MoveOn wants Tiahrt to go oil free

Dear MoveOn members,

Last month, 3 million MoveOn members came together and said, "Enough. We want clean, renewable energy, and we want it now!"

That's why today, we're launching one of our biggest campaigns in the last year—-a campaign for an "Oil-free Congress" to demand that Congress end America's oil addiction and move us toward a cleaner future. We'll pressure members of Congress to make a real difference—-and if they don't listen, we'll hold them accountable in November.

To start, we need to ask every member of Congress, including yours, to go "Oil-Free" and sign a pledge not to take any money from the oil industry. Can you sign this letter telling Rep. Todd Tiahrt to take the pledge?

http://political.moveon.org/oilfree/?id=8072-3189845-eE3xxufEOwkA7kuq9.JNwQ&t=3

We're working with a bunch of groups, like Oil Change International and the Center for American Progress in the Separation of Oil and State coalition to get every representative to sign the pledge not to take any more oil money. Together, we sent official pledge cards to all of Congress last week. But this call will be much more powerful if Rep. Tiahrt hears from thousands of his constituents about it, too.

We're aiming to send at least 500 messages in support of the pledge to Rep. Tiahrt. If we can make that, we'll personally deliver your comments to accompany the letters we delivered last week.

With gas prices off the charts, an unstable situation in the Middle East and scientists warning that global warming is at a tipping point, it's fair to wonder, why aren't our representatives doing something about our dependence on oil? The answer is that politicians get a lot of money from oil companies not to.

Since 1990, Big Oil has given more than $190 million to members of Congress and 75% ($142,635,314!) of those donations have gone to Republicans.¹ Those donations guarantee an energy policy that serves the oil industry over the public interest. Until our representatives stop taking oil money, it's going to be hard to make progress on global warming and clean energy alternatives.

Renewable and alternative energy sources, like biofuels, hybrids, solar and wind power are ready today, but Congress's addiction to oil money is holding us back. The best way to move towards energy independence is to end oil corruption in Washington.

Clean energy experts and advocates agree, the obstacles to energy independence are mostly political. And as Al Gore says in An Inconvenient Truth, "political will is a renewable resource."

Can you tell your representative that you're ready to end your addiction to oil, if he is ready to kick his addiction to oil money?

http://political.moveon.org/oilfree/?id=8072-3189845-eE3xxufEOwkA7kuq9.JNwQ&t=4

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita Chaudhary and Eli Pariser
Monday, June 19th, 2006