Political Action Committees (PACs) – pools of money formed to support the election of certain candidates and to influence the political agenda – have been employed to support the environmental agenda for some time now.
The Sierra Club, for example, has used a PAC for many years to get environmentally-oriented candidates elected and to un-seat those that vote against the environment. This year, it plans to raise $1.5- $2 million to support its pro-renewable energy, anti-nuke agenda.
For this election year, the New York League of Conservation Voters launched The Climate Action PAC to support candidates committed to agressively tackling climate change. The group is targeting NY state legislative seats in 2008 and local races throughout the state – including New York City – in 2009.
"Climate change is the biggest issue of our time and the most important thing we can do to fight it is to elect the right leaders," says Marcia Bystryn, executive director of the Climate Action PAC. "By mobilizing dollars and voters, the Climate Action PAC will demonstrate that New York’s elected officials can no longer afford to give lip service to global warming. If politicians pursue an aggressive climate change agenda, we will give them our support. If not, we will help recycle them into another line of work."
The PAC calls on New York’s elected leaders to pursue a comprehensive energy plan that ensures the role of renewable energy, congestion pricing, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and power-plant siting reform.
What’s different this year is the emergence of green business PACs to increase our political clout. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, renewable energy PACs have contributed a combined $300,000 to candidates this year. While the dollar amounts are still small, they are growing, and the renewable energy sector is showing signs of having more influence.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) WindPAC has organized lobbying days and brought in over $77,000 in this election cycle.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) PAC, at $50,000 so far in this election cycle, is almost three times that of the 2006 election year, according to the Federal Election Commission. The PAC, led by solar leaders such as SunPower and SunEdison, wants to raise a minimum of $100,000 for this election cycle to support congressional supporters of solar energy.
RenewPAC launches later this year, the first PAC to represent the entire cleantech industry.
Over the past year, AWEA spent $816,000 attempting to persuade Congress to renew the wind tax credit and to pass the Renewable Energy Portfolio (so far unsuccessfully), which would require utilities to use more renewable energy. They also lobbied for more funds for wind energy research in DOE’s budget.
It’s a start!
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