U.S. PIRG's Legislative Director Anna Aurilio

Pretty soon, the fall election will be over and done.

If the polls and the pundits are any indication, this year’s election may be close and yield surprising results in a number of places.

The control of Congress is up for grabs. Statehouses and governors’ mansions across the country will be in a state of flux afterwards.

What won’t be in question is the importance of the work that U.S. PIRG’s staff of advocates and organizers do in Washington D.C., and in state PIRG offices across the country.

In January, the 110th Congress will come to Washington, D.C., to face the unfinished business of the 109th Congress.

We are ready.

You’ll read in the pages of this newsletter about some of the big issues facing the 110th Congress:

As you’ll read on our front page article, the state PIRGs spent the fall building support for our New Energy Future platform—both among our traditional allies and from some groups that wouldn’t immediately come to mind, but who share our concern about the problems of an energy system as dependent as ours is on fossil fuels. Those groups also share our optimism that there are already solutions to these problems, and know that our leaders can put American technological know how to work to move our energy future in a safer, cleaner and more secure direction.

You’ll also read on the front page about our efforts to work with citizen groups to convince Congress to clean up the mess in the wake of the past year’s lobbying scandals.

We’ll be there promoting serious reforms of a system that too often favors powerful special interests over the public interest.

As you’ll see on pages 4 and 5, five years after the September 11 attacks, chemical security remains a stark vulnerability to communities across the United States.

The Congressional Research Service reports that more than a hundred chemical facilities have reported that a worst-case scenario, like a terrorist attack, could endanger more than 1 million people.

Hopefully, the 110th Congress will do the work that their predecessors failed to do and enact meaningful security measures to protect communities from this threat.

The 110th Congress will also face the unfinished but critical business of addressing the most profound environmental problem of our generation as it considers legislation to curb global warming pollution. In the past few months, we’ve worked with Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) to introduce ambitious, science-based legislation to put the country on course to dramatically reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide pollution over the next fifty years.

As I write this, the Waxman Safe Climate Act has just added its 100th co-sponsor.

No matter what the outcome on November 7, the public support for moving forward on all of these issues is expressed time and again.

U.S. PIRG’s advocates and organizers will continue our work to convince the 110th Congress to pay attention to that support.

Your continued support makes that work possible.