15 people arrested for protesting Virginia Congressman Boucher’s efforts to gut climate bill

Rep. Boucher’s Handouts to Coal Lobby Hurt Working Families15 people arrested for protesting Virginia Congressman Boucher’s efforts to gut climate bill

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2009-Fifteen concerned citizens were arrested today for peacefully blocking the entrance to Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher’s office protesting his efforts to gut strong climate legislation at the expense of American families. Congressman Boucher has driven efforts in Congress to give away billions of dollars worth of free permits directly to coal, oil and other dirty fossil fuel companies under a cap and trade bill.

“The problem is Rick Boucher, the victims are American families, and the solution, as proposed by President Obama during his campaign, is a simple and fair polluter-pays cap that solves the climate crisis while rebating consumers,” said Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who was among those arrested today.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) co-authored the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which regulates greenhouse gases. The Energy and Commerce Committee released the 946-page bill last Friday and has spent this week marking it up. Congressman Boucher, who received $176,000 from the coal industry during his most recent re-election campaign, has led efforts to weaken the bill in committee.

Instead of making polluters pay for the permits to dump carbon into the atmosphere, an approach President Obama supported during his campaign, Rep. Boucher negotiated a deal where 35 percent of the allowances will be given away directly to utilities, also called local distribution companies. Allowances given to these companies would be worth $20.8 billion a year starting in 2012.

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency conducted an analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill (in discussion form) and found that giving free allocations to utilities under a cap and trade program would raise the total cost of the program and hurt poor Americans the most.

“Returning the allowance value to consumers of electricity via local distribution companies… makes the cap-and-trade policy more costly overall,” the EPA concluded in its analysis. “Freely distributed allowances to firms tends to be very regressive. Higher income households may actually gain at the expense of lower income households under this policy.”

More than fifty people gathered outside Congressman Boucher’s office at noon today to highlight how Boucher’s handouts to the coal industry will hurt working families and diminish efforts to fight global warming. They said they hoped their efforts would send a message to other members of Congress that now is the time for bold, urgent action to solve global warming and that they will be held accountable for their stance on the bill.

Virginia Tech student Joshua Deutschmann traveled to Capitol Hill to join the protest.

“As a student and a voter in Southwest Virginia, I was deeply disappointed by Representative Boucher’s response to the Waxman-Markey climate bill,” he said. “It appears he has played a key part in dismantling the core of the bill, emphasizing dirty coal instead of clean renewable technology and jobs in Southwest Virginia.”

Protesters compared the polluter giveaways to the government’s recent bailout of Wall Street and American Insurance Group. Except, unlike Wall Street, utility companies are not failing. Last year alone, America’s 48 largest utilities earned profits of $28 billion. Dominion Resources, a major campaign contributor to Congressman Boucher, made a whopping $1.8 billion last year.

Today’s protest was endorsed by Southern Appalachian Mountain Steward, a conversation group based in Wise County, Virginia. Participants stood outside the doorway holding statements of support sent in by southwest Virginians.

“I’ve been a supporter of yours since your first race, but it’s time to put the health of the planet ahead of short-term profits,” read a statement from Chris Prokosch of Floyd, Virginia. “The coal industry will have to clean up sooner or later — later may be too late for all of us.”

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