Mar 5 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Teresa Shane The Daily Star-Journal, Warrensburg, Mo.

More than 250 area residents have called Sen. Claire McCaskill’s office during a three-day calling campaign by Repower America and other organizations.  Missouri’s Repower Communication Director Gretchen Wieland said Thursday that volunteers across Missouri made more than 2,000 calls to McCaskill’s constituents.

The group made phone calls at Java Junction, 112 N. Holden St., asking people to call McCaskill. “We are asking them to voice their support for clean energy legislation,” she said.

Sens. John Kerry, D-Maine, Joe Lieberman, Independent, Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are working on legislation, Wieland said.

“People know clean energy is an issue and we found a majority support clean energy,” she said. “We want to let them know that clean energy creates jobs, reduces dependence on foreign oil and also helps national security.”  

Wieland said looking outside their personal lives and to understand how a small change can make a big difference is sometimes hard.

“For some of us it can be changing the light bulbs we use, turning off a light, using a recyclable grocery bag or recycling plastic,” she said.

Repower America distributed weatherization kits in Columbia that would save people $350 a year. That makes clean energy real, Wieland said.

“Then they aren’t thinking of it in terms of global warming, but more in saving money,” she said. “More than 29,000 jobs could be created in Missouri in the clean energy industry.”

She said she has seen people “thinking outside the box” on clean energy.

“There are old, empty manufacturing plants that have been refitted for clean energy manufacturing jobs,” she said. “It inspires ingenuity.”

By early Thursday afternoon, volunteers had made more than 20,000 calls across the United States.

Wieland said some people say the country cannot afford the legislation now.

“But we can’t afford to wait, either,” she said. “We have the technology now and we need the people to show senators it’s what we want.”