Table of Contents: New paper on BIG WIRES Act Take action this week Featured: CCL Naperville Upcoming trainings

 
Since the BIG WIRES Act was introduced last year, CCL has been behind it as a great next step in the push for clean energy permitting reform. A new paper out this week from the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research reveals exactly how great these policy changes really would be.

On the low end, the paper estimates that “BIG WIRES would save $330 million per year due to the lower energy costs associated with being able to deploy more solar and wind energy,” CCL Research Coordinator Dana Nuccitelli explains in a CCL Community post. If America steps up and makes a serious effort to deploy clean energy, the potential savings are even greater — $2.5 billion per year!

And when it comes to carbon pollution, the results are just as encouraging. “The paper estimates that BIG WIRES would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 73 million metric tons of CO2 per year compared to the status quo. That's a 5.5% reduction in our emissions,” Dana explains.

The study also confirms that the BIG WIRES Act would reduce power outages during extreme weather. Using models of Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, the authors “found that BIG WIRES would have reduced the number of homes that lost power in this storm from 4.7 million to 2.1 million – a 58% reduction in blackouts.”

Passing this legislation, Dana says, would be “an impressive win-win-win scenario!”

See Dana’s post about the study, and if you want to dive deeper, plan to attend Dana’s Feb. 29 training where he will walk through all the findings.

In other news this week:

• CCL hits the front page: The Houston Chronicle, which reaches 825k readers with its print edition each weekday, featured a front page article about the PROVE IT Act! CCL VP of Government Affairs Ben Pendergrass said in the piece, “Domestic emissions are important, but this is a global problem, and we need to think about emissions globally, in particular major emitters like China and India.” 

• Snowmen take to the streets: With fun, eye-catching “snowman protests” in recent weeks, CCL chapters have been helping our frosty friends call for climate action. See our snowmen across Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and beyond.

• Meet Aliyah and Helena: Aliyah Bell and Helena Robinson work together in the sustainability department of Xavier University of Louisiana. They’re also a dream team in CCL’s New Orleans chapter, and they were instrumental in planning the Third Coast Regional Conference last fall. Meet Aliyah and Helena in their volunteer spotlight blog posts.