Wise Energy for Virginia is a growing coalition of national, regional and local organizations committed to securing a clean energy future for Virginia. In 2007 Appalachian Voices, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter, and the Southern Environmental Law Center joined the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards to support its fight against a proposed coal-burning plant in Wise County, Virginia and raise awareness of the benefits of clean and efficient energy. The Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition is joined by a growing number of partners. If you are part of an organization that would like to join our effort please contact Kayti Wingfield: kayti@wiseenergyva.org, 540-470-0643

Participating organizations are:

Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards

Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards is an organization of concerned community members and their allies in southwest Virginia who are working to stop the destruction of our communities by surface coal mining, to improve the quality of life in our area, and to help rebuild sustainable communities.

In its first 1.5 years, SAMS has been successful in bringing local, regional, and national attention to the forever irreversible consequences heaped on its communities, environment, and the quality of life of the Appalachian people who reside in Wise County, VA. SAMS members continue to work to bring about the end to an era of the most violent extraction of coal and help formulate a vision for SW VA that is sustainable and will not further deteriorate the environment upon which their children shall depend.

Appalachian Voices

Appalachian Voices brings people together to solve the environmental problems having the greatest impact on the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. Our accomplishments include playing a major role in the coalition that passed the 2002 North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Act, one of the strongest clean air laws in the country. Over the past 5 years, we have steadily built a national network of thousands of people working to end mountaintop removal, through a traveling presentation called Appalachian Treasures and an online organizing campaign, iLoveMountains.org. We publish a bi-monthly newspaper, the Appalachian Voice, and distribute 75,000 copies of each issue in 7 states

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to educate and mobilize citizens of this region in a way that fosters a rapid societal switch to clean energy and energy-efficient products, thus joining efforts worldwide to slow and reverse the dangerous trend of global warming.

As the only organization in the region focused exclusively on global warming, CCAN brings credibility to our public message and political outreach. CCAN has a strong and consistently growing volunteer base that provides the political power for its campaign. In just a few years, CCAN has trained and empowered several hundred volunteers and created 7 active chapters in Virginia that engage in a diverse range of public education, advocacy and activism.

Sierra Club

As the nation’s largest grassroots environmental organization, the Sierra Club is challenging proposed coal-fired power plants nationwide. Our goal is not only to stop these plants through citizen action and litigation, but also to effect the capital markets that are financing this new coal rush.

In Virginia, our goal is to stop the coal-fired power plant proposed for Wise County as well as the infrastructure and increased coal mining that would accompany it. If approved, the Wise County plant would result in a new transmission line through West Virginia and Virginia to serve the population centers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. We are committed to promoting visionary energy solutions as alternatives to this cheap, dirty electric power.

Southern Environmental Law Center

For the past 20 years, the Southern Environmental Law Center has used the full power of the law to conserve clean water, healthy air, wild lands, and livable communities throughout the Southeast. As the biggest, most powerful environmental organization headquartered in the South, SELC is able to work simultaneously in all three branches of government, and in all of our six focus states, to comprehensively address the most urgent problems facing our region.

Throughout our history, the Southern Environmental Law Center has worked to force the Southeast’s oldest and dirtiest plants to reduce their emissions. The pinnacle of our multi-year campaign came on April 2, 2007, when the United States Supreme Court unanimously sided with SELC in a landmark Clean Air Act enforcement case against Duke Energy. The high court agreed with us that utilities cannot overhaul their “grandfathered” power plants – thereby extending their lives and increasing the amount of pollution they emit each year – without installing modern pollution controls. If fully enforced, the Supreme Court’s ruling could reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in the Southeast and Midwest by 90 percent.

Wise Energy For Virginia Partners

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National Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s purpose is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends. We work to restore the integrity of the elements that sustain life — air, land and water — and to defend endangered natural places.

We seek to establish sustainability and good stewardship of the Earth as central ethical imperatives of human society. NRDC affirms the integral place of human beings in the environment. We strive to protect nature in ways that advance the long-term welfare of present and future generations.

We work to foster the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment. We seek to break down the pattern of disproportionate environmental burdens borne by people of color and others who face social or economic inequities. Ultimately, NRDC strives to help create a new way of life for humankind, one that can be sustained indefinitely without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth.

Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light

Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light (GWIPL) is a non-profit initiative that empowers faith communities in MD, DC, and Northern Virginia to act as faithful stewards of creation. We help congregations explore the connections between their faith and ecology, and then take action – in their buildings, their members’ homes, and their communities – to lighten the impacts of their energy use. Together, we can put our faith into action toward a healthy, just, and sustainable world for everyone. GWIPL is a part of a network of 28 Interfaith Power and Light chapters across the country mobilizing a national religious response to global warming. Contact: Joelle Novey joelle@gwipl.org

Contacts:

Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition Coordinator:

Kayti Wingfield
kayti@wiseenergyva.org
540-470-0643