You may have noticed the ‘Click to Call’ widget on the right side of the blog. It is for a 72-hour call-on campaign Clean Energy Works has organized to demonstrate support for climate legislation. Please consider using the widget, or this link to call your Senators today.

E2 Wire:

Big environmental groups are ramping up pressure on the Senate not to take up energy legislation that omits mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

In a letter to the Senate Thursday, 14 groups argue that a limit on carbon dioxide emissions is “indispensable.”

This limit, in combination with strong energy policies, is crucial for creating the powerful economic incentives required to unlock the investment and ingenuity that will drive large-scale job creation, ensure pollution reduction, and advance energy independence,” states the letter.

Backers of the letter include the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Blue Green Alliance, the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Here is the letter:

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Following up on yesterday’s post on Senator Murkowski’s close ties to energy industry lobbyists, I wanted to pass along some great work by the consequence campaign. On a conference call with Chamber of Commerce members, Senator Murkowski actually bragged about the fact that protesters are now showing up at her fundraising events:

I actually had an event here in Washington last night and I had my own group of protestors show up, and I guess you know you’ve arrived in politics when you generate your own group of protestors against you.

The Senator has no shame.

You can listen to an audio clip from the call here.

Friends of the Earth:

Friends of the Earth recently released two TV ads in South Carolina and Georgia opposing the Obama administration’s proposed bailout of the nuclear industry.

You can read the press release here and watch the ads below.

First, on Tuesday evening, CNN broke the news that Van Jones would be receiving an NAACP image award. They published a fantastic Op-Ed by NAACP’s President Benjamin Jealous, which I’ll quote from at length:

He is quite simply one of the few Americans in recent years to have generated powerful new ideas that are creating more jobs here.He wrote the national bestseller, “The Green Collar Economy,” which provided the definitive blueprint for retooling American industry to create pathways out of poverty and generate a national economic recovery. He was a driving force behind passage of the 2007 Green Jobs Act. In fact, Van’s ideas have helped lead to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs across the industrial Midwest and throughout the nation’s decaying urban and rural areas.

Van Jones also may be the most misunderstood man in America.

He resigned from the White House last year after some sought to discredit him for missteps, such as political statements made years ago. However, we can never afford to forget that a defining trait of our country is our collective capacity to practice forgiveness and celebrate redemption. This is a nation built on second chances.

The real Van Jones story is about how a young leader became the father of the green jobs movement. In response to a longstanding jobs crisis in Oakland, California, he helped initiate the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, one of the nation’s first job training programs targeting low-income people for work in the solar and green industries. This program has become a renowned model for numerous initiatives that are now up and running across America.

Today, Van’s vision for seizing the opportunity created by the global shift to solar power and other forms of renewable energy is becoming a reality. Policies he has promoted are bringing change to downsized economies across America. In Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, workers have gotten new jobs from a county wind turbine plant and from other wind energy projects generated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Then, on Wednesday morning, the Washington Post broke the news that Van will be returning to the Center for American Progress to lead the newly formed Green Opportunity Initiative. You can read a transcript of WaPo’s interview with Jones here.

When Van was chased out of the White House last fall it was a punch in the gut to all of us who know how much he is needed. Van truly is a national treasure, and we’re extremely fortunate to have him back on the public stage.

Much more on this from Cheryl Contee, Brad Johnson, Adam Siegel and David Roberts.

E2 Wire:

The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund has a radio ad out criticizing Nebraska Sens. Mike Johanns (R) and Ben Nelson (D) for opposing EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

The ad uses some of the same themes touched upon in a Sierra Club radio ad against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who also is supporting a congressional effort to block EPA.

There isn’t any mention of climate change or global warming or even a comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Instead, Johanns and Nelson are knocked for siding with “special interests” in an effort to roll-back anti-pollution rules that protect “our health” and “quality of air.”

Listen to the ad:

This isn’t the first time the GOP has used Valentine’s Day as an excuse to attack Democrats, but it is hilarious that they are still scared to death of Al Gore.

Remember those ads Move On launched yesterday targeting the three Democratic Senators who cosponsored Senator Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act? Senator Landrieu is not pleased. Here is a statement from her spokesman Aaron Saunders:

“Senator Landrieu strongly supports the Clean Air Act, but she believes that using it to regulate greenhouse gases undermines the original intent of the law. Its primary focus is on reducing acid rain, air pollution, and toxic emissions, like mercury,” Saunders wrote in an e-mail. “Greenhouse gases are generally not toxic to human. In fact, humans emit the most common greenhouse gas — carbon dioxide — in every breath we exhale. The MoveOn.org ad explicitly deceives the American people about Sen. Landrieu’s intentions: she and her colleagues do not want to weaken the Clean Air Act. They want to protect public support for this effective law by ensuring it is not misapplied to greenhouse gases.”

Post Carbon:

MoveOn.org is launching a series of hard-hitting ads this week targeting the three Senate Democrats–Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.)–who’ve co-sponsored Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) resolution blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The television ads, which will amount to a six-figure buy and run in Arkansas, Louisiana and Nebraska, feature unsettling images of Americans smoking to highlight their exposure to air pollution. The shots include not only a Little League team puffing away, but a woman giving birth and a woman holding her baby–in which BOTH the mother and baby are holding cigarettes.

Here are the ads:

We Can Lead, a broad coalition of business owners, is on Capitol Hill today lobbying for clean energy and climate legislation.

Here is the letter they recently sent to Congress and President Obama:

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