Rush Limbaugh and the Dittoheads are urging their supporters to flood Capitol Hill with calls attacking those who voted yes on the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act. We need your help to fight back.

First, find out if your Rep voted yes on the bill: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-26-waxman-markey-bill-vote-count/

Then, call the Capitol Hill switchboard — (202) 224-3121. Ask to be patched through to your Rep.

Finally, tell the office staff that you strongly support the landmark climate bill and applaud the Rep. for voting to pass it.

This was a tough vote for a lot of members of Congress. But, thanks to the courage of 219 of them, we now have a chance to move America forward and create the clean energy economy we'll need to compete in the 21st century. This bill will break our addiction to foreign oil, put millions of Americans to work, and, along with cuts from other countries, will help avert the catastrophic threats of run-away global warming.

Please call your Rep now to applaud his/her vote on the landmark climate bill.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is the most important environmental and energy legislation in our nation's history. Today's vote is a huge achievement for the country and the climate, and we applaud Speaker Pelosi, Chairmen Waxman and Markey, and all members of the House who helped craft this landmark legislation and get it passed.

The bill that emerged from the House has the fundamental structure we need to significantly reduce carbon pollution while growing the economy. It puts a strong cap on emissions and reorients our energy market to make low-carbon power the goal. It ensures that utility rates will stay affordable and a competitive playing field for U.S. companies.

Today's vote opens the door for President Obama to sign comprehensive climate legislation into law this year. The extensive negotiations leading up to the vote helped form extraordinarily broad support for the bill as it moves to the Senate. Chairmen Waxmen and Markey bridged the traditional sectoral and regional divides of energy politics to produce legislation that has support from labor unions and businesses across the economy, to rural interests, environmental advocates, and agriculture groups.

The bill puts the U.S. on the path to significant emissions reductions, a stronger economy, and a new position of leadership in the global effort to protect the climate. We look forward to working with the Senate leadership to meet Majority Leader Reid's September target for finishing committee work on the bill.

As the House debate proceeds, members of Congress are making some startling and downright incorrect claims on the floor. Our Truth Squad blog is lobbing back the truth. Visit for gems of responses, including:

• Did Rep. Lucas even read the bill?
• Climate action's opponents just can't do math
• Well, at least they have their talking points down...

With the House set to vote today on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the misinformation from the bill's opponents is flying fast. Our staff economists have been working furiously to circulate the facts:

• Grade: F. Dr. Nat Keohane pulled out his professor pen again to mark up a Heritage Foundation fact sheet.
• It only takes a dime a day. Opponents of action have been trying to scare voters with inflated and misleading accounts of how this bill will affect consumers' daily expenses. However, the two most independent and credible analyses project much lower costs.
• Draconian assumptions. One tactic opponents use to get such inflated cost estimates is to make assumptions that ignore policy provisions and impose artificial constraints. This paper breaks it down.

When floor debate starts later today, the policy and economics specialists here at EDF will be hard at work correcting misstatements. Stay tuned here to see the facts.

We are 24 hours away from the most important climate vote of our lives. Everything hangs in the balance.

Either the House passes the American Clean Energy and Security Act and we carry momentum to the Senate. Or, we lose the vote and in all probability any chance of confronting the devastating threats of run-away global warming for the foreseeable future.

In recent weeks, we've asked our Action Network to keep the pressure on for passing this landmark bill. In response, our inbox has been flooded with comments and questions about this bill and the urgency for action.

We've tried to respond to each question individually but thought at this critical moment it would be helpful to explain why we are working so hard to pass this bill and why now is so important.

Why this bill, and why now?
Our vigorous effort to pass the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act is based on a number of factors, including:

• It is a strong bill that will put America on course to cutting global warming emissions by 83% by mid-century. This, along with cuts in other countries, is in the range of what scientists suggest is necessary to stave off the catastrophic threats of run-away global warming.
• It has broad support from labor, environmental, and community groups, as well as valuable support from the business community and even many electric utilities and energy companies. In order to pass a bill of this magnitude, this broad support is essential.
• It uses a proven policy approach — cap-and-trade — that sets a declining cap on global warming pollution and creates a market that rewards innovation to clean-energy technologies. This same approach has dramatically reduced acid rain pollution at a fraction of the estimated costs.
• Now is the time. Political momentum has built over many years to bring us to this moment in history, and we cannot squander it. Key political leaders from President Obama to Speaker Pelosi to Reps Waxman and Markey are engaged as never before on passing a good bill right now. If we lose the vote in spite of the political firepower devoted to this, it will set back our efforts for many years, which would be disastrous for the climate. Once lost, political momentum doesn't easily regenerate.

Some of our online members and activists wonder whether we should be pushing for an even stronger bill or, short of that, whether we'd be better off allowing the EPA to regulate global warming pollution.

Keep the following in mind:

• EPA has not yet established global warming regulations and it is not yet clear how they would approach the issue.
• It could take years and many court battles before EPA regulations are set.
• Nor is it clear how regulations would be handled over time with changing administrations.
• The bill would replace EPA regulations with a clear policy that locks in emission reductions through mid-century.

This is why President Obama and his team, including EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, are fully behind passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act and favor legislation over regulation.

As to whether we should be supporting a stronger bill, we have to ask, what's the alternative? What other bill stands a prayer's chance of winning 218 votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate? What other bill has the support of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Reps. Waxman and Markey? What other bill could you even get out of the relevant committees?

Passing legislation of this magnitude is hard. Look at the efforts to reform health care. An entire generation of Americans has come and gone and that issue is not yet resolved.

If the planet is to avoid the catastrophic threat of run-away global warming, Congress must act now. We just don't have time to waste.

Sam Parry is the director of EDF's Action Network.

At this afternoon's press conference, the president spoke about the climate change legislation that the House is set to address on Friday. Here's what he said:

We all know why this is so important. The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century's global economy. That's what this legislation seeks to achieve. It's a bill that will open the door to a better future for this nation and that's why I urge members of Congress to come together and pass it.

That's about all that needs to be said — it's clear what our members of Congress need to do now.

NOAA just released a terrific scientific report that explains, in plain English, the current and projected effects of climate change on the U.S. The nonpartisan report, prepared by the 13-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program, tells a grim but important story, clearly and with lots of powerful maps and charts. I encourage you to check it out to see how climate change will affect your area of the country.

Here are some of the "business-as-usual" projections that my colleagues and I find most striking and disturbing:

You think August is hot now?

By the end of this century, we could be in for much more severe summers all across the country.

• If you live in New Hampshire, summer could feel like it does today in North Carolina (p.107).
• If you live in Michigan, brace yourself for summers that feel like today's summers in Oklahoma (p 117).
• And if you live in Texas, you now experience 10 to 20 days a year over 100 °F. By the last two decades of this century, look for 100 such days - that's more than three months (p. 90).
• In 1995, Chicago suffered a heat wave that killed more than 700 people. Chicagoans could experience that kind of relentless heat up to three times a year (p. 117).
• The Southwest, including cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix, will face worse and more frequent droughts, as spring rains decline by as much as half, snowpacks shrink and melt earlier, and water evaporates more rapidly (p. 129-130).

People who live on the coasts could be a lot closer to the shore

Sea level is projected to rise up to 3 to 4 feet. Here's what that means for various parts of the country:

• Portions of New York City and Boston could be regularly flooded by storms and even high tides (p. 150).
• On the Gulf Coast, approximately 2,400 miles of roads and 250 miles of freight rails are likely to be permanently flooded (p. 62). This area is home to seven of the nation's ten largest ports and much of our oil and gas industry.
• Some coastal freshwater sources will be contaminated with saltwater, meaning we can no longer use them for drinking water without expensive desalinization (p. 47)

Your grandchildren will miss out on local icons and specialties

The foods and activities that define different parts of the country are changing.

• Some western ski resorts could face a 90 percent decrease in snowpack, making the country's most iconic ski locations just shades of what they are today (p. 133).
• Thanksgiving might no longer include cranberries produced in the Northeast's cranberry bogs (p. 73).
• In the Northwest, salmon will be driven out of about one-third of their habitat. We could start to see the changes in the next ten years (p. 137).

This very thorough scientific report paints a bleak picture of what life will be like in this country if we let pollution continue at today's rate. The report's good news is that if we act now, we can avoid the most severe consequences. But the more sobering news is that even if we cut emissions aggressively, not everything in this report can be avoided. This is a first step toward understanding how to prepare for the coming changes.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would take us off the "business-as-usual" path, will come in front of the U.S. House for a vote in a matter of days. This report gives our leaders yet another reason to do the right thing for our country's future.

The Canada lynx is at risk because of changes to the snowpack caused by climate change.

With the political debate heating up over the American Clean Energy and Security Act, it's easy to lose sight of what the fight is about.

Yes, this is about people and jobs and freeing ourselves from foreign oil and creating a clean energy economy for the 21st century. But it's also about our natural heritage and the wildlife with which we share this planet.

Species from blue whales to butterflies confront growing threats. Their habitats are rapidly changing along with the climate. Global warming is pushing nature to the brink.

That's why we launched a new campaign, Warming and Wildlife, where we document the story through the prism of seven "ambassador species" from across America already struggling to survive.

Without action, there's a good chance these species won't make it – we could lose them in our lifetimes.

Our seven ambassador species are:

• Sugar maple
• Monarch butterfly
• Leatherback sea turtle
• American pika
• Canada lynx
• Tufted puffin
• Polar bear

The bumper sticker is right: Extinction is forever. But, it doesn't have to be inevitable, not if we each do our part to cap America's global warming pollution and unleash the clean energy economy of the 21st century.

Brad Plumer over at TNR has a good post about how allowances are allocated in the climate bill in front of the House. He goes into detail about how savings will be passed through to consumers, including some insight from our own Nat Keohane.

I was invited to testify yesterday in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on how allowances are allocated under HR2454, the American Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). You can see my full testimony here.

I started with the broad economic arguments for passing climate legislation now: by doing so, we can harness American innovation, ensure leadership in making the next generation of clean-energy technologies, and unleash investment that will help pull our economy out of the recession.

Then I turned to the allocation provisions of the bill.  The allocation plan will preserve the environmental and economic effectiveness of the legislation, helping move us forward in solving the climate crisis in a way that is affordable, equitable and efficient.

Specifically, I outlined five major principles that any set of allocations should reflect, and illustrated how HR2454 fulfills each.

• First, the bill protects consumers, particularly low-income consumers.  It does this through three channels: allowance value allocated to local distribution companies, who are required to pass that value on to customers in the form of lower utility bill; direct funding for rebates and energy credits directed specifically at low- and moderate-income households; and broader tax refunds, especially in the later years of the program. In total, nearly half (44 percent) of the total allowance value goes directly to households - amounting to an estimated $700 billion in present value.
• Second, HR2454 includes provisions that preserve and strengthen the international competitiveness of U.S. businesses and workers during the transition to a clean energy economy, by directing about 12 percent of total allowance value (over the life of the bill) to energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries.
• Third, the allocation plan respects differences across states and regions by allocating half of the allowances for electricity consumers on the basis of CO2 emissions and half on the basis of electricity generation.
• Fourth, the integrity and credibility of the program is preserved since the bill ensures that consumers receive the allowance value intended for their benefit due to provisions specifically requiring utility companies to pass on the allowance value they receive.
• Finally, HR2454 directs some value (26 percent over the life of the bill) to public purposes that are the objectives of the legislation, including clean energy innovation, carbon capture and storage, investments in renewables and energy efficiency, and climate change adaptation.

Overall, HR2454 passes these tests with flying colors.