======================================== NRDC's EARTH ACTION: The Bulletin for Environmental Activists
March 6, 2007 ========================================
Urgent alert: Call your senators to stop a dirty liquid coal bill
The Senate is scheduled to vote this week, so please call your senators right away and urge them to oppose the Inhofe Liquid Coal Amendment to S.4
Senator Boxer: (202) 224-3553
Senator Feinstein: (202) 224-3841
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The Senate plans to vote this week on legislation to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Although the bill has nothing to do with global warming or coal plants, Senator Inhofe (R-OK), a vocal global warming skeptic, plans to offer an amendment to the bill that would provide a range of taxpayer subsidies and a long-term federal commitment for "liquid coal," an expensive and dirty technology that would increase, rather than reduce, global warming pollution.
The process of making liquid coal (i.e., turning coal into a transportation fuel) could result in twice the global warming pollution per gallon compared with the fuels we use today. That's simply incompatible with our urgent need to reduce global warming pollution. In addition, coal mining already causes devastating harm to the land, water and air quality of communities from Appalachia to the Rocky Mountains; producing liquid coal fuels would mean even more coal pollution in these communities.
To add insult to injury, liquid coal is a bad investment for America's taxpayers. Instead of helping build a commercial-scale liquid coal industry (which is the intent of Senator Inhofe's amendment) taxpayer dollars should be invested in clean energy resources that would reduce both oil dependence and global warming pollution.
== What to do == Call your senators today at the numbers listed below. When you reach your senator's office, tell the person you speak with that you want the senator to oppose the Inhofe Liquid Coal Amendment to S.4
Senator Boxer: (202) 224-3553
Senator Feinstein: (202) 224-3841
Please also forward this message to your friends and co-workers, and urge them to contact their senators as well.
Thank you!
========== About NRDC ==========
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a nonprofit environmental organization with 1.2 million members and online activists, and a staff of scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our mission is to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.
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