This letter was sent to Senator Feinstein’s office on February 22nd, hours after video emerged of a tense encounter between the Senator and young supporters of the Green New Deal resolution in her office.
February 22, 2019
Dear Senator Feinstein,
On behalf of the dozen organizations active in the No Fossil Fuel Money coalition, representing millions of supporters, we write to demand that you live up to your pledge to “prioritize the health of our families, climate, and democracy over fossil fuel industry profits.”
On February 24, 2018, you signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge in person at the California Democratic Party’s Environmental Caucus meeting in San Diego, California.
The No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, as you know, states the following: “I pledge to not take contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industry and instead prioritize the health of our families, climate, and democracy over fossil fuel industry profits.”
As articulated on the website, “[t]aking the pledge means that a politician or candidate’s campaign will adopt a policy to not knowingly accept any contributions over $200 from the PACs, executives, or front groups of fossil fuel companies — companies whose primary business is the extraction, processing, distribution, or sale of oil, gas, or coal.”
We’ve recently learned that during your 2018 Senatorial campaign, after signing the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, you accepted at least two major contributions that are in clear violation of this pledge:
- On June 5, 2018, a $5000 contribution from the Tesoro Petroleum Corporation Political Action Committee.
- On September 4, 2018, a $2500 contribution from the Phillips 66 Political Action Committee.
As both of these contributions are from political action committees directly affiliated with oil companies, they are in clear violation of the pledge you signed.
We demand that you immediately return these funds and any other funds received by your campaign that violate the pledge you signed on February 24, 2018. Failure to provide proof of the return of these funds by close of business Friday, March 1 will result in your removal from our listing of No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge signers.
Further, we stand in solidarity with the young constituents who visited your office today to request your support for the Green New Deal resolution. We believe your response to their respectful request was unbecoming of a climate champion and we urge you to reconsider your position, and to issue an apology to the youth who spoke with you.
Should you wish to speak further on this matter, please contact us as follows:
RL Miller, Founder, Climate Hawks Vote, rlm@climatehawksvote.com
David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director, Oil Change U.S.: david@priceofoil.org
We strongly encourage you to take immediate action both to live up to the pledge that you signed and to show that you recognize the urgency of the climate crisis by supporting bold action commensurate with what the crisis demands.
Sincerely,
RL Miller, Climate Hawks Vote and David Turnbull, Oil Change United States, on behalf of the No Fossil Fuel Money coalition
Either you are true to your word, or you have no credibility. IN this, we cannot abide greys. The compromise of grey has taken place for 30 years and we don’t have time for “politics as usual”. Return the money. Do the right thing.
Senator Feinstein,
If securing the future of the generations to come is not your job, then what exactly is your job?
Is this an impeachable offense? Really she has to be stopped.
Senator, please head this powerful letter, be a leader in charting the course of the Democratic Party to independence from polluting industry interests that can no longer compete in a world newly awake to pollution’s social costs and newly equipped with viable alternatives.
There is no political future for fossil fuels other than in the event of global total war, in which case, no future for any of us.
NO ONE EXCEPT YOU IS INTERESTED IN HOW LARGE A MAJORITY YOU WON BY. TAKING THAT APPROACH WITH THESE CHILDREN AND THEIR TEACHER WAS SELF-SERVING AND NOT ON POINT. I HAVE SUPPORTED YOU IN THE PAST, BUT THIS INCIDENT WAS INDEED AN EYE OPENER. HOPEFULLY YOU CAN CLIMB OFF YOUR LOFTY PEDESTAL LONG ENOUGH TO CONDUCT THE PROPER BUSINESS OF SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. IF YOU’VE PERSONALLY REVIEWED YOUR CONDUCT AND STATEMENTS, I HOPE SOME HUMILITY HAS FOUND ITS WAY INTO YOUR HEART.
Bewlldering. Why wou;d a public with her family money need,want to accept contributions from fossil fuel companies that she promised NOT to allow to pervert her?
Why ould a public servant with $80,000,000of family money need/want to acceptcontributions from the very same fossil fuel producers she promised NOT to take money from?
Feinstein also took $24,500 from Sempra Energy, the parent company of SoCalGas. She did so after signing the pledge not to take fossil fuel money and publicly said Aliso Canyon had to be shut down at her only town hall in Los Angeles.
Good work. I also wrote to her asking for an apology. Unbelievable.
Dear Senator Feinstein,
After watching the video of you talking to the school children about the Green New Deal, I am appalled at your stance that incremental measures you have proposed in the past will do, and by the way you spoke to the children. This is a crisis on the level of Pearl Harbor, but you are treating it as ho hum. You are 85 (I am 71). We will both be dead when the children you’ve spoken to so patronizingly bear the brunt of climate change. So can we please think beyond our own selfish lives and act as if this were an emergency? And by the way, the amounts you accepted from the fossil fuel industry after pledging not to are relatively small in the whole scheme of things, but they add to the perception that you really don’t give a d%*#.
Dear Sen. Feinstein,
I saw various clips of the young people coming to your San Francisco office recently to ask your support for the Green New Deal.
In brushing them off, you crushed hope in the eyes and faces and hearts of these beautiful young people. You explained things from the position of someone who’s been around this for too long. The point you attempted to make concerning your having been in politics for 30 years exactly validated the positions of the young people: if you’ve been there that long, and the situation has gotten nothing but worse, what does that say about your and your associate’s leadership? That you’ve been failures?
If you don’t believe in man-made climate damage, I offer and challenge you to come look at my place and the woods around me. It’s become disaster. Living in California, it should be even more obvious. And I used the word ‘believe’ deliberately. Climate change is NOT a matter of belief, it’s a matter of science. Beliefs are for sleepy Sunday mornings in church.
Republicans have become corrupt from money. Democrats have become cowards afraid to face and challenge Republicans. You bragged about your 1,000,000 vote “plurality”. You were showing off to young children. Shame on that. It sounded like Donald Trump. If you truly had a 1,000,000 vote plurality, doesn’t that say you should show the courage to challenge things a little bit? If you did, next time, if there is a next time, you should have a 2,000,000 vote “plurality”.
Guts.
This thus goes to show that it is Money that runs Congress and the Senate and the word of these elected representatives is in doubt. Even the fact of party affiliation seems to not matter. Of course the Republicans represent BigOil, BigPharma and all the rest of the “Big’s” and such but to see a supposed Democrat taking an oath, violating it and then acting like a Republican know-it-all is quite depressing. This makes me think that congressional term limits are an emerging priority. The smack-downs to kids who are taught that elected representatives are elected to carry out their desires is deplorable. These are the very people that will be feeling the impact of climate change and they have every right to demand action from their “representatives”, no matter how corrupt and dishonest they have become. As it appears that nothing is going to change, altho I haven’t entirely given up, it just seems that the fascist oligarchy is taking over.
Some said that watching the unedited video would change my mind. It did not. The way she talked to these young people was wrong. She should have listened, but her actions by accepting money from these organizations tells us what she thinks and how she will act. Actions are louder than words.
Dear Mr ML Miller, dear Mr David Turnbull :
The Earth Global Warming have only two sides:
-. The victims side.
– And “the more the planet get hotter, the more they get richer” side.
So if we’re obliging, our kids lost.
Best regards.