Tag Archives: coalition

The Day After A Coal Plant Closes

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Greenpeace Semester students and local volunteers display a banner in front of the Potomac Generating Station.

I’m from Virginia. Dumfries, Virginia to be exact. Virginia is coal country. I grew up with our local coal plant destroying air quality, poisoning the water, and bringing those long coal trains to town. Though the Possum Point Generating Facility switched to natural gas some time ago, there are still a lot of legacy issues — at least the coal trains don’t come anymore.

But that facility isn’t what’s on my mind right now.

Yesterday marked the official retirement date of the coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Virginia – the Potomac River Generating Station, also known as the “Mirant Plant” (after the old owners). Continue reading →

Coalition letter to DNC: Tell Duke Energy to Dump ALEC!

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Today, Greenpeace and the Coalition to March on Wall Street South sent a letter to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, highlighting the DNC’s connection to the American Legislative Exchange Council through Duke Energy.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is a corporate bill mill that not only drafts state laws attacking clean energy and global warming laws, but circulates voter suppression laws that the Democratic party has called “unnecessary and suppressive.” These “Voter ID” laws require registered American voters to show government-issued identification at the polls, something millions of legitimate voters do not have. Voters who are disenfranchised by these laws disproportionately represent communities of color, senior citizens and college students. A recent report by the Philadelphia Inquirer found that of the 39 of the 62 “Voter ID” bills introduced in various states over the last two years were linked to ALEC. Continue reading →