LTE Guidance from CCL LTE Topic Ideas 9/30/2022 edition:

• Inflation Reduction Act: The passage of the IRA is important progress for climate policy and we can talk about how the act’s climate provisions will benefit our state’s residents. To discover what opportunities there are for your state, take a look at these fact sheets. In letters to the editor, you could write that the IRA contains multiple grants and investments for community-driven programs and priorities that will improve the lives of people in your state. We can urge state legislators, city officials, and mayors to move quickly to secure funding. It’s also an opportunity to call for more action. Our Members of Congress should keeping pushing to reduce emissions including enacting a price on carbon.

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LTE Guidance from CCL LTE Topic Ideas 9/16/2022 edition:

• The Inflation Reduction Act: There is ongoing coverage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in many newspapers. In letters to the editor, we can highlight the benefits the IRA brings to our states and urge state legislators, city officials, and mayors to move quickly to secure funding. It’s also important to express that additional climate action is needed to reach our 2030 emission reduction goals. We know that carbon fee and dividend policy would bridge the emissions reduction gap and the revenue from a price on pollution could be recycled back to Americans to spend as they choose. If you live in a red district, you could acknowledge that while the IRA will clean up the air at home, we need to incentivize other high-polluting countries do their part. This could be achieved by implementing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on higher carbon-intensive goods, manufactured abroad.

Current LTE topics list from CCL (Google Doc)--updated weekly

IRA op-ed template: If you have not submitted it already, please consider offering this adaptable op-ed template about the passage of the IRA to local newspaper opinion desks. It’s authored by CCL executive director Madeleine Para and includes a section for you to add local angles such as the economic opportunities and climate benefits the bill will bring to your state. With that unique local detail in place, it can be co-authored by a volunteer in your chapter. (Please collaborate with other media managers/chapters nearby to avoid multiple submissions to the same newspaper).

Conservative state op-ed template: Here is a new conservative state op-ed template with Drew Eyerly as author which volunteers can adapt and co-author. Be sure to send the newspaper a headshot of Drew (available to download on the op-ed templates page) along with the co-author’s headshot. Don't forget to check in with your chapter and those nearby to make sure multiple people don’t submit the piece to the same newspaper. Some bigger regional newspapers ask for exclusive content for opinion pieces which they specify in submission instructions. When this is the case, you should submit an op-ed written from scratch, not a template. If an editor asks if the template op-ed you have submitted is original or exclusive, it's best to be candid. You could say that the op-ed contains unique local perspectives and (if true) hasn't been offered to any other newspapers in their circulation area. However, let them know that other adapted versions of the op-ed may be submitted elsewhere in the country by other CCL volunteers - although it won't conflict with their readership.

Local news opportunities! If you have the names and contact information for journalists at local television and radio news outlets, you could reach out to them now and offer yourself or others from your chapter for an interview about the IRA. Let them know that you can provide a local perspective about the benefits of this bill and how local climate advocates are celebrating its passage.

Send a press release: We have prepared two versions of a press release template about the IRA — one for blue states and the other for red — which media managers can easily adapt to include quotes and local climate impacts. Please send this to reporters at local media outlets where you live

• BEST SOURCE: CCL Community Page: Climate Benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act: this page summarizes the IRA climate provisions, projected emissions cuts, economic and health benefits

• Rewiring America just released this Savings Calculator you can use in your tabling: How much money will you get with the Inflation Reduction Act?

• The White House just released this set of helpful state-by-state fact sheets of the IRA's benefits

• Bob Inglis also did a great CNN interview about the IRA: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/08/08/amanpour-bob-inglis.cnn"