Weekly Briefing: Our 2023 Conference And Lobby Day Was One For The Books

June 14, 2023

 We’re back, baby! We just wrapped up an incredible conference and lobby day in Washington, D.C. This was CCL’s biggest presence on Capitol Hill since before the pandemic, with volunteers holding more than 400 lobby meetings in House and Senate offices yesterday. 

The energy was buzzing in the Omni Shoreham Hotel and all throughout the halls of Congress. Volunteers posted on social media at every opportunity — you can see tons of lobby photos and conference clips by scrolling through CCL’s Twitter feed or watching our “June 2023” Instagram highlight.

We also live streamed and recorded lots of the conference content on Sunday and Monday, including:

• A keynote panel with four all-star volunteers

• Policy discussions diving deep on permitting and carbon border adjustments

• Training on motivational interviewing (which absolutely slayed )

• A closing message from Rachel Kyte, a leading expert in climate diplomacy

If you weren’t able to join us in D.C., or if you want to catch up on sessions you might have missed, check out the presentation slides on CCL Community or head to our YouTube playlist to watch all the available recordings.

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In other news this week:  

• Conference media hits across the country: Volunteers generated lots of local media hits about their trip to D.C. for the June conference, including a TV segment in Montana, an LTE in Illinois, and an op-ed in Florida. Great work!

• ICYMI - Bipartisan PROVE IT Act drops: Just days before our conference, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the PROVE IT Act, which lays groundwork for a carbon border adjustment mechanism. This Washington Post story quotes CCL’s VP of Government Affairs Ben Pendergrass, and this column calls the bill “an achievement in its own right.”

• Update on executive roles: CCL Executive Director Madeleine Para announced at the conference that she is transitioning to President to focus on organizational partnerships and development, and board member Mark Reynolds will become CCL's acting Executive Director.

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Take action this week  

If you have a little time: Reinforce our lobby day message. You can help reinforce the message we just brought to Capitol Hill about clean energy permitting reform. Write to your members of Congress to ask them for a new permitting package that boosts clean energy transmission, improves community involvement, and helps the U.S. build and deploy clean energy projects faster.

If you have more time: Watch our June call with Bill McKibben. We welcomed author and activist Bill McKibben as the guest speaker for our June call this past weekend, hosted by CCL's Student Engagement Manager, Steffanie Munguía. Bill gave a thoughtful overview of the state of the climate fight right now and took questions from call attendees. If you couldn’t join, catch up with the recording.

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Upcoming Trainings 

Our normal Thursday night training series, Citizens’ Climate University, is on break due to the conference. 

Core Volunteer Training is still on for next week! Here are the details:

6/20: Preventing Burnout as a Climate Advocate - Climate work can feel heavy and hard. This training from CCL's Education and Resilience Coordinator, Tamara Staton (pictured), will help you connect with others, share authentically, listen deeply, and build personal resilience. Join us!

To see other topics and past trainings, visit the Training Topics page of CCL Community.

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