Greetings! The Sierra Club is committed to defending everyone’s right to a healthy world by tackling the serious challenges of a warming climate, unprecedented levels of pollution, the waste management crisis, biodiversity loss, and the dangers of toxins. Fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change as well as unhealthy air, and therefore, our most powerful tool to address both is to create a rapid and equitable transition away from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy across all sectors of our economy. Plastic is contributing to the climate crisis and, along with hard to recycle materials, the waste management crisis. The climate crisis, pollution, toxic chemicals, overharvesting, and loss of habitat are threatening the biodiversity of the state and our planet. Toxins are also threatening the health and well-being of our residents, particularly children. 

 

We must do much, much more than has been done to date or that is proposed today to address these issues with real solutions. 

 

There are some great bills that we are supporting on waste management, animal rights, zero carbon supply, EV (electric vehicle) infrastructure, reducing toxins, reducing transportation pollution and emissions, and requiring climate change education for all. There are also a couple of bills that we are not supporting, including expanding anaerobic digestion gas into the pipeline system, limiting the passport to parks program, and continuing to fund the MIRA trash incinerator. We still have a great deal of work to do on moving away from fossil fuels, stopping state caps on solar energy, strengthening the environmental justice law, and meeting our greenhouse gas reduction goals. For a complete list of bills we are supporting and opposing, visit Sierra Club Connecticut: Legislation. 

 

Get Involved!

There are so many ways to make your voices heard at the state capitol this year. You can go to Local Sierra Club Actions in Connecticut to send a message to your legislators about some of our priority bills this session. You can also send a personal email or make a phone call to your state representative and senator (Find Your Legislators). You could attend a town hall with your legislator and ask them to support good environmental legislation. You could also submit testimony in support or opposition to a bill at the state capitol at a public hearing. 

 

To submit written or spoken testimony at the capitol, see which committee the bill has been raised by and send your written testimony to them via email. You can find this information by following the link to the bill on our legislative tracker. If you want to speak at the public hearing, you can sign up through the registration link in the Connecticut General Assembly Bulletin. Registration usually closes around 3:00 p.m. the day before the public hearing, so make sure you register early. We are always here for questions you may have or support with public hearing testimony, so please reach out at any time. 

 

Thank you for your support for good environmental legislation. Please reach out to me at ann.gadwah@sierraclub.org if you would like to get more involved or have any concerns. See you next month. 

​

Ann Gadwah is Advocacy & Outreach Organizer with a focus on our legislative work at the State Capitol.