The Build Back Better agenda is supposed to be a game-changer to transition the country to renewable energy and off of fossil fuels by 2035. Yet the Build Back Better Act includes $30 billion of infrastructure spending on subsidies for aging, uneconomical nuclear power plants. This would be a costly, counterproductive, job-killing mistake. Speak up and demand that leaders in Washington take action towards a just transition to a 100% renewable energy future - carbon-free and nuclear-free. We’ve come so far in demanding real climate action instead of the false promises of nuclear power that only enrich corrupt corporations while leaving frontline communities behind. And the good news is that we’ve been winning! Over the last six months, the nuclear bailout proposal has been cut back from as much as $200 billion to about $35 billion.  Now, we have to get it cut completely. It has never been a more important time for you to tell your elected leaders to cut wasteful, corrupt nuclear bailouts in the Build Back Better Act.

A Rotarian has just made me aware that Rotary quietly adopted a policy in June of not investing in weapons companies. This is worth celebrating and encouraging all other organizations to do likewise. Here is the policy, excerpted from a document pasted below:

“The Rotary Foundation . . . will typically avoid investment in . . . companies that derive significant revenue from producing, distributing, or marketing . . . military weapons systems, cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, and nuclear explosives.”

Now, I’ll admit that declaring what you will “typically” not do is weak compared to declaring what you will never do, but it does create leverage to make sure that in fact the “typical” behavior is at least mostly what is done.

And it is certainly odd that after “military weapons systems” three particular types of military weapons systems are added, but there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to read that as excluding other types of military weapons systems. They seem to all be covered.

Below is appendix B from the minutes of a Rotary International board meeting in June 2021. I’ve bolded a bit of it:

*****

The lineup of statewide Democratic candidates for remains unsettled.

A few weeks ago, the race for U.S. Senate appeared settled with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan clearing the field. Then Columbus attorney Morgan Harper entered the fray and Ryan became less than a cinch to gain the nomination.

Democrats can hardly ignore Harper. A progressive Black woman, she took on but lost to U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty in the 2020 primary for the Columbus-based Congressional seat.

Convention wisdom would suggest that Harper give that race another whirl in 2022, though its boundaries have not been decided. Its makeup as a safe Black seat could be altered by the Ohio Redistricting Commission, the Ohio Legislature or the Ohio Supreme Court as the remap drama continues in Ohio.

More conventional wisdom would suggest that the thirty-something Harper run for a lesser office such as state representative or city council to build her political portfolio.

Instead Harper chose to run for an even higher office, the U.S. Senate, also known as the world's most exclusive club. Ohioans voting a Black women into the club would make double history.

Last year with your help, Columbus passed Issue 1, setting up the largest 100% renewable energy aggregation program in the Midwest. Clean Energy Columbus is now a reality.

Not only does the power for your phone, computer, and lights now come from 100% renewable energy, it is also creating jobs, cleaning the air, and improving public health through construction of local projects such as the Columbus Solar Park, which will provide 50 MW of energy from a solar farm on the old Franklin County landfill.

On top of that, renewable energy aggregation in Columbus is generating $1.7 million each year in community grants to help pay for energy efficiency upgrades and workforce development in low income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Clean Energy Columbus is a model for the nation, now in place because you supported Issue 1 on the ballot last year.