Energy Justice Platform

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Ener­gy Jus­tice Platform

[See the bot­tom of this page for def­i­n­i­tions. To sign on to this plat­form, please send an email to traci at energyjustice.net indi­cat­ing whether the endorse­ment is from you as an indi­vid­ual or from a group.]

Pre­am­ble

We oppose all indus­tri­al, com­mer­cial and insti­tu­tion­al burn­ing of bio­mass and bio­fu­els for ener­gy. We call for deep reduc­tions in ener­gy con­sump­tion and a rapid phase­out of nuclear pow­er and fos­sil fuels. Although there is an urgent need for rapid tran­si­tion from fos­sil ener­gy sources, plant-based alter­na­tives for ener­gy are not sus­tain­able and are a dan­ger­ous false solu­tion that threat­ens to wors­en rather than resolve the prob­lems we face. Bio­mass and biofuels:

• Cause sig­nif­i­cant air pol­lu­tion that threat­ens pub­lic health;
• Threat­en forests and farm­lands by con­sum­ing mas­sive amounts of organ­ic mat­ter essen­tial for main­tain­ing soil fer­til­i­ty, forests and crop production;
• Require mas­sive amounts of water, an increas­ing­ly scarce resource;
• Deplete and destroy soils, by per­ma­nent­ly remov­ing nutri­ents and ben­e­fi­cial microbes;
• Com­pete with oth­er ener­gy sources that are tru­ly “clean and green”;
• Could nev­er pro­vide for more than a small por­tion of cur­rent over­all ener­gy usage;
• Encour­age the fur­ther spread of dan­ger­ous genet­ic modifications;
• Encour­age human rights abus­es relat­ed to land access and usage.

We sup­port strong, jus­tice-based pro­tec­tions for ecosys­tems and peo­ple as a fun­da­men­tal pri­or­i­ty and “first line of defense” against the impacts of glob­al warm­ing. Cre­at­ing huge new demands for bio­mass com­bus­tion is incom­pat­i­ble with human and ecosys­tem health and well-being and should not be sup­port­ed and/or sub­si­dized under the false pre­tense of pro­vid­ing “clean and green renew­able energy.”

We call for an end to sub­si­dies for all dirty ener­gy tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing nuclear pow­er, fos­sil fuels, bio­mass, bio­fu­els and oth­er com­bus­tion tech­nolo­gies. We define sub­si­dies broad­ly to include renew­able port­fo­lio stan­dards, pro­duc­tion man­dates, grants, loans, loan guar­an­tees, wars for oil, tax cred­its, tax breaks, research and devel­op­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry exemp­tions and oth­er forms of tax­pay­er-fund­ed support.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Ener­gy Justice
Around the world, and in the U.S., com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, low-income com­mu­ni­ties, Indige­nous Peo­ples and work­ers are the first and most impact­ed by pol­lut­ing and exploita­tive ener­gy indus­tries, includ­ing bio­mass incin­er­a­tion. Bio­mass incin­er­a­tors harm our com­mu­ni­ties, our health, our economies and the ecosys­tems we rely upon with a range of destruc­tive and exploita­tive prac­tices from indus­tri­al extrac­tion, pro­duc­tion, trade, waste and pol­lu­tion, includ­ing cli­mate-alter­ing pol­lu­tion and tox­ic emissions.

Front­line com­mu­ni­ties and work­ers – who ben­e­fit the least from, con­tribute the least to, and pay the largest price for the destruc­tive prac­tices of indus­tri­al­ized soci­ety – are among those lead­ing the resis­tance to stop these indus­tri­al pol­luters and are cul­ti­vat­ing sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty solu­tions for clean, just and local­ized economies that will ben­e­fit us all. Front­line com­mu­ni­ties and work­ers should play a lead­er­ship role in pri­or­i­tiz­ing and deter­min­ing tran­si­tion­al strate­gies toward a com­mu­ni­ty-led clean ener­gy economy.

In orga­niz­ing our oppo­si­tion to the grow­ing threat of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion, we sup­port the fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice adopt­ed by the First Peo­ple of Col­or Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Sum­mit of 1991, as well as the Prin­ci­ples of Work­ing Togeth­er adopt­ed by the Sec­ond Peo­ple of Col­or Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Sum­mit of 2002. We seek to ensure that all mem­bers of our glob­al soci­ety share the same rights to pro­tect and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly deter­mine the sus­tain­able use of our air, land, food, water and ener­gy resources, so that future gen­er­a­tions may thrive.

Tak­ing Steps Towards Clean & Just Energy

The most impor­tant ener­gy choice to make as a nation is how we can reduce our ener­gy demand and con­sump­tion in a just and equi­table man­ner, not which new ener­gy sources should be devel­oped. We strong­ly advo­cate focus­ing on ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and effi­cien­cy mea­sures, includ­ing com­mu­ni­ty and work­er-led ini­tia­tives that increase pub­lic trans­porta­tion; food local­iza­tion; zero-waste; and zero-emis­sion, com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled energy.

Our elec­tric­i­ty and near­ly all oth­er ener­gy needs can be met with­out com­bus­tion tech­nolo­gies. All U.S. ener­gy needs should be approached with con­ser­va­tion and effi­cien­cy as the first and sec­ond pri­or­i­ties, with the goal of cut­ting ener­gy demand in half with­in 20 years, then in half again with­in 50 years. As we already con­sume about twice the per capi­ta ener­gy as oth­er high­ly devel­oped nations, the first cut would bring us to the effi­cien­cy lev­els already achieved by Japan and much of Europe.

After pri­or­i­tiz­ing demand reduc­tion, elec­tric­i­ty needs should be met only with non-com­bus­tion and non-nuclear tech­nolo­gies, with a focus on appro­pri­ate use of wind, solar and ocean pow­er. Ener­gy stor­age strate­gies should be used to han­dle any prob­lems with inter­mit­ten­cy. Ener­gy pro­duc­tion should be decen­tral­ized as much as pos­si­ble to reduce the need for large-scale transmission.

Trans­porta­tion ener­gy needs should be met by tran­si­tion­ing from com­bus­tion engines to elec­tric vehi­cles after cut­ting demand dra­mat­i­cal­ly with an array of con­ser­va­tion and effi­cien­cy mea­sures, includ­ing free pub­lic tran­sit (see side­bar for more).

Heat­ing ener­gy needs should also be dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced, then met pri­mar­i­ly with non-burn tech­nolo­gies. Res­i­den­tial and commercial/institutional heat­ing needs should be addressed with con­ser­va­tion and effi­cien­cy mea­sures first, then with solar hot water, pas­sive solar tech­nolo­gies, and ground- and air-source heat pumps. Indus­tri­al heat­ing needs – the largest por­tion of burn­able heat­ing fuel use – should be reduced with (in pri­or­i­ty order): con­ser­va­tion (reduc­ing use of unnec­es­sary and non-durable prod­ucts), effi­cien­cy (includ­ing com­bined heat and pow­er), con­cen­trat­ed solar pow­er, ground-source heat pumps (geot­her­mal), anaer­o­bic digester gas, and elec­tric heat­ing (sourced from wind and solar power).

Waste-Based Bio­mass Feedstocks
We rec­og­nize that, as in nature, there is no such thing as “waste.” There are only “waste­ful indus­tri­al prac­tices.” By reduc­ing and replac­ing such waste­ful prac­tices, we can reduce pol­lu­tion, con­serve resources and cre­ate many more long-term and local jobs. Hence, we believe that all forms of waste-based “bio­mass” should not be used as fuels, but should be han­dled by fol­low­ing an appro­pri­ate zero-waste hier­ar­chy, pri­or­i­tiz­ing – as applic­a­ble – reduced con­sump­tion, high­est-end use of local mate­r­i­al resources; durable and non-tox­ic design; reuse; source sep­a­ra­tion; recy­cling; and composting.

Incin­er­a­tion is not recy­cling, is not com­pat­i­ble with recy­cling, and is a worse option than land­fill­ing, which should only be used for those wastes that can­not be han­dled with the afore­men­tioned solu­tions. We under­stand – and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions define – flu­idized bed com­bus­tion, gasi­fi­ca­tion, pyrol­y­sis and plas­ma arc tech­nolo­gies to be forms of incineration.

Wood clas­si­fied as dis­as­ter debris or con­struc­tion and demo­li­tion debris should not be burned for ener­gy, as these wood items can be recy­cled or re-used, and often con­tain high­ly tox­ic, yet hard-to-detect chem­i­cal com­pounds that can­not be ade­quate­ly iden­ti­fied through sort­ing processes.

Gas-Based Bioen­er­gy Tech­nolo­gies
Digesters: Organ­ic mate­ri­als – includ­ing those com­mon­ly con­sid­ered to be food waste, ani­mal waste or sewage sludge – should be aer­o­bi­cal­ly com­post­ed (using latent heat recov­ery to meet on-site heat­ing needs where pos­si­ble) or anaer­o­bi­cal­ly digest­ed (allow­ing the use of digester gas as local heat­ing fuel), depend­ing on what is best for meet­ing local heat­ing needs.

Digest­ed organ­ic mate­r­i­al should only be used as fer­til­iz­er if the source is free of tox­ic con­t­a­m­i­nants. Sewage sludge and com­post­ed “biosolids” are too con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and should nev­er be used as fer­til­iz­er or in oth­er appli­ca­tions where human expo­sure is like­ly. The same is true for some ani­mal wastes from con­fined ani­mal feed­ing oper­a­tions (CAFOs) where drugs and tox­ic feed ingre­di­ents may be present. Such wastes should be treat­ed with non-burn meth­ods that elim­i­nate pathogens and reduce waste vol­ume to min­i­mize what may need to be landfilled.

Burn­ing digester gas for elec­tric­i­ty should not be sub­si­dized as renew­able ener­gy. Organ­ic waste streams should be man­aged accord­ing to the zero-waste hier­ar­chy ref­er­enced above to min­i­mize tox­i­c­i­ty and pro­duc­tion of these organ­ic wastes and to ensure the com­post­ing and reuse of clean organ­ic material.

Land­fill Gas: Land­fill gas should be han­dled as a waste man­age­ment issue, not an ener­gy issue. Burn­ing land­fill gas for ener­gy caus­es the mis­man­age­ment of land­fills, increas­es glob­al warm­ing pol­lu­tion and tox­ic expo­sure to land­fill com­mu­ni­ties. “Land­fill gas to ener­gy” projects should not be sub­si­dized as renew­able ener­gy, since doing so harms both the wind ener­gy mar­ket as well as recy­cling and com­post­ing markets.

All uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed organ­ic mate­ri­als (which excludes sewage sludge) should be divert­ed from land­fills and com­post­ed. Oth­er wastes should be digest­ed before land­fill­ing, to reduce gas gen­er­at­ing poten­tial. Gas gen­er­at­ed at exist­ing land­fills should be min­i­mized, gas col­lec­tion should be max­i­mized, and the col­lect­ed gas should be fil­tered to remove tox­ins into a sol­id medi­um like a car­bon fil­ter stored on-site and not sub­se­quent­ly burned. Methane and CO2 in the remain­ing gas should be used for heat­ing or for indus­tri­al feedstocks.

For­est Protection
We vehe­ment­ly oppose the indus­tri­al extrac­tion and burn­ing of our nation’s forests for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion pur­pos­es. The incin­er­a­tion of trees and for­est resources cur­rent­ly is and is pro­ject­ed to be, the largest source of bio­mass ener­gy gen­er­a­tion in Amer­i­ca. The burn­ing of forests for ener­gy is not “car­bon neu­tral.” It is one of the most short-sight­ed and destruc­tive indus­tri­al prac­tices occur­ring today. All sub­si­dies and incen­tives for incin­er­at­ing woody bio­mass must come to an end, and our state, local, and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments must act to pro­tect our forest­lands and the vital ecosys­tem func­tions they pro­vide from the large and grow­ing threat of indus­tri­al exploitation.

Woody mate­r­i­al labeled as “waste” such as log­ging slash, right-of-way and yard trim­mings should not be burned for ener­gy or chipped/shredded and mixed with con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed munic­i­pal sewage sludge. Instead, those woody mate­ri­als should be retained in the envi­ron­ment for pur­pos­es of main­tain­ing soil pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and mois­ture and wildlife habitat.

All indus­tri­al-mod­el for­est work­ers and their com­mu­ni­ties should be ensured a just tran­si­tion away from exploita­tive indus­tri­al mod­els and toward long-term com­mu­ni­ty-based for­est economies that max­i­mize local employ­ment through eco­nom­ic diver­si­fi­ca­tion while ensur­ing the con­ser­va­tion of local for­est eco-systems.

We sup­port the rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples around the world to pro­tect and gov­ern the use of their tra­di­tion­al for­est lands, as defined by the UN Dec­la­ra­tion of the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples (UNDRIP), and Indige­nous Peo­ples’ rights to Free, Pri­or and Informed Con­sent (FPIC) over all com­mer­cial activ­i­ty in their tra­di­tion­al for­est lands.

We sup­port con­tin­u­ous and com­pre­hen­sive mon­i­tor­ing of nat­ur­al for­est func­tions and car­bon seques­tra­tion by forest­ed lands. Nat­ur­al forests must be con­sid­ered the best avail­able con­trol tech­nique (BACT) to mit­i­gate green­house gas emissions.

We oppose sub­si­dies or incen­tives for com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, resource extrac­tion, clearcut­ting and oth­er destruc­tive log­ging, or mono­cul­ture tree farms on pri­vate forest­ed lands. Pol­i­cy sup­port and incen­tives should focus on sus­tain­ing and expand­ing forests with native bio­di­ver­si­ty and old trees and max­i­mized soil and for­est carbon.

We also oppose log­ging or road-build­ing in exist­ing vir­gin forests, road­less areas, and oth­er core areas of bio­di­ver­si­ty. Incen­tives and poli­cies must pro­mote: 1) con­ser­va­tion of pub­lic and pri­vate forest­ed lands; 2) expan­sion of nat­ur­al forests with native bio­di­ver­si­ty and old-growth char­ac­ter­is­tics; and 3) restora­tion of ecosys­tem resilien­cy and con­nec­tive for­est cor­ri­dors between frag­ment­ed forests.

We also oppose genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied trees on pub­lic or pri­vate lands.

We also oppose tree farms, mono­cul­tures and indus­tri­al or insti­tu­tion­al extrac­tion of resources for bio­fu­els, min­er­als, or gas and oil on forest­ed pub­lic lands.

Our local, state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments must pro­tect our forest­ed lands and the vital ecosys­tem func­tions they pro­vide from the large and grow­ing threat of indus­tri­al exploita­tion. Poli­cies and incen­tives must be put into place to restore, expand and des­ig­nate far more pub­lic and pri­vate for­est lands and oth­er endan­gered ecosys­tems, to be incor­po­rat­ed into large pro­tect­ed areas through­out the U.S. that are off lim­its to log­ging, roads or oth­er extrac­tion via cre­ation of new parks, wilder­ness areas, con­ser­va­tion ease­ments, state nat­ur­al areas or oth­er des­ig­na­tions. Poli­cies for forest­ed pub­lic lands also must pro­tect and restore native bio­di­ver­si­ty and native forests and restore nat­ur­al, his­toric car­bon seques­tra­tion. All such poli­cies and incen­tives should sup­port and remain sub­ject to the afore­men­tioned rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples with­in their tra­di­tion­al for­est lands as defined in UNDRIP and FPIC.

Sus­tain­able Agriculture
We sup­port food sov­er­eign­ty – the rights of all small farm­ers, farm work­ers and farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties and their col­lec­tive asso­ci­a­tions to demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly deter­mine the just, equi­table, organ­ic and sus­tain­able use and pro­tec­tion of their food, water and agri­cul­tur­al resources, with­out inter­fer­ence from glob­al mar­kets, trade poli­cies, and the indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture and petro-chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions that threat­en these resources.

We oppose the burn­ing of agri­cul­tur­al residues and so-called “wastes” for elec­tric­i­ty. Those prac­tices result in increased demand for chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides and the deple­tion and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of our lim­it­ed water resources.

Agri­cul­tur­al residues should be retained on site, used as mulch, for no-till farm­ing, ani­mal fod­der or com­post to reduce the need for irri­ga­tion and to recy­cle essen­tial nutri­ents, which are deplet­ed in cur­rent indus­tri­al plan­ta­tion and agri­cul­tur­al practices.

Devel­op­ment of genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs), includ­ing crops, microbes and algae, can have dis­as­trous impli­ca­tions. The care­less­ness and reck­less­ness of the GMO indus­try have led to cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of non-GMO organ­isms, her­bi­cide resis­tant weeds, and have result­ed in neg­a­tive impacts (such as increased use of pes­ti­cides) that are harm­ful to soils, waters, bio­di­ver­si­ty, human health and food sov­er­eign­ty. Biotech and biochar can­not be con­sid­ered viable alter­na­tives to restor­ing and main­tain­ing nat­ur­al soil ecology.

Tech­no-fix­es such as biochar should not be sub­si­dized or includ­ed in car­bon mar­kets. Agri­cul­ture and soil car­bon in gen­er­al should not be incor­po­rat­ed into car­bon markets.

We call for end­ing all pub­lic pol­i­cy sup­port and sub­si­dies for unsus­tain­able agri­cul­ture prac­tices and a re-direc­tion of these sub­si­dies to sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture practices.

Unsus­tain­able agri­cul­ture prac­tices for which sub­si­dies should be end­ed include indus­tri­al mono­cul­ture pro­duc­tion mod­els that require inten­sive ener­gy and chem­i­cal use, ethanol and biodiesel pro­duc­tion, agri­cul­tur­al biotech­nol­o­gy, con­fined ani­mal feed­ing oper­a­tions (CAFOs), indus­tri­al meat pro­duc­tion, and sub­si­dies for CAFO feed­stocks like corn. Sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture prac­tices to which sub­si­dies should be re-direct­ed include com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled organ­ic farm­ing prac­tices, Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives, heir­loom crop diver­si­ty, organ­ic, low exter­nal impact sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, bio­dy­nam­ic agri­cul­ture, per­ma­cul­ture, and the resilience of small farm­ers, farm work­ers and farm­ing communities.

We sup­port dis­in­cen­tives for indus­tri­al-scale ani­mal agri­cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­fined ani­mal feed­ing oper­a­tions (CAFOs) and indus­tri­al meat pro­duc­tion. Ani­mal and plant agri­cul­ture should be inte­grat­ed to ensure that ani­mal wastes are returned to soils, reduc­ing demand for finite, dimin­ish­ing sup­plies of nat­ur­al gas and mined min­er­al-based indus­tri­al fer­til­iz­ers. We sup­port an imme­di­ate ban of tox­ic addi­tives and antibi­ot­ic-depen­dent CAFO prac­tices that threat­en human health and vio­late ani­mal cru­el­ty laws should be banned imme­di­ate­ly. The cost of meat must reflect the total envi­ron­men­tal and social costs to soci­ety and be paid for by the pound by consumers.

Use of water for agri­cul­ture and pro­cess­ing must employ the most effec­tive con­ser­va­tion meth­ods pos­si­ble and be based on assess­ment of long-term pro­tec­tion of water resources. We sup­port sus­tain­able use of aquifers and sur­face waters. We oppose bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion, includ­ing pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties, which rely on ground­wa­ter or sur­face­wa­ter resources or con­tribute to or cause ther­mal pol­lu­tion of waterways.

We oppose bio­mass ener­gy crops on CRP lands. These lands were mar­gin­al or dam­aged by pre­vi­ous agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices and most impor­tant­ly serve soci­ety as sources of clean water and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty. Con­ser­va­tion Reserve Pro­gram (CRP) lands must be kept in pro­tec­tive status.

Water
Water resources are pre­dict­ed to decline dra­mat­i­cal­ly in water-rich and oth­er areas in response to glob­al cli­mate dis­rup­tion, as is already evi­dent in many regions. Care­ful allo­ca­tion of fresh­wa­ter reserves is there­fore essential.

We sup­port pro­tec­tion and con­ser­va­tion of fresh­wa­ter resources.

We oppose ther­mo­elec­tric-pow­er, includ­ing bio­mass incin­er­a­tors, because it requires mas­sive amounts of water and is not com­pat­i­ble with pro­tec­tion and con­ser­va­tion goals. Ther­mo­elec­tric-pow­er accounts for 49 per­cent of total water use with­drawals, 41 per­cent of total fresh­wa­ter with­drawals for all cat­e­gories, and 53 per­cent of fresh sur­face-water with­drawals, large­ly for cool­ing. Much of this water is evap­o­rat­ed and what remains is warmed and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, then dumped back into waterways.

We also oppose indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture and the required min­ing and pro­cess­ing of raw mate­ri­als for the man­u­fac­ture of indus­tri­al fer­til­iz­ers because of the mas­sive amounts of fresh water all of these activ­i­ties use. Indus­tri­al irri­ga­tion is esti­mat­ed to use approx­i­mate­ly one third of the total fresh water used in the Unit­ed States. Indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture has result­ed in the deple­tion of numer­ous key aquifers and the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of many sur­face waters with runoff of indus­tri­al agri­chem­i­cals from crop­lands. The addi­tion of large new demands for bioen­er­gy crops would fur­ther deplete and con­t­a­m­i­nate our water resources.

We sup­port the rights of Indige­nous and small fish­er­folk and their com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly deter­mine the use of their tra­di­tion­al fish and water resources.

We also sup­port the pro­tec­tion of nat­ur­al forests, which are essen­tial for ensur­ing an abun­dance of clean fresh­wa­ter sup­plies by reg­u­lat­ing rain­fall pat­terns and pro­tect­ing soils. Adding large new demands for for­est bio­mass will dimin­ish water sup­plies and water quality.

In con­clu­sion, we sup­port water use for essen­tial needs such as envi­ron­men­tal­ly com­pat­i­ble food pro­duc­tion, human con­sump­tion and hygiene and main­tain­ing our nat­ur­al ecosys­tems – not irri­ga­tion of bioen­er­gy crops and cool­ing of ther­mo­elec­tric facilities.

To sign on to this plat­form, please send an email to traci at energyjustice.net indi­cat­ing whether the endorse­ment is from you as an indi­vid­ual or from a group. National/International Orga­ni­za­tions

• • Ener­gy Jus­tice Network
  • Save Amer­i­ca’s Forests
  • Bio­fu­el­watch U.S.
  • Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project

• • Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha [India peo­ple’s sci­ence cam­paign], India

• Cli­mate Group of South Asian Dia­logues on Eco­log­i­cal Democ­ra­cy, India
• Green­ac­tion for Health and Envi­ron­men­tal Justice
• Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Network

Regional/Local Orga­ni­za­tions

• • Alliance for a Clean Envi­ron­ment (Jane Brem­mer, Chair) West­ern Australia
  • Ani­mal Rights Research Project (Eliz­a­beth Howard, President)
  • Arise for Social Jus­tice (Michae­lann Bewsee, Exec. Dir.), Spring­field, Massachusetts
  • Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League (BREDL)*, based in North Carolina

• • Bound­ary Coun­ty Con­cerned Cit­i­zens, Bound­ary Coun­ty, Idaho

• • The Canary Coali­tion (Avram Fried­man, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor), North Carolina

• • Cen­ter for Com­mu­ni­ty, Democ­ra­cy and Ecol­o­gy (CCDE) (Reede Stock­ton, Direc­tor), California
  • Cit­i­zens’ Envi­ron­men­tal Coali­tion (Bar­bara War­ren, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor), New York

• • Cit­i­zens of Las Vegas Unit­ed, Nevada

• • Cit­i­zens Opposed to BioBurn­ers, Gainesville, Florida
  • Clean Air Now, Ala­mance Coun­ty, North Carolina
  • Col­lec­tive Pro­gres­sion, Gainesville, Florida
  • Con­cerned Cit­i­zens of Franklin Coun­ty, Massachusetts
  • Con­cerned Cit­i­zens of Per­ryville, Missouri
  • Con­cerned Cit­i­zens of Rus­sell, Massachusetts

• Con­ser­va­tion Con­gress, (Denise Bog­gs, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor), Liv­ingston, Montana
• Craw­ford Area Res­i­dents for the Envi­ron­ment (CARE), Craw­ford Coun­ty, Pennsylvania
• Cum­ber­land Coun­tians for Peace & Jus­tice, Tennessee
• Eco Advo­cates NW, Eugene, Ore­gon (Shan­non Wil­son, Director)
• Ecol­o­gy Par­ty of Flori­da (Cara Camp­bell, Chair)
• Envi­ron­men­tal Alliance of North Florida
• Fel­low­ship of Human­i­ty (David A Oer­tel, Pres­i­dent), Oak­land, California
• Flori­da Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Net­work (Karen Orr, President)
• Flori­da League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers (Joy Towles Ezell*, President)
• Florid­i­ans Against Incin­er­a­tors In Dis­guise (Susie Caplowe, Director)
• Friends of the Fen­hol­loway Riv­er (Rebec­ca Edwards, Chair) Florida
• Green Par­ty of Flori­da (Michael Can­ney & Jen­nifer Sul­li­van, Co-chairs)
• Heart­wood (Ernie Reed*, Coun­cil Chair)
• Haver­hill Envi­ron­men­tal League (Brent Baes­lack, Co-chair), Haver­hill, Massachusetts
• Help Our Pol­lut­ed Envi­ron­ment (HOPE) (Ted Ezell, Chair), Tay­lor Coun­ty, Florida
• Help Save the Apalachico­la Riv­er (Mar­i­lyn Black­well, Pres­i­dent), Florida
• Incin­er­a­tor Free Brown Coun­ty (John Filch­er, co-chair), Wisconsin
• Indi­ana For­est Alliance (David Haber­man, Pres­i­dent of the Board)
• It’s Our Econ­o­my (Kevin Zeese, co-director)
• Lehigh Val­ley Gas Truth (Julie Edgar, Organizer)
• Man­a­So­ta-88 (Glenn Comp­ton, Chair­man), Nokomis, Florida
• Mar­ket Air Qual­i­ty Cam­paign, Seat­tle, Washington
• Mass. For­est Res­cue, Massachusetts
• Mass­a­chu­setts For­est Watch
• Neigh­bor­hood Envi­ron­ment Watch, Ala­mance Coun­ty, North Carolina
• No Bio­mass Burn (Duff Bad­g­ley, Pres­i­dent), Seat­tle, Washington
• Olympic For­est Coali­tion (John Wool­ley, Pres­i­dent), Quilcene, Washington
• Ozark River­keep­ers Net­work (Tom Kruzen*, Pres­i­dent), Moun­tain View, Missouri
• Palm Beach Coun­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Coali­tion (Pana­gi­oti Tsolkas, co-chair), Florida
• Pro­tect Bio­di­ver­si­ty in Pub­lic Forests (Gwen Mar­shall, net­work coor­di­na­tor), Cincin­nati, Ohio
• Our Forests (Roy Keene, Direc­tor and pub­lic inter­est forester), Oregon
• Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon (Paul Fouch PE, Pres­i­dent), Kla­math Falls, Oregon
• Sav­ing Our Air Resources (Robert Hugh­es, Pres­i­dent), Roth­schild, Wisconsin
• Selkirk, Coey­mans, Rave­na Against Pol­lu­tion (SCRAP), New York
• South­ern Albany Coun­ty Report­ing Envi­ron­men­tal Dan­gers (Sacred Lands), New York
• Stop Tox­ic Incin­er­a­tion in Spring­field, Massachusetts
• Sus­tain­able Tuc­son, Tus­con, Arizona
• Tar Sands Block­ade, Grace Cagle, Texas
• Veci­nos Unidos (Car­men Cordero, Orga­niz­er), Hart­ford, Connecticut
• Watau­ga Water­shed Alliance (Den­nis Shek­inah, Sec­re­tary), John­son Coun­ty, Tennessee
• Wire­grass Activists for Clean Ener­gy (WACE), Val­dos­ta, Georgia

Indi­vid­u­als (group names for affil­i­a­tion pur­pos­es only)

• Eliz­a­beth L. Adams, Mass. For­est Res­cue, Massachusetts
• Syd­ney T. Bac­chus, Ph.D., Hydroe­col­o­gist, Georgia
• Elaine Bai­ley, Washington
• Anne Bing­ham, Esq., Massachusetts
• William J. Black­ley, M.D., Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Fam­i­ly Prac­tice fel­low, North Carolina
• Thomas D. Bussing, Ph.D., for­mer May­or, City of Gainesville, Florida
• Lil­iana Caugh­man, Ph.D., North­west Indi­an Col­lege, Port­land, Oregon
• Don­ald B. Clark, Net­work for Envi­ron­men­tal & Eco­nom­ic Respon­si­bil­i­ty, Unit­ed Church of Christ, Pleas­ant Hill, Tennessee
• Mon­i­ca Coop­er and Cur­tis Coop­er, Gainesville, Florida
• Cherie DuPont, Nashua, New Hampshire
• Soumya Dut­ta, India
• Paul Elliott
• Dr. Tom Eng­lish, Cre­ation Care Edu­ca­tor, Syn­od of South­ern CA & HA, Pres­by­ter­ian Church (USA)
• John S. Glenn, Florida
• Karen Gun­der­sheimer, mem­ber of Ben­ning­ton Berk­shire Cit­i­zens Coalition
• Den­ny Halde­man*, Tennessee
• Jan Ham­mett, South Carolina
• Jim­my Harns­berg­er, Gainesville, Florida
• Eliz­a­beth Howard, Gainesville, Florida
• Bruce Liles, Bird­s­eye, Indiana
• Vin­cent J. Lip­sio, Gainesville, Florida
• Lau­ra Lynch, San­ta Bar­bara, California
• Deb­bie Mar­tinez, Gainesville, Florida
• Ernesto Mar­tinez, Gainesville, Florida
• Dr. Ross McCluney, research physi­cist, Sun­Pine Consulting
• Grace Mont­gomery, MSW, Dal­las, Georgia
• Karl Moore, Slidell, Louisiana
• Rick Mor­gen­thal, Pow­nal, Vermont
• David Orr, Fayet­teville, Arkansas
• Maria Par­sons
• Michael Par­sons Ph.D.
• Shireen Par­sons, Sum­mit Hill, Pennsylvania
• Craig M. Pat­ter­son, Oregon
• Bon­nie Phillips, Washington
• Eve Pearce, Pow­nal, Vermont
• Charles Phillips, NREMT‑P of Boonville, Missouri
• Stu­art Phillips, Eugene, Oregon
• Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Revesz
• Bet­sy Roberts RN, for­mer chair of Flori­da Chap­ter of the Sier­ra Club
• Frank Robey, Stone­ham, Maine
• Ronald Saff, M.D., Mem­ber, Physi­cians for Social Responsibility
• Lor­na Salz­man, Brook­lyn, New York
• Bill Savarese, Pub­lic Art Chair, Fort Laud­erdale, Florida
• Mary Schel­len­trager, Ener­gy Action Coali­tion, Wash­ing­ton, DC
• Saman­tha Chir­il­lo*, Lane Coun­ty, Oregon
• Celeste Shi­ta­ma, Gainesville, Florida
• Paula H. Stah­mer, Esq., For­mer Chair, Con­ser­va­tion Com­mit­tee, Suwan­nee-St. Johns Group of the Flori­da Sier­ra Club, Gainesville, Florida
• Dick Stokes, Gainesville, Florida
• Jeff Strain, Cum­ber­land Coun­tians for Peace & Jus­tice in Pleas­ant Hill, Tennessee
• Karyn Strick­ler, Maryland
• Toby Thaler, attorney/policy ana­lyst, Washington
• Leigh Touch­ton, Pres­i­dent, Val­dos­ta-Lown­des NAACP Branch, Val­dos­ta, Georgia
• Car­ole W. Trox­ler, Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League mem­ber, North Carolina
• Eliz­a­beth Anne Wash­ing­ton, Florida
• Robert Wein­traub, Fer­nan­d­i­na, Florida
• Flo­rence Wind­fall, Oak­land, California
• Tela Zasloff, Williamstown, Mass­a­chu­setts Dave Wil­son, chair­man of the Suwan­nee-St. Johns Group of the Flori­da Sier­ra Club, Gainesville, Florida

* Serves on the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee for the Ener­gy Jus­tice Bio­mass Oppo­nents network

Def­i­n­i­tions

Ener­gy: includes three sub­cat­e­gories of con­sump­tion: elec­tric­i­ty, trans­porta­tion and heat­ing. Elec­tric­i­ty is 40% of total U.S. ener­gy con­sump­tion in 2009. Trans­porta­tion is 29%. Heat­ing is 31%. Heat­ing breaks down into 3 fur­ther sub­cat­e­gories of use: res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al. Indus­tri­al heat­ing is the largest (by far), mak­ing up 64% of heat­ing fuel con­sump­tion, while res­i­den­tial is only 23% and com­mer­cial is 14%. “Com­mer­cial” includes busi­ness­es as well as gov­ern­ment build­ings, grade schools and colleges/universities. Elec­tric­i­ty and trans­porta­tion also break down by sec­tor of use, but nation­al data isn’t avail­able, since it’s hard­er to determine.

Bioen­er­gy: any­thing remote­ly “bio” that the indus­try or gov­ern­ment has ever defined as bio­mass or bio­fu­el feed­stock, includ­ing munic­i­pal sol­id waste (trash), tires, sewage sludge, construction/demolition wood waste, oth­er wood and paper mill wastes (even black liquor), crop and ani­mal wastes, ener­gy crops, trees, land­fill gas and gas from diges­tion of sewage sludge or ani­mal wastes or oth­er organ­ic materials.

Bioen­er­gy has two major sub­cat­e­gories: bio­mass and bio­fu­els. Bio­mass involves burn­ing for elec­tric­i­ty or heat­ing. Bio­fu­els involve turn­ing the “bio­mass” feed­stock into a liq­uid fuel (usu­al­ly ethanol or biodiesel) before burn­ing it as trans­porta­tion fuel. Some­times the gas-based forms of bio­mass (land­fill gas and digester gas) are referred to sep­a­rate­ly as “bio­gas.” Bio­mass tech­nolo­gies can involve all forms of incin­er­a­tion, includ­ing gasi­fi­ca­tion, plas­ma and pyrol­y­sis. Bio­fu­els can be pro­duced from the same set of feed­stocks, but with a dif­fer­ent assort­ment of tech­nolo­gies, such as pyrol­y­sis, acid hydrol­y­sis, Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch gas-to-liq­uids, ther­mal depoly­mer­iza­tion, ethanol con­ver­sion and cel­lu­losic ethanol.