Weekly Briefing: CCLers hold 300+ virtual lobby meetings with Congress

November 19, 2025

It's officially our Fall Lobby Week, and CCLers are doing what they do best — talking to Congress about climate change. Our grassroots volunteers will hold more than 300 virtual meetings with congressional offices in the coming days and weeks.

These productive, impactful conversations will help advance our primary asks: bipartisan energy permitting reform, the Fix Our Forests Act, and foreign pollution fees.

Lobby meeting photos are already making a splash across social media:

• Rep. George Latimer (NY-16)
• Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06)
• Sen. Michael Bennett (CO)
• Rep. Mikie Sherill (NJ-11)
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

Remember to post your own lobby meeting screenshots and send them to marketing@citizensclimate.org!

Our Fall Conference, which took place over the weekend, got volunteers primed and ready for these meetings. Conference attendees heard from:

• CCL's Interim Executive Director Ricky Bradley about CCL’s new strategic plan.
• Former White House clean energy advisor Avi Zevin about his time shaping national energy strategy.
• CCL's Government Affairs team, detailing the focus of this week's lobby meetings.

If you weren’t able to attend live, you can view the recordings on CCL’s YouTube channel.

In other news this week:

• Submit a Lobby Week reflection video: We want to hear from you! Whether it was your first or 50th lobby meeting, we’re looking for volunteers to record a short video about their fall lobby meeting experience. We’ll be featuring some of these videos during our December Monthly Meeting. Please send your 30-60 second videos to marketing@citizensclimate.org.
• Attend CCL’s first-ever Town Hall: On December 3 at 8 p.m. ET, plan to join a CCL Town Hall-style event with CCL's Interim Executive Director, Ricky Bradley. All are welcome, especially CCL supporters just starting their CCL journey or finding their role. Hear organizational updates and come ready to ask questions during the call. You can submit questions ahead of time to conference.inbox@citizensclimate.org.
• Save the date for our Year-End Fundraiser: CCL’s annual year-end fundraiser kicks off Giving Tuesday, December 2. If we can reach our milestone goal of $250,000 on Giving Tuesday, we’ll unlock an additional $250,000 bonus gift from generous donors! Make a plan to donate that day so we can take advantage of this incredible opportunity to fund our grassroots climate advocacy and keep citizens’ voices strong in Congress.

Take action this week

If you have a little time: Engage with lobby meeting posts on social media. As Lobby Week continues, more and more CCL chapters are posting screenshots of their lobby meetings on social media. By liking, sharing, and commenting on these posts, you can help more people see them — including any members of Congress who are tagged. Get started with the posts in our Instagram highlight, or check out our reposts on X and Bluesky.

If you have more time: Call Congress during Lobby Week. Want to support our 300+ virtual lobby meetings with Congress? You can boost our Lobby Week message by calling your representative and senators, too! Our action tool identifies your members of Congress and provides a script to follow, making it easy and quick to participate. Your calls will amplify one of our primary asks: Advancing bipartisan permitting reform. With your help, we can reach our goal of 1,000 calls to Congress. Make your calls today!

Upcoming trainings

11/20: Fundraising Tools To Help Support CCL - If you're looking for an easy, optional way to support CCL's year-end fundraising campaign, this is the session for you! Led by Bill Barron, CCL Network Director, this session will explore CCL's Fundraising Toolkit (updated ahead of the training) and show you how simple it is to use peer-to-peer programs like Pledge It and Facebook. Join us!

12/10: December LTE Writing Workshop - Members of Congress, and their staff, pay attention to local media—especially when it mentions them by name. During the session, you will learn the formula for an effective letter to the editor (LTE) and receive talking points for a timely, effective letter. You'll spend 20 minutes of focused time writing your LTE during the call. Join us!

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