicized.
That work has borne some fruit as Adam's diary attests, and we are now about to enter a whole new phase.
We need volunteers!
We are asked to develop legislative proposals (draft) bills based on the following acts:
Act III: The Fleets Conversion Act ("Mass Transit")
Act IV: The Community-Based Energy Investment Act ("Neighborhood Power")
Act V: The Passenger Rail Restoration Act ("Bullet Trains")
Act VII: The Wind Energy Production Tax Credit Act ("Reap the Wind")
Act VIII: The 20 Million Solar Roofs Act ("Harness the Sun")
Act IX: The Renewable Portfolio Standards Act ("Fair Everywhere")
Act X: The Federal Net Metering Act ("Get on the Grid"
Act XI: The State-Based Renewable Energy Demonstration Act ("Green States")
Act XVIII: Home Efficiency Act ("C the Light")
Act XIX:Demand Side Management Act ("Real Time Energy Pricing")
This is NOT a small agenda ... and there are other items on the table.
If you have experience writing legislation -- or wish to try your hand at it -- we would welcome your assistance.
Our hope is that a good chunk of the work can be done on dailykos, via diaries that allow the whole community to made suggestions and to comment on proposals. We have access to a unique breadth of competences, and now is the time to put them to work for the better good of all.
There will be a lot of work in addition to what happens on dKos, so I'd like to make a call for two kind of contributions:
- active volunteers
- specific information input via DailyKos
Active volunteers
We need more people to help us work on the content of Energize America, to draft actual legislative proposals, and to help distribute this to a wider audience.
This might very well be a quasi-full time second job (in fact, the main reason why EA has slowed down after version 5 was that it was a huge amount of work for the core team of volunteers, and it could not be sustained indefinitely as Real Life reasserted its rights...). So we need people that will have time to commit to the project, and will be able to take the initiative - thus a bais understanding of energy issues is probably a requisite, even as new competences are needed (editing, IT, modelling, PR, relations with politicians etc....)
If you'd like to help, but cannot commit so much effort, the best is probably to keep a lookout for EA diaries and provide your input in the conversations there - or whenever there will be calls for specialised competences on a case by case basis.
specific information input
We're going to re-start regular diaries, broaching various topics, and we'll be asking fo feedback, ideas, contributions, critiques, etc... The more comments and ratings we get, the better we can use the input of the community. Just helping us keep the diaries visible counts.
My first question today, which will be repeated, will be as follows:
Can you tell us if your Congressperson or local politicians are aware of Energize America?
i.e.
- have you ever sent the plan or a link to them?
- have they commented in any way?
- have they endorsed it?
- do they talk strongly and regularly about energy?
- would you be willing/able to ask them to take a public stand on Energize America? (An acknowledgement, an endorsement, more)
We have a number of references in our "database", including explicit endorsements, but would like to create a critical mass of support, both for the content of EA, and for its method (grassroots policy making).
All help will be appreciated.