Democrats, let’s clean up our planet and our politics: #OilMoneyOut of the DNC

An open letter to my DNC Executive Committee colleagues

Democrats, climate change and pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels bring existential threats to our planet, our public health, and our politics.

The clear and present danger to our ecology; the lead in our water from Flint to Fresno; the alarming rates of environmental illness from asthma to cancer — which the Trump administration is not only failing to prevent — but refusing to treat given their just-announced assault on Affordable Care Act coverage of pre-existing medical conditions — and the fossil fuel industry’s outsized multi-multi-million dollar influence in political PAC contributions that expect a return on investment in the form of drilling off our coasts, desecrating and despoiling our native lands and public parks, and rolling back fuel emission standards all block the path to a clean energy future.

Today we can act — in harmony with the millions of Americans demanding that we clean up our planet and our politics and join the hundreds of individual Democratic political candidates for office across the country who have pledged not to take money from the fossil fuel industry.

We can RESOLVE today to send a clear message to the polluters and the people: reaffirm our progressive, pro-environment positions, encourage grassroots donors, and reject corporate PAC contributions from the fossil fuel industry that conflict with our DNC Platform.

I write to you from California, where my stepson graduates high school this morning. His generation is demanding bold action on climate — and we can take a step together today.

Please vote yes.

Thank you.

Christine Pelosi

TEXT OF RESOLUTION:

DNC RESOLUTION REAFFIRMING OUR PRO-ENVIRONMENT PLATFORM, ENCOURAGING GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM, AND REJECTING DONORS FROM THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY

Respectfully submitted,

Christine Pelosi CA

WHEREAS, we Democrats have the opportunity to reform and revive our party by empowering diverse grassroots Democrats at the leadership table and in our communities including building on our recent successes with small donor fundraising programs; and

WHEREAS, the American people are looking to Democrats to promote people-powered politics in this era of resistance, revival, and reform but are rightly concerned that their voices are drowned out; and,

WHEREAS, climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels represents an existential threat to civilization, and Democrats committed in our 2016 Platform to curbing the effects of climate change, protecting America’s natural resources, and ensuring the quality of our air, water, and land for current and future generations — then marched in the hundreds of thousands at 2017 and 2018 Science March and Earth Day events;

WHEREAS, in addition to President Obama’s 2009 — 2016 ban on all corporate PAC donations to the DNC, our state parties have been drawing bright lines for years with respect to rejecting donations from various corporate interests that conflict with our Democratic platforms such as tobacco, payday lending, and gun manufacturers to perpetuate what President Obama referred to in his Farewell Address as our efforts to “reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics, and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service;”

WHEREAS, fossil fuel corporations are drowning our democracy in a tidal wave of dark oily money; they have deceived the public about the impacts of climate change, fought the growth of clean renewable energy, and corrupted our political system;

WHEREAS, hundreds of individual Democratic political candidates for office across the country have pledged not to take money from the fossil fuel industry;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Democratic National Committee acts to revive trust in our Party by reaffirming our progressive, pro-environment 2016 Platform, encouraging grassroots donors, and rejecting corporate PAC contributions from the fossil fuel industry that conflict with our DNC Platform in order to empower Democrats to walk our talk in harmony with our stated beliefs and convictions

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