You're listening tonight and heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and today we've got two guests today. Joining us from Citizens Climate Lobby, Steve Valk, and Jerry Hinkle. welcome Stephen. Jerry, thanks for being on the show.

You don't have enough, Matt.

Well, tell us a little bit, Steve about what Citizens Climate Lobby is, and, and what its origin story is, and maybe a little bit about your, what led you to, to this organization?

Sure, sure. So, whenever people talk about what's missing to address climate change, inevitably, the answer is political will and to tackle a problem as big as climate change. We need policies at the national level. So special interests, like the fossil fuel industry, have an army of lobbyists in Washington, but deep pockets that work to maintain the status quo.

So what Citizens Climate Lobby is all about is creating an army of citizen lobbyists who engage their members of Congress to enact effective climate solutions. So our slogan is political will for a livable world. And we had about a dozen chapters, mostly in Southern California back in 2009. Today, we have 453 chapters, with 10s of 1000s of volunteers in the US, reaching every congressional district in the country, and we train and support those volunteers to be effective lobbyists.

So by being effective, what I mean is taking an approach of appreciation and respect for the people were lobbying, rather than a combative or adversarial approach. And our meetings with members of Congress usually start with thanking them for something that they did.

And this changes the whole tone of a meeting with a member of Congress, for instance, you know, like a Republican, might look at their schedule and say, Oh, I've got a meeting with Citizens Climate Lobby, I don't know how this is gonna go. But then we thank them for something. And it just it changes the whole tenor of the meeting, right? Yeah. It really does.

Tell me, you said you start off with was it 12 chapters in Southern California and about a dozen or so it?

Well, it the the organization actually started in 2007. All with volunteers. And then in 2009, we actually made our first hire, which was our executive director and, and a two, in 2009, we had about a dozen chapters at that point. And we just started going on this campaign to start chapters all around the country, we actually based our lobbying model on an organization that works on hunger and poverty called results.

That has done fantastic work lobbying Congress, for programs in the foreign aid budget, for instance, that do child survival and microcredit and, and education and things like that. So they've been very successful. And so the, the guy who founded Citizens Climate Lobby, Marshall Saunders, he was a volunteer with with results, he saw that the model worked. And just a little bit more about his story was that he actually started a microcredit program down in Mexico.

And after a while, he kind of got to seeing the climate change was affecting the people that he was trying to help and that with, with if you didn't solve climate change, all this work that he was doing to help them, really, I mean, you're seeing it now you're seeing people in Central America and Mexico now migrating north, because of what's happening with with climate change. So he decided, hey, I need to do something about climate change.

And he, and he took the the model of results, which was very successful, and, and started his own organization to lobby Congress on the issue of climate change, because as I said, he saw that the thing that was really missing was political will. And that's what, that's what we set out to do. And we also take, like a bipartisan approach to solving climate change, because we believe that that's the only way that solutions are really going to endure over time the Obama administration tried to cut carbon through executive action, the Clean Power Plan, but when Trump got elected, that plan was scrapped.

So it's We really we try as much as we can to, to take a bipartisan approach and get both sides together. Now, the policy that we've mainly been lobbying for, for some time now is called the carbon fee and dividend and I'll let let Jerry, talk a little bit more about about that policy. Well,

I was gonna follow up a little bit on a couple of things that you said one of them is that the results organization I had worked with back in the 80s, when I was in New Orleans. So I've been familiar with the model in terms of writing letters to the congressman, and those, those things are taken more seriously than anything else, because it shows a citizens really concerned about something because most of us don't write letters.

And even even back in the 80s, a letter writing was a lost art. And, and it was very effective. And as you said, it was a bipartisan approach. And we talked to both sides of the aisle and and it was very effective at getting these congressmen to, to support these bills, which did a lot to reduce poverty around the planet. So it was effective. It it took, you know, some time to to gain traction, but I think it ultimately worked. I noticed on your board that you had quite a quite a group of people that were supporting, from George Shultz to James Hansen, Don Cheadle.

You know, George Shultz being the former Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, so yes, so um, that, you know, I always had a lot of respect for him as a as somebody who served our country well, and with great honor and dignity, and I think respected on both sides of the aisle. So I think that says a lot about the organization, that it would attract somebody of that caliber.

Oh, yeah, no, no, George Schultz is he was a fantastic man. And, yeah, we talked to him about this, this particular policy, and he said, Wow, this makes sense to me. And so, you know, we said, hey, would you like to be on our advisory board? He said, Sure. So this was great. And this was even before he got involved with the the other organization that that he started with, with James Baker to promote this, this policy. Yeah. The Climate Leadership Council.

Right. So Jerry, you were gonna jump in and tell us a little bit more about what you're working on?

Yeah. So George Shultz is an economist. And to economist, this is actually a kind of a simple problem and solution in that the source of the problem is that polluting is free. And if something is has a cost bears a cost, and we're seeing that climate change does, but you don't charge anything for that cost, you're going to overuse it, you're going to overuse carbon, so you put a price on carbon, and it's elegant.

And that's why economists love it. 28 Nobel Prize winning economists have signed a statement in support of this. And in addition, Alan Greenspan, Janet Yellen, another 3,000. And so very popular among economists, you charge for pollution. That way, everybody has a financial incentive to pollute less everybody every day. And that's sort of the team that we need to combat climate change. At this point, we're a little late in the game.

Now, the problem with that, though, is that it raises fundamental costs on people. But if you take all that money you've raised and just give it back to households, they continue to have the financial incentive to reduce pollution. But they're made whole.

And as we turn out, as it turns out, two thirds of Americans actually do better under a carbon fee and dividend approach. And by that what I mean is, their costs will rise. But the dividend check that they receive from the money will actually be more they'll come out ahead, especially the poor and we like that.

We don't want to crush people with taxation, and that's not good for the economy. It's not good for people who are particularly lower income. So of those two thirds of Americans that are doing better. What What's the distribution in terms of Are those all lower income people are some people on the highest ends of the spectrum?

Ernie getting tax relief by this very few as it turns out, so everybody gets the same dividend An average dividend, if you will. And it turns out the amount of your footprint, the amount that you're polluting is a function of the amount of stuff you buy. And to no surprise, people with more money, buy more stuff. So 96% of the first quintile come out ahead.

Something like 20% of the fifth quintile, the wealthiest of Americans, come out ahead. So it's, it's, you know, the, the lowest three quintiles lowest 60%, on average, come out ahead. And that's not an intent to redistribute income at all, as George Schultz says, it's simply a matter of charging a more fair price for the products.

Well, that makes sense. And that even for the highest income people, if they are actually using less in the way of carbon, then they get some benefit to so everybody's incentivized to use less carbon dioxide. And so we're all are polluting less so we're all benefiting if we're rowing in the same direction.

So we're at a break time and we'll be back in just one second. You're listening to Unite and Heal America. My two guests, Steve Valk and Jerry Hinkle from Citizens Climate Lobby back in just one minute.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host, and we've got two guests from Citizens Climate Lobby, Steve Valk and Jerry Hinkle.

Gentlemen, if you could tell us a little bit about you. It's spoken about bipartisan approach that you have, what bipartisan victories have you had so far with the organization? Maybe, Steve, you want to?

Sure, sure. Yeah. So for the longest time, Republicans and Democrats have been worlds apart when it comes to climate change. And so we saw that the first thing that needed to happen was simply to get the two sides talking to each other. And in a setting where there wasn't all this partisan posturing happening. I mean, when the camera lights are on and the microphones are turned on, that's when all the partisanship starts to happen.

So that's six years ago, one of our volunteers approached a Florida Democrat to Deutsch about this, and he reached out to a Florida Republican, Carlos Curbelo. And in 2016, they started the house bipartisan Climate Solutions caucus, and our volunteers around the country started asking their representatives to join the caucus. And so within a year, there were 80 members on the caucus with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. And then a couple of years later, two senators, Republican Mike Braun, and Democrat Chris Coons, decided to start a bipartisan Climate Solutions caucus in the Senate.

And that caucus now has 14 members now to get to the victories. One piece of legislation that came out of the Senate caucus is the growing Climate Solutions Act, and that was sponsored by Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican Mike Braun. And what this legislation does, is it helps farmers and foresters to access carbon credit markets so that they can get paid for the carbon. They sequester through climate friendly farming methods. And this is important because about 10% of the carbon emissions come from agriculture.

So this bill will enable farmers to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. And in Lobby meetings. Our volunteers asked senators to support this bill at 57. Senators out of 100 senators 57 ended up CO sponsoring the bill. And in June, it went to the floor in the Senate, and it passed by a vote of 92 to eight with overwhelming bipartisan support. And now the bill is in the house and we're expecting a vote to come up in the coming weeks.

There have been a couple of other bills that that CCL supported this year with bipartisan support. One was the hope for homes Act, which provides investments for energy efficiency, and the other one was the scale Act To Provide investments in carbon capture and storage. Both of these bills became part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed and the President signed last month. So if there's a climate solution that can find common ground between ripple weakens, Democrats will throw our support behind it and help move it through Congress.

Well, that's great to hear. And they need all the help they can get to, to, to move in that direction. And I applaud your efforts on that front. In terms of the growing Climate Solutions Act, what's the scope of it? How many people? Is it going to affect how many farmers or how many? What, what's the scope of it?

Jerry, did do you want to? I mean, I know a little bit about it. But Jerry, do, do you know, enough about that you'd like to get into that a little bit?

Yeah. It's most farmers, most all farmers will benefit from this most, you know, one of the things that we're fundamentally about is trying to give a financial incentive to do the right thing. Long term, we're going to hit in the right direction, if we do that, and this act does exactly that. So most all farms, I'm not sure if any farmers that wouldn't benefit from that as long as they can begin practices that can be established that do sequester carbon.

Okay, what, what other pieces of legislation are you working on at the national level? And maybe things at the local level that are particularly salient that you're putting your focus on?

Well, the ones that I just mentioned, beyond that, we've really kind of been keying in on the on the carbon price, because that's, that's the heaviest lift. It really is. Yeah.

Where do, where do you stand? Or where do we stand as a country in in terms of getting support for that? For that tax? The Carbon Tax essentially, I know, you guys prefer not to call it a tax, but okay, let's, you got to call it what it is.

Senator Whitehouse speaking to Bloomberg news about 10 days ago, said, You were looking at in Senate Finance for looking at a carbon tax in which most of the phones are returned to households, a carbon fee and dividend approach said I've got 49 votes in the Senate.

And all's I need for reconciliation is 50. I've been assured it will pass on the house. And then if it gets to the President's desk, he will sign it. So we've made enormous headway. We're one vote short, we're holding out hope that we can get that vote between now and the time that reconciliation is voted on. We're doing all we can I think we've sent something like 300,000 communications to the House and Senate over the past month in support of carbon pricing. Maybe we'll be back in a couple of months and let you know how it turned out.

And the the reason that this has gotten as far as it has in the Senate right now, is because of the support that we've been building in Congress for for many years. For instance, in the house, there's a piece of legislation called the Energy Innovation and carbon dividend act that was introduced by Congressman Deutch, and we beat him primarily because of our lobbying efforts.

There are now 90 members of the House who have signed on as sponsor or co sponsor to that bill. So it has this enormous support in the House from both moderate and progressive Democrats. And and in the Senate. Congressman show I mean, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the save our future act.

And, again, it's a similar bill, it, it takes some of the revenue that might be generated for that, and it does things like help out, you know, like coal communities to to transition off of fossil fuels. Most of the money would be used to pay back to households, as Jerry was talking about it with with the carbon fee and dividend concept in order to to make sure that people aren't bearing a financial burden on on this transition.

So you have these two pieces of legislation that have been garnering lots of support in Congress. Because not not just because of the the meetings that we have with members of Congress, but our volunteers have been writing letters to the editor. They've been publishing op ed, they've been meeting with editorial boards to, to get endorsements for this kind of policy.

And, you know, so it's not just the meetings, it's building support in the communities and, and, you know, letting members of Congress know, hey, there is support for this in your district and in your state to go this way, particularly, and it'll be popular if you're giving money if you put money in people's pockets.

People are gonna, people are gonna say, hey, yeah, I'm all for that. And once once they start getting those checks, that's a policy that's going to be very difficult for anybody to undo. Really will be. Now, you've got 49 votes in the Senate for that proposal that you were just discussing on the carbon tax is Joe Manchin, the The X Factor to get to 50 votes thing?

Dang. Dang.

Excellent. Yes, Matt.

So where are you at in terms of persuading Senator Manchin to swing his vote in that direction?

He's he's getting, he's having a lot of conversations with his colleagues in the Senate right. Now. Let's let's put it that way. He has not said no. I mean, there's there's a lot of other things where he has said, No, I'm not going to go along with this, you know, like a methane fee. And, and some other things, too. He's even against subsidies for Union made electrical, electric vehicles.

But he has not outright said no, I will not support a carbon tax. So it's still on the table. It's it's still very, very iffy. But but one of the one of the arguments, I think that might be persuasive with him, is the fact that he supports carbon capture, and storage, because he sees that as a way that utilities can continue to use coal, which would keep coal jobs.

And the thing about putting a price on carbon is that carbon capture is a very expensive process and a price on carbon is what would actually make that technology economically viable. So that that might be one of the things, you know that that could get him to come around on this. But again, it's it's all up to Joe and believe me, he has, he's getting a lot of input from people on on this. Let's let's put it that way.

Yeah. Well, that it's fascinating. And I guess another factor that might he might consider is that I would imagine the population in West Virginia may be net beneficiaries of a carbon kind of refund or dividend that would be paid to lower income people. And my understanding is West Virginia has a fairly substantial population that lives at the lower end income spectrum.

So they would benefit by this but I'd like to talk to you about the carbon capture ideas and potential solutions after the break. You're listening to KABC 790 This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America and we'll be back in just one minute.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern. And going back to Steve Valk and Jerry Hinkle. Jerry, maybe you could talk to us a little bit about why it's probably more effective to have the tax on carbon than to give a tax credit, say for storing or carbon capture at this moment in time, given the nature of carbon capture technology being somewhat in its infancy.

Yes. Thanks, Matt. Happy to. So economists believe that the right way to do this is to you've got a cost out there in terms of climate change. And you simply internalize that cost in the market you charge for polluting, but politicians strongly prefer that that's what's called a stick. Politicians, Joe Manchin in particular has discussed this prefer carrots, we want to pay you to do the right thing as opposed to charge you for doing the wrong thing.

Not as economically efficient, but you get more votes that way, completely understandable. So one of the in the scale act, for example, is legislation that will pay you to bury carbon dioxide so you can use fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry is really interested in this and wants to support it because they could continue to use coal All oil for generating power and and not pollute by burying the emissions. The technology is in its infancy, it's young, the question as to at what scale it could reduce emissions. And the all important one is how much at what cost is that the cheapest way to reduce emissions?

Is a question mark, the best way to get to the cheapest way to reduce emissions is to use a carbon price charge for polluting, and then let the market let individuals every day figure out how best to reduce emissions. So carbon capture and storage is very interesting to the fossil fuel industry. It's a carrot, and politicians love carrot. So that's a bit more in favor now.

Yeah, I saw a recent article about there being a tremendous storage potential, say in North Dakota, we could store just tremendous amount trillions of tons of carbon in whatever geological formations exist in North Dakota, though, it hasn't been proven. And we don't have a price upon which it can be stored. Or at least to my knowledge, I didn't see one.

So we've we kind of have to do something more quickly, in my opinion, rather than wait for this unproven technology to take hold. So given that we're, we're dealing with a timeline that is a bit unforgiving, we can't continue to pollute and wait for carbon capture to kick in. If we could, well, then that would be great. We can we can work on carbon tech capture technology at our leisure.

But given that we don't really have that going on, we've got to do something that will have an immediate result which I agree with you my undergraduate degree was an economics so I I can relate to having incentivizing the market giving giving individuals and companies the incentive to do the right thing, and they'll figure out how to do it.

Yeah, I think it's a great point, Matt, a carbon price is going to work right away, it's going to raise prices immediately. It's okay to give some money towards these technologies that are as yet unproven, especially if they can make a huge difference. But you don't want to bank on them. You don't want to rely on them, you don't want to be in a lot of trouble if they don't produce the emission reductions that you're hoping for.

Yeah, right. I mean, we can work on them simultaneously. And I I fully support kind of having a Manhattan Project on maybe the top three to five important technologies that would reduce pollution, whether it's carbon capture hydrogen, and other things that would, would solve these problems, we should be investing heavily into just like we invested into the Manhattan Project to to get a an immediate result.

Agreed. And let me add something that if pollution becomes expensive, consumers will look to reduce their footprint, everyday producers, firms will but in addition, innovators, now the best minds are going to be directed towards creating the low carbon technologies that we know must be our future. Why?

Because it pays, we did we follow the money in this country. If it's if it's going to make us a buck, we're going after it. And that's what the beauty of a carbon price is it aligns financial incentives with doing the right thing with doing the thing, which we know is necessary to preserve our future for our kids.

And if you if you have a carbon price that goes up predictably, it will have an impact right away because what's what's going to happen is you're going to have all these big industries and utilities are thinking about okay, what are the infrastructure investments that we're going to make, you know, that are going to see us through for the next 30 years or so?

Well, if they see that the price on carbon is going to be $100 a tonne within 10 years or so. It becomes a no brainer for them to say oh okay, let's let's put our money in, in wind and solar because that's what will make more money that way than we will if we're still dealing with with coal and oil and gas and so forth.

So so the incentive kicks in immediately there with the price on carbon particularly for for companies that that are thinking, okay, where where do we want to put our money right now?

Well, the elegance of it makes a lot of sense because it's a very simple tax and so that you don't have to go around and, and micromanage 1000 different industries, you, you set one bar for everybody, everybody has to meet that bar. And and then it makes it clear how you need to incentivize you the business has to react to a very clear directive versus say, micromanaging by changing directions for 100 different industries.

But let's, let's kind of switch gears a little bit. And talk about the carbon border adjustment model that the European Union has been propounding as its its next step. And it's something that I talked about when I was running for president back a few years ago.

And I picked it up from from reading about the environment. And I thought that it made a lot of sense, and essentially, somewhat similar to the carbon tax that you guys are proposing. So maybe, Steve, if you want to take the first shot?

Sure. So you mentioned Europe, and the European Union right now, they, their carbon price has really kind of skyrocketed. Lately, it was very low for a number of years, but now it's up at about 78 euros per tonne of co2, which in US dollars, I think is about $85 or something like that.

So the price is very high. And what's happening is that their industries, particularly their carbon intensive industries, you know, steel and cement and things like that, they're kind of screaming at them and saying, Hey, look, if if this carbon price is going to be so high, and we're going to be paying it, then what's going to happen is we're going to get hammered by foreign competitors that don't have to pay this fee.

So what the what they're saying then is, is that, okay, yeah, the European Union says, Okay, I hear you, we're going to protect you by imposing this carbon border adjustment mechanism. And so that what that means is, is that when these companies are exporting to Europe, if they're not, if they don't have the same costs, as as the European companies do, the Europe will charge them as assess a fee to them, that will level the playing field for their manufacturers.

And what what's going to happen with that is, you know, it will prevent number one, companies from abandoning Europe and you know, who knows, maybe even the United States by going to other countries that don't have carbon pricing or something like that. But it also provides the incentive for these other countries to impose their own carbon tax.

So if you've got companies that are paying money to Europe, you know, some other country is going to say, well, our companies shouldn't be giving money to Europe, they should be giving money to us. So let's let's implement a carbon tax. And I think the Russians are already kind of talking about that.

That's one of the things that I thought was the beauty of the policy and why the United States should enact it, as well as that it levels the playing field for our industry, so that if our companies are meeting more strict environmental standards, that other company and other countries and other companies that are operating in other areas of the world, should have to kind of meet that same standard, that they shouldn't be allowed to pollute willy nilly, and then sell their products in the US without kind of meeting the US manufacturers on the same playing field.

So I think it's, it's really elegant way to enforce kind of a level playing field around the world to encourage all companies in all countries to be less polluting. And if and if there's a company in, you know, India, that predicts, produces the product for less in pollution than we do, then more power to that, you know, that's good. I mean, it's, it's bringing the level of produce a pollution down for everybody.

And then we'll probably follow that model. And then the reverse of that if there's a company in China that's making the product for 10 times the amount of pollution is an American company, then They shouldn't just be able to import it without any kind of tax on them for essentially undercutting an American company with a heavily polluted piece of equipment. Absolutely.

So, we're gonna take a break now, you're listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America and we'll be back in just one minute.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America. This is Matern, your host, and our guests again, Steve Valk and Jerry Hinkle of Citizens Climate Lobby.

And I wanted to talk to Jerry a little bit about that European model, and how it is being how it affects other countries that are heavier polluting, such as India or China.

It's clear from the response to the announcement, that the Corbin the carbon border adjustment mechanism will really motivate these export dependent countries like China, India, Russia, to put on a carbon tax of their own. And China's very much got the structure in place to that Russia is talking about developing one. And the reason is, in Europe's design, they're charging the exporting country for their pollution, the amount that they pollute to produce the steel.

And it turns out that China is very cold dependent, and they are three times more carbon intensive than Europe is Russia and India are closer to four times more carbon intensive. Well, this border adjustment is going to raise their costs far more than the European carbon tax does.

Right? Because Europe's relatively clean. Well guess what so is the US, if the US joins this, you put on the carbon price than the course banned sponding carbon border adjustment mechanism, these industries will see a significant boost, because they're now more competitive relative to China, Russia, India, Mexico, even to a small degree Canada, we are cleaner than that.

Well, let me ask you, is there a mechanism that prevents, say, China or Russia from cheating on their own taxation of their companies? They might say, have something on the books saying, Hey, we're we're going to charge a carbon tax, but they don't really do it or something to that effect?

Yeah. So great question. I imagine it's on a lot of people's minds. My general understanding is that type of question is very much on the minds of Republicans in Congress. And I will tell you this, we are once bitten. Okay, we have had international climate structures in the past that have been gained. Okay. And we're, I'm certain that we don't want to go down that road.

Again, I'm certain that these countries like Europe, Canada, America, Japan, that are looking at these carbon border adjustment mechanisms. They don't want to go through this and have it not be effective. So I think we're going to be looking very closely. Is that a promise that will prevent it completely? No.

But you know, that is a road that will, you know, there will be heightened scrutiny of the processes to make sure that it's working. Yeah. And certainly we do have a number of mechanisms, the world is more transparent, we lost a lot of privacy. But that's probably good for monitoring, too. So we're able to monitor things like that a lot more carefully than maybe in the past.

Let me ask you in terms of the effectiveness of a carbon tax in terms of reducing emissions, is it actually going to be effective? And what's the what's the evidence that if we do this, we're actually going to see a positive result and get to net zero faster than using other mechanisms?

Yeah, great question. It's pretty intuitive, that when the price of something goes up, we buy less of it. This is the plan with respect to cigarette taxes. Cigarette smoking was a problem. The health care costs were outrageous. We made cigarettes far more expensive and their use went down significantly. There were other things involved like a marketing campaign.

So historically, currently, all developed countries except The US and Australia have carbon prices on products. Okay, in 142 countries historic study was done over decades. And in fact, carbon pricing was effective in reducing emissions, specifically, for every one euro carbon price. emissions were reduced point 3%.

So you can look at Europe's cost of about 60 Euro, well, that's a pretty substantial reduction in carbon emissions. Now, projections going forward, everybody's on board with the carbon price, the World Bank says 20% of global carbon emissions have a price on them at this point, we need to increase coverage, we need to increase the price.

The UN is saying roughly a global carbon price of $75 a tonne will get us on the path to net zero by 2050. And the IMF is urging a global carbon price minimum or floor to be enacted by all major emitters. So we're clear how to do this. We know how to get there.

And as Steve said at the beginning, what's missing is the political will. And we've made enormous progress. Give us a little bit of push, folks. That's why we're on the call.

Please, Matt, go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say, Well, why don't we follow up with that is how, how can people help out in this in this effort? And what what can they do to join your organization or other organizations to help put, you know, this, these issues front and center in our legislators minds?

Well, first thing, go ahead and look us up on the internet, its Citizens Climate Lobby, dot o RG one word, and you'll, you can just kind of go through the website there a little bit and see what we're what we're all about. And, and then if you join CCL will automatically send you an email that will put you into a chapter that's near you, in all likelihood, with 453 chapters, there's going to be one, you know, within a short drive of where ever you live in the country.

So we'll connect you with a group and, and there's trainings that we have to teach people how to be effective lobbyists to learn about policies, and, and so forth. So there's a lot of things that that citizens can do. They can they can meet with members of Congress, they can write to their, to their members of Congress, they can get media published, they can do presentations in their community. It's it's all about pushing the policy forward, whether it's in the public sphere or with with with members of Congress.

And so yeah, we're, we're happy to have people come and check us out and enjoy. And I do have to mention that we are in the middle of our year end fundraising drive. So if you want to contribute, you can contribute, as well.

We have an excellent staff that supports these volunteers, in training them and giving them the tools that they need to to succeed. So so that would be step one, it's just look us up on the website. And then, you know, give us your name and your and your email, and we'll get you going.

Well, that sounds like a good, a good way to get started. Jerry, you were gonna say something…

Yeah, we're a little different in that were completely nonpartisan. And we take a very appreciative, respectful approach. And that may not be for everybody. But I would urge everyone look us up but look others up to have your voice heard.

One of the things CCL has shown is it's making a difference. We are moving the needle. We are up against strong opposition. We need every voice to sing from the rafters on this one. So if it's not with us, there's other fabulous organization out there but have your voice heard.

But certainly what the show is all about is to say to people, you've got to get involved all of us do and I think many of us have kind of outsourced our responsibilities saying oh, I said Nobody else take care of it. And certainly in more recent years, I've wanted to get more involved myself, because I believe that, hey, it's our duty as citizens of this great country to be engaged and to play our part in, in moving the policies that are most important to our country forward and, and our politicians can't kind of do it alone.

So rather than saying, hey, just yelling at them for not doing what we want, rather engaging with them to say, hey, let's help you do the right thing here. We were part of we're partners in this process as citizens. So I encourage everybody who's listening to go out there and get get involved in this. And certainly the work that you are doing at Citizens Climate Lobby is great work.

And I appreciate that it's, it isn't partisan, that it is based upon science and reason. And these are the things that should be driving our our environmental policies, not hype and emotional appeals. It's so based upon science, I mean, you've got James Hansen, who was the was the former head of NASA, a great scientist on your board.

And I assume, you know, he wouldn't stick his neck out there and, and associated with a group that he didn't feel strongly aligned with. So I appreciate the good work that you're doing. And I encourage everybody to check out your, your website and hopefully engage with you.

I've also enjoyed having both of you on the show. And hopefully, you know, we can have you back sometime after you get the carbon tax across the finish line and we can celebrate the victory and talk about what the next steps are going forward.

Absolutely. Happy to come back when that happens.

Definitely.

Looking forward to that. Matt, thanks so much for having us. Really appreciate it.

Well, it's been great having you both Jerry and Steve on the show. You've been listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt. I'm signing off and we'll talk to you next week.