Our Signatories
Building Leadership
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Elected Officials
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States
Empowering Leadership for the Environment, Public Health, and Climate Change
We are a network of over a thousand state and local elected officials from all 50 states committed to solving the climate crisis while protecting our communities, public health, and environment.
By empowering elected officials, we are raising the standard for protecting public health, local economies, and communities. Doing so helps to shift climate leadership up to the scale of the crises created by our fossil fuel-based economy. This work also sets a precedent for national climate policies for keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Fossil fuel production causes critical health conditions and devastate low income community. Protecting our health and disadvantaged communities more than justifies the transition to a 100% clean energy economy that will generate thousands of good paying jobs.
See our page on national efforts here to learn more.
MISSION
Elected Officials to Protect America, EOPA, is a project of the 501(c)3 Solon Center for Research and Publishing.
Why Now?
Imperative for Leadership
Climate change and environmental harm are grave threats to our health, economy, and security. Record droughts, heat waves, wildfires, coastal flooding, ocean acidification, and storms are costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in damages in our communities.
The federal government’s National Climate Assessment predicts economic losses will exceed the GDP of many states, and our military is responding to climate change as a key threat to national security.
According to the United Nations, we only have 11 and a half years left before extreme weather conditions become the norm and millions will die across the globe. Scarcity of resources and political instability will start conflicts. These wars will add to the starvation. We are at a tipping point.
We have to take action now. We need leadership.
With federal action stalled, state and local levels must lay groundwork for national climate policy. Yet very few state and local officials are
prioritizing climate change; not enough elected officials are aware of the crisis’s severity, imperative action to solve it, and how their
voices can turn the tide.
Since 2015, we have mobilized hundreds of state and local lawmakers from every state.
We started organizing our peer elected officials at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. EOPA was originally started with seven current and former state representatives, mayors, and elected officials from California, Maine, New York, and North Carolina.
We held a press conference and participated in the historic Paris Climate Change Accord, where we used a sign-on letter to demand ambitious action on climate change.
We’ve met with U.S. Senators and
Representatives on Capitol Hill to progress legislation that became law. We’ve met with White House officials. We’ve helped laws pass at the state level.
We have also trained lawmakers in 45 state capitals and at national elected officials conferences, and organized 3,000 of our peers to create and enact policy.
OUR STORY
Our Work
Collective Leadership
One way we educate elected officials, media, and the public is through value-based storytelling. Providing trainings to messaging solutions, we empower elected officials to create and advance strong policy solutions.
We connect and organize lawmakers to support policies that protect public health, the environment and grow clean energy jobs, while empowering courageous leadership on climate change.
Our Team
Co-Chair EOPA Leadership Council
New Mexico State Representative
U.S. Air Force veteran
EOPA Leadership Council
North Carolina Soil & Water Conservation Supervisor
EOPA Co-Founder & Legal Advisor
East Bay Municipal Utility District Director, California
Co-Founder and President
Former Maine State Representative
U.S. Marines veteran
Lt. U.S. Navy Reserves
