To combat these attacks, CCAN Action Fund built a team of environmental defenders to protect Virginia’s climate progress. Every week we phonebanked our legislators, invited other CCANers into the fight and shared the latest information from the General Assembly.

Our regular actions made a difference! At one point, a legislator’s office had gotten so many calls in opposition to Andrew Wheeler’s nomination that he assured us the senator would vote with us and asked us to stop.

For eight straight weeks CCAN Environmental Defenders gained new skills and connected fellow activists with their elected officials. We kept up a steady drumbeat of calls by hosting weekly phonebanks with our friends at Virginia League of Conservation Voters. To ensure we reached as many people as possible, we had some availability at noon and some in the early evenings. Additionally, once our volunteers had made calls one week and knew the system, they often could participate on their own time.

Environmental defenders got a weekly dispatch with talking points for each week’s call and a relevant news roundup to stay up to date with the latest from the capitol. We targeted calls to specific delegates who needed encouragement or praise to do the right thing for our climate based on what we heard from our partners on the ground.

Here’s what CCANers and our partners accomplished in spring of 2022:  

We stopped Andrew Wheeler’s Nomination to Secretary of Natural & Historic Resources

Governor Youngkin’s nomination of a former coal lobbyist and Trump appointed head of the EPA was incredibly unwelcome in Virginia. We knew from his systematic dismantling of national environmental protections that Andrew Wheeler was unfit to lead Virginia.

• Over FOUR HUNDRED CCANers signed our petition against Wheeler’s nomination.
• Over three weeks, we made over THREE HUNDRED calls into key Senate districts to ensure our representatives voted with us.
• Two CCAN members published Letters to the Editor outlining why Virginia deserves an appointee committee to clean energy and environmental protection.
  1. Staunton resident says Wheeler would likely fail to protect Virginia’s environment: Letter
  2. The Trumpers won in VA, get ready

Our elected officials in the senate heard us loud and clear! The Virginia Senate rejected Andrew Wheeler’s nomination on the grounds that he is unfit to lead our state’s environmental policy.

While this was a huge win, Governor Youngkin bypassed the will of the people and now pays Wheeler close to $200,000 a year as a Senior Advisor.

We defeated legislative attacks on the VA Clean Economy Act, RGGI and the Clean Car standards

Each week we had a new attack to defeat. Some were complete repeals while others reallocated funds away from proven climate solutions–all were bad and all were defeated by our consistent drumbeat with VA Senators. 

We also published letters to the editor in key geographies to ensure we did not go backwards. 

1. 1. Climate Change
   2. State lawmakers must keep Virginia’s clean car standards in place

We are fighting to ensure our budget keeps funding for RGGI

After defeating RGGI rollbacks in the general assembly session, fossil fuel proponents are trying to legislate through the budget process. They’re proposing budget amendments that would weaken RGGI the same ways their recently failed legislation tried to. We continue to say no!

1. • CCAN signed on to a coalition letter to keep RGGI out of the budget. We agreed on key points; mainly RGGI actively benefits Virginians and there was no replacement funding in the budget.
   • CCANers made close to 100 calls to residents in the districts of the Senate budget appointees. 

We are fighting a half-baked and bad faith proposed gas tax suspension

The governor is seeking to decimate transit funding in Virginia in the name of political theater. Click here to read more about how Virginia’s advocacy community is pointing out the flaws in this plan–it has no guarantees to actually save Virginians money!