2007 State of the Canary Address

Delivered on June 28 at the Canary Coalition annual membership meeting in Montford Community Center, Asheville, NC, by Avram Friedman, Executive Director

Thank you all for being here tonight and for being a part of the Canary Coalition.  The past 12 months have brought both great challenges and excitement to our growing movement and your continuing involvement has been and is essential to the success of our efforts.

Last year at this time I was reporting to you that our organization had grown by a significant 15 percent over the previous year to more than 780 members.  Friends, this past year our membership has virtually doubled to more than 1450 members.  In the next few minutes I'm going to briefly go over some of the reasons for this seemingly sudden dramatic increase in public support and participation in the activities of the Canary Coalition.

The first thing to acknowledge is the remarkable work of our staff person in the field, Mike Cherin, who anachronistically went door to door and spent endless hours tabling in the streets of cities throughout the southeast, signing up people and businesses, getting petitions signed, soliciting door prizes for our raffle and in general rabble-rousing to great effect, reminding us all of the true nature of grassroots organizing.  Where John Henry failed, Mike Cherin succeeded against the prevailing wisdom of technological advancement as his legwork out-did the work of ten computers.  Thank you Mike for all your hard work.

But, Mike cannot do his work of selling our organization without help.  He has to have something to sell. And what he has to sell is the documented work and accomplishments of the Canary Coalition, the news we are making, the waves we are generating, results we have seen from our endeavors, the fruits of the efforts of our Board members, our staff and our volunteers. 

Another factor in our expansion is the growing awareness within the population of air quality and climate change issues.  Our country and the world are under attack as the energy and transportation industries sell the use of more and more energy and are making plans to build and operate hundreds of more polluting power plants to accommodate their projected growing demand. There are also plans to build more highways to blindly encourage expanded use of automobiles at a time when we are approaching or maybe even past the world's period of peak oil production as many third world countries are beginning to emerge as newly industrialized nations competing for the remaining global petroleum reserves. These misguided industrial agendas and the energy policies that are emerging from our state and national governments to appease the interests of large energy corporations are helping to motivate grassroots involvement.  This set of circumstances has led to greater interest and more membership in the Canary Coalition. Our reputation as a strong, uncompromising advocate for meaningful and sweeping energy policy changes has attracted considerable public attention and increased our influence within the environmental community as we command respect in powerful political circles and in the news media.

Last year and at the beginning of this year the Canary Coalition coordinated with Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Ned Doyle of the Southeast Energy and Environment Expo to bring the Energy at the Crossroads Tour to North Carolina , South Carolina and Georgia .  In these three southern states we planted the seeds of the Energy Future Resolution that calls on government regulatory agencies and legislatures to codify the costs of health and environmental impact, full-fuel cycles and the decommissioning of power plants when evaluating the least-cost method of meeting future energy demand.  The Energy Future Resolution also calls for a restructuring of utility rates to provide economic incentives for electrical consumers to invest in energy efficiency and conservation measures.  These policies, if implemented would result in massive energy-use reductions by consumers and massive investment in conversion to renewable energy technologies by public utility companies.  As a result of the Energy Future Resolution and the lobbying efforts of the Canary Coalition, in North Carolina this year House Bill 1825 was introduced by Representative Pricey Harrison and is now pending in the House Committee on Public Utilities.  The Energy Future Resolution mandate was severely weakened upon introduction, but the basic principles are still intact.  We are campaigning hard to strengthen the language of the bill and, with your help and the participation of many others get it passed.  If we don't succeed in this session, then we'll try again in the next, and/or the next, until the bill is passed in a meaningful form.

This year, The Canary Coalition was instrumental in coordinating a bi-weekly council of more than a dozen environmental organizations in western North Carolina who are developing a common agenda on energy issues. This Ad Hoc group worked closely together to defeat the effort by Progress Energy to build an oil-burning power plant in Woodfin. In that context, The Canary Coalition conducted an investigation into the Buncombe County-Progress Energy land-lease deal, uncovering embarrassing and illegal activity by the County who attempted to by-pass public knowledge and input in the decision-making process.  Prior to the hearing in Woodfin that ultimately defeated the power plant, the Canary Coalition arranged for key witnesses to speak who directly impacted the decision by the Planning and Zoning Board to reject the Conditional Use Permit. Now, the Ad Hoc group is moving forward in forming the Sustainable Energy Council of western North Carolina to develop a community-based plan to meet the regions future energy demand-without building more polluting power plants.

For three years the Canary Coalition has been advocating for legislation to remove the legal obstacles to the development of large scale wind energy in North Carolina .  We've collected thousands of signatures and conducted a series of field trips to the TVA pilot wind project in Buffalo Mountain , Tennessee for legislators, local government officials, community leaders and members of the news media. Until this year we couldn't find a legislator willing to risk introducing a wind bill. But, this year Representative Charles Thomas decided to take the first step by introducing House Bill 1821 that would determine criteria for siting wind projects in North Carolina . Our effort at elevating wind energy as an issue on the state level undoubtedly contributed to Representative Thomas's decision to put forward this legislation. Again, it may or may not move in this legislative session, but the first step has been taken and now we have something on which to build upon.

Last month we joined with Clean Water for North Carolina in a press release that introduced an independent study by Synapse, an environmental think-tank.  The Synapse study, commissioned by Clean Water for NC, reported on the success of independently administered energy efficiency programs in six states over the past decade. These programs deliberately took administering efficiency out of the hands of public utilities, acknowledging the inherent conflict of interest these corporations have in promoting reduced energy use.  Unfortunately, that lesson hasn't been learned yet by officials, legislators and even many environmental organizations in North Carolina .  From the outset, those who promoted the so-called Renewable and Efficiency Portfolio Standard or REPS legislation in North Carolina , HB77 and SB3, used questionable tactics in offering under-ambitious goals in an attempt to appease utility interests and stave off their stiff opposition. What resulted during the legislative process is a bill completely hijacked by the industry, offering incentives for investment in new nuclear and coal burning power plants, extending the network of natural gas pipelines in North Carolina, while offering only a mere window dressing of weak efficiency and renewal goals by the year 2021, administered by the industry itself.  Just this past week, most of the environmental community has followed the Canary Coalition in announcing opposition to the passage of this bill.  Our position has always been that real progress is made only through strong proposals that reflect the urgency of the real threat to air quality and climate change.  We can't ignore scientific facts for the sake of political expediency.  Our legislative proposals have to be designed to create change within the political landscape to accommodate the scientific facts.  It's never beneficial to create the appearance that a problem is being addressed when in fact it is not.  As with our uncompromising position that prevented a severe weakening of the Clean Smokestacks Act in 2002, The Canary Coalition has once again set the standard that others within the environmental movement have come around to accept.  The deceptive and backward REPS bill may pass in this legislative session, but it will not have the stamp of approval of most of the environmental community.  That's important because it gives us the moral authority to work to undo the damage in future sessions.

With all the activity related to energy and the application for permits to build new polluting power plants, transportation issues have taken a back seat in our organization.  But, in the coming year we hope to make progress in pushing for a comprehensive state-wide public transportation system in North Carolina .  Last year, in conjunction with civil architect Odell Thompson, the Canary Coalition developed a proposal for a light-rail system that would connect the entire North Carolina University System and therefore the major population centers throughout the state. This system would create an economy of scale allowing smaller towns and rural communities to participate in public transportation options, as well as big cities, providing an alternative to building new roads and expanding automobile traffic along with the air pollution and greenhouse gases it brings.  We'll be looking to work with other groups, individuals, organizations and amenable state officials in developing political support and momentum toward this vision.

In mid-August we'll be performing the 4th annual Relay for Clean Air, a civil rights march from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to downtown Asheville across the Blue Ridge Parkway .  Plans have not yet solidified for this because, once again, the Blue Ridge Parkway authorities are denying a permit for the night-time portion of the Relay. But, we anticipate this event will be larger and generate growing national media interest as it focuses attention on the severe air quality crisis in the most visited National Parks and their surrounding areas.  The Relay is tentatively scheduled for August 17th and 18th.

I'd like to wrap up by mentioning the relationship the Canary Coalition has begun to foster with the Asheville Chapter of the NAACP.  Thanks to the leadership of our Board member Jean Larson, in March, the two organizations held a joint lobby day, advocating for the NAACP's 14 point program that includes advocacy for clean air and environmental responsibility, appropriately identifying these issues as civil rights issues.  The Canary Coalition has always maintained that air quality issues are civil rights issues.  We all have the right to breathe clean air and no one has the right to pollute the air we all share and depend upon for life and good health.  Working with organizations that have the historic roots of the NAACP can only strengthen our cause and build our movement into something that ultimately can't be stopped.  We've made considerable progress this year.  We're bigger as an organization. We've developed important alliances, we've gained further influence.  Our issues have gained a new prominence in the public mind and within the halls of state and federal legislative bodies.  We should all be encouraged to carry on our work, assured that we are making a difference.

Thank you.