 Hello everyone, I am Yanni folks can start dropping their names introducing themselves in the chat with their names, region affiliation and pronouns to start off. I'm Yanni my pronouns are she hers and currently in Detroit. I see Belvin. Thank you for dropping a Belvin. He hands from Charleston climate coalition in Charleston, South Carolina. Thank you for joining on time. Ellie Quaker. Thank you for joining me. Amy, she hers now South County, New York. Thank you for everyone dropping their names and their region and their pronouns Philip. He him with San Diego 350. Larry cobalt 350 Chicago. No worries Eleanor Rebecca. She her. Sorry, they're going a little fast. Okay, Rebecca. She her I've been knocking man in Vermont 350 Vermont. Thank you for showing up. Seth Berry. He him with our power in Maine. Thank you. Eleanor Andrew. Ellie. No affiliation Patrick. He him University of Michigan. Thank you for being here. Jim Parker. He him 350 Montana. Mel. Mel Smith. She her Brooklyn, New York. 350.org. Thank you for being here. So many names. So many people already let me skim through. Brian from Willis in Vermont, who got people from all over David Norbrook he him Baltimore, Jerry public power in San Diego. Diana and Allen, California and Washington. Thank you for being here Donna from New Hampshire. Suzanne. She her. Rosendale Hudson Valley, New York. Thank you for being here. John Sonnion. He him us Douglas Alaska. Jeff Smith. He him 350 Montana. Hello to you to Nikki Alvarado. She her in Tarzana. Lila Portland, Maine. She her with 350.org. We got another Jeff he him Philadelphia. Originally, the not be land 350.org. Thank you for being here. But Johnston, South Dakota. Craig rose public power San Diego bread. From Sarastosa, no affiliation. Couple people couple more people Maros, Massachusetts Dan Franklin he him. Thank you for being here. Glenn he him. Please excuse me if I'm pronouncing this wrong. Unset it occupied T1 land aka Santa Fe veterans for peace. Thank you for being here. Karen, she her 350 triangle. Two scarota and Lumby lands a rally north Carolina. Brett Garrett, Santa Cruz, California Alliance for Community Energy. Thank you. Also, thank you for dropping the link in the chat. Bruce Russell. Bruce R. J. Carmen, Indiana. He him. Steve, he him northern California Emily Park. She her 350 Wisconsin basin Madison and unoccupied whole chunk lands. Michael. Michael Gilbreath our revolution mass Corey him Detroit. Nice to see you here. Rachel Michigan. We have Anita from San Diego. We have Dave from 350 legislative Alliance norm Conrad. We have someone from Connecticut. Hadley. Thank you for being here. And we have so much more honestly that I would run out of time. But overall, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for being here and being here on time. We appreciate it. We are going to start on some pose. So we have some pose just three questions to start off. And we really just want to read the room. So please don't feel any pressure. The first question is around energy burden. What percentage of us households struggle to pay their energy bills or kept their homes at an unsafe temperature because of energy cost concerns in 2020. Please fill it out. Sean, thank you so much for dropping your answer in the chat, but also feel free to click your choice that pops up on the pole. Thank you. Thank you. Alrighty, so here are the results. So about 11% of you all said 17% of people struggle to pay their energy bills or kept their homes at safe temperature. 34% of you all said 27% and then 34% of you all said 37%. And the correct answer is what the majority of the 50% of you all said, which is 27%. So in conclusion, 27% of us households struggle to pay their bills or kept their homes at unsafe temperatures because of energy costs or concerns in 2020. Thank you. And on to our next question, which might be our last so highest energy bills, which state has the highest energy. I'm sorry, which state has the highest monthly energy bill. A, Hawaii, B, Arkansas, C, West Virginia, or for Georgia. And just put in your answers on what what state do you think has the highest monthly energy bill. So the results will be shared about the majority said Hawaii, and then the second most popular vote was West Virginia, but the correct answer is Hawaii. So I'm glad to see a lot of folks answering these questions, right. But yes, Hawaii has the highest most expensive rates in the entire United States, including US territories. All right, this is the last question. I know we I said we had three, but we're just digging in for two right now. Thank you so much for everyone who participated. Appreciate you. And then I am now going to pass it over to Lila. Take it away. Hey everyone. Welcome, we are so excited to have all of you here. 350.org is a global climate justice organization with 160 plus staff in countries all over the world. In the US, we have eight staff and you're seeing a bunch of us here tonight. We work with a network of more than 100 independent 350 affiliate groups across the country, and you'll get to hear about some of the work our staff and affiliates are doing on utilities in a few minutes. If you have any questions about finding a local group in your area. You can send me an email which I'll put in the chat. Awesome. Thank you, Lila. Just introducing myself. My name is Candice. I am the US campaigns manager here at 350.org. And before we kick it off with our program, I just wanted to share with everyone about why 350 is going big on utilities this year. But we believe in returning power to the people and we look for big fights where we can both show solutions and also resist fossil fuel infrastructure. We look to eliminate the barriers to getting the solutions that we need. And that's why we've helped install solar panels on the Keystone XL pipeline. And that's why we're now looking at utilities as our next big fight. We at 350.org are connectors of people, regions, movements and fights. And so that we end the era of fossil fuels once and for all and transition swiftly but equitably to justly sourced and justly implemented renewable energy. Utilities offer a unique lens to connect climate change to economic justice through something that's top of mind for nearly every American, particularly lower income households. High utility bills, which it turns out are helping companies pay to destroy the planet and essential and the essential need to power out our homes and our lives. 350 US is engaging in utilities work as a part of a coordinated strategy for climate solutions that involve eliminating the barriers to switching to renewable energy and powering the people with more decision making power. Continuing to fight new fossil fuel projects and hold those responsible accountable for paying for the damage and engaging in solidarity fights in the hardest hit regions across the world and within the US. So we're going to kick it off tonight with a speech by one of my favorite people in the energy democracy space. Crystal Wang. Crystal Wang is a co founder and worker of people power solar cooperative, a movement cooperative aiming to enable everyone to own and shape our energy future. Notable ways she's contributed to community engagement on energy include supporting people power members and trying out over 20 projects serving on the resilience hubs advisory council for an initiative funded by the strategic growth council. And developing a toolkit for advancing community energy control during power shutoffs. So I'm going to pass it to crystal to share more about our world and utilities and why we should be in this fight. It is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you Candice for the warm welcome and thank you all so so much for being here. My name is crystal and I am here speaking on behalf of the energy democracy project to solve a problem together and it's so great to be in this room together with everyone because we all believe there are problems that need to be solved in our world today. And in order to solve a problem, we have to understand the problem before we come up with the solution. And here on the screen you see a pyramid that is growing as a way for us to really see and visualize what exactly is going on. I want you to take a moment and look at this animation and think about what part is actually showing up for you. Where are you. Where are the power plants in your neighborhood in whose neighborhood. And how is that impacting the communities nearby. And when we have electricity or any sort of power utilities water broadband, who actually decide who gets it and who doesn't. And at the same time, the utility bills that almost every single one of us are paying doesn't keep going up, or is it going down. Do we get dividends. Who's actually making profit off of these things. So this pyramid in many ways you can see wall streets up at the top but it doesn't have to be Wall Street the idea here is we have a pyramid where extraction is going on there's this form of exploitation from pulling money up top to taking advantage of the health of the community's well being. So when we come together, we have to understand what the problem is we're looking at utility bills being really expensive looking at power shut off even though we are paying our bills on time. We're looking at the weather getting more and more severe because it is caused by climate change we're looking at oil spills. We're looking at all sorts of disaster that is going on. And it is all caused by this pyramid that is sustained by the people at the bottom that is you that is me that is my neighbor that is my grandparents. And how do we make sure we're taking care of each other is the key core question that I am so excited to be solving this problem with you today here. So next slide please. And before we get into jumping the solution, we want to talk briefly about energy democracy. We're talking about how do we actually shift the pyramid and move the people at the bottom, not just at the top but really change the entire pyramid around so that we can all be working together with each other. And it's really important to understand that energy democracy is not just about technology shift. Energy democracy is not about saying no to fossil fuels saying yes to renewable energy. Energy democracy is not about no to for profit investor utility and shifting to nonprofit or government agency. Energy democracy is questioning our relationship with power governance and ownership, because in that same pyramid, you can put renewable energy as you will we look at all the rumor we're hearing about lithium ion mining or any precious metal. Look at the same pyramid you can look at electric vehicle. Look at Elon Musk. The way this transition to electric vehicle with just focusing on the technology that is the same pyramid and I'm not saying it's the technology is good or bad. The question is who is in power what is the shape of the system that we're in right now. How do we change that. So the solution to the climate crisis is not simply to switch the renewable energy technology, but rather to transform the entire system that is polluting our communities and institution that's prioritizing people a profit over people. And we hear a lot in a lot of the protest that we go to what's all about planet and people over profit. What does that actually look like next life please. So here is our best effort initial effort to try to draw a picture we have to see the vision in order to get there. What is that future look like. And a lot of times we have these pictures of technology because these are the things that we can touch. But how do we actually really see this circular environment where we can actually engage with each other looking at decentralized democratize distributed and diversify energy system. These are all I can see just take a moment look at what's on the screen take a look at what is possible and I understand this can feel all pretty abstract. But I just want as we're kicking off tonight's exciting program. I just want to invite you all to really think about what is shifting away from this pyramid look like. How do we not just push the people up top. So we're pushing another person on top and maintaining the same pyramid at the bottom. And so this in many ways we really want to invite you all to really think about how do we actually shift the power by looking at power into the hands of the people how do we build people powered energy system. And in many ways in order to do that and I will speak from my own experience within the people power solar cooperative. We're talking about enabling everyone to come to own and shape our energy future. But the key question is the reality is you cannot own and control and shape anything that you don't understand. So we're talking about taking back control of your electricity bill. You have to understand what electricity is you're talking about taking control of our energy future we have to understand what energy is energy is not just a commodity for us to keep pulling from the planet. We're talking about a pyramid we're just keep extracting for our own benefit. How do we actually live in harmony in a circle and really celebrate this beautiful planet Earth that we're in is a key question. And for us to do that we have to understand our utilities what it's doing to us today how it's working so we can come up with solutions and the only way for us to get there is for all of us to be engaged in this. So really excited to be here with you all without I'll hand it back to Candice. So thank you so much for that grounding. And kick it over to Yanni to introduce our next speaker. Yes, thank you. Hello everyone. I will be passing it along to Robert show, who is a part of justice for Bennett to located in Detroit. They are a new through 50 affiliate. So we're very excited about that. Robert is working hard each and every day of fighting for environmental justice for residents living near the shadow of Detroit's assembly complex on the east side. He is someone who's directly impacted by these issues in a way that has impacted his day to day life so despite is very personal to him. So please welcome Robert and you can take it away. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'm going to start out with DT has some of the highest utility rates in the Midwest. And I look at that like the avalanche like a little pebble at the start of the hill because it leaves into so many other things. The high rates also lead to lower income and seniors and children. Families with children having to make decisions in the wintertime as to how much we eat or whether we pay this bill and things of that nature. We also have issues with about reliability issues as far as DT is concerned, which is another part of the avalanche because to me is just each piece gets bigger and bigger and it rolls down and it crushed the lower income people and the people who are not in a position to pay those crazy fees is the best word I can use for it. You know, and I mean I can come up with numerous things that have caused more expenses for people as far as with the outages we have I know people that had 30 and 40 outages in a year, you know, sometimes I was out for a week, sometimes a couple days, I have an uncle, you know, he's on a CPAC machine, he's 80 something years old, you know, and every time the power goes out him and his wife have to figure a way to get to a hotel or have someone come hook up a generator if they're not flooded and things of that nature, because you know we have crazy weather climate right now. The environmental concerns, the fossil fuels that they're using are to the point where you know the water, the air, it's affecting all of us, I mean, and there's some things that I don't quite understand but I know when COVID came along they let us know because of all the power lines around us by living near this facility, let alone just the fumes and the things from the facility, the DTE power made us more susceptible for somewhere and I don't understand those frequencies or whatever but I read a report on it about four or five years ago when COVID was coming, you know, and the lack of transparency that DTE carries they, you know, they have the ability to you to come up with things and they come up with rate hikes and it's approved and we have no say so or anything and, you know, we don't, right now, I could, I'd be willing to bet you that DTE of the 2 million, 2.2 million customers is estimated they have, I'll bet you that a good 25% of them don't even understand the new rate increases that they came up with where, you know, certain hours you're supposed to turn everything off or, you know, you pay a much higher rate so, you know, our bills are constantly going up, they don't invest in the infrastructure for the green power that we need and the sustainable energies, renewable energies that it's possible for them to do with them being able to get the resources that they need from them being able to raise their rates pretty much at will, you know, you would think that they would do more for the people in the community that they serve. DTE, I've been disappointed with him, I've had my own power shed off before, you know, and I'm disabled, I'm a senior now, and you know, I'm on a fixed income. And, you know, there's not a lot of consideration or understanding for the community through this utility and I see it as being just another corporate because it's a private entity as well another corporate entity that's just, you know, raping our city, you know, pillaging, they take it from the bottom, it's not from the top. A person like myself, I could owe $300 and be shut off of business up the street or this big facility behind me could owe them $3 million and continue to run, you know, so their practices and policies have not been favorable for the people in our community. And affordability. They could do a whole lot better in expanding their program to support lower income people to make the energy more of a human right as opposed to a privilege, you know, this, this is something that's just crazy. I mean, I don't know how else to explain it. And I think I've done my five minutes. And customer service. Well, thank you. It's fine because I think I've said, if I thought I'd done my five minutes. Well, if there's anything more you want to share, you're welcome to, but thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate sharing your experience. My name is Taylor. I'm an organizer with 350.org and I'm going to introduce our next speaker. So Matt Casper is the deputy director of the energy and policy Institute, which is a national utility watchdog organization. EPI works to expose attacks on renewable energy and counters misinformation by fossil fuel and utility interests. I've gotten to work closely with Matt on utility accountability legislation in Maryland. He's been an incredible resource, lots of knowledge and even flew to Annapolis from Chicago to testify in support of the bill. And Matt's research has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post and PR, and lots of other outlets. So his and EPI's knowledge and resources are really indispensable to the movement to hold utilities accountable. So welcome Matt. Thank you and hello everyone. Matt Casper he him and great to follow Robert I think that's a great example of what's happened what utilities want to tell us and show us and you know the bottom left photo here is a beacon park in Detroit, you know, I don't know why DTE but we just heard all the bad things and ways that DTE is hiking rates and impacting customers but let me just say I'm honored to be talking with you all today your your collective work since since the founding of 350 to take on the fossil industry has, has pushed me and continues to inspire me to devote my time and energy and life to, you know, working to ensure that you, you know, we and future generations live in a world with a safe climate. That is equitable for all and and that's taken me to the world of utilities so I'm very excited to highlight the electric utility industry and present some information and, and specifically some companies and their impact on the climate and customers so like I said I have to imagine we've all seen utilities promoting themselves and what they do for the communities they serve, whether that's charitable contributions or sponsorships at various events. Funding parks and green spaces like I just said or you know maybe even the advertisements that they'll run on TV of the wind and the solar that they're deploying. But they want us to see of course but at the same time their C suite government affairs and PR teams are all working to advance policies that are harming us, driving up emissions and profits. Here on the top right. There are text messages between an energy executive energies in a utility in Louisiana, texting with a hired consultant to make sure public hearings were packed with people to push the utilities agenda of building a gas plants and meet in the east in area of predominantly Vietnamese African American and Latino communities. And on the bottom right. Here's a photo of a reporter by a consulting firm that was working for Florida power and light during the attempted sale of je a few years ago that's a public utility in Jacksonville. Records leaked to the Times Union showed how the reporter who was covering the sale and the possibility that Florida power and light would buy it was being extensively surveilled surveilled. Records being compiled by the firm were then getting emailed to Florida power and lights vice president of state legislative affairs. You can go to the next slide please. We also see utilities engaging in what I'd call democracy eroding behaviors. First energy says an Ohio based utility with subsidiaries in the mid Atlantic and the Appalachian region admitted to bribing public officials in Ohio a few years ago. And this was over policy to keep expensive nuclear and coal plants online, and that policy also weakened or ended the renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in the state. Comed excellence Chicago subsidiary has also admitted to bribery. This was to resolve a federal criminal investigation into a years long bribery scheme here in Illinois. And this was again, to get favorable utility legislation passed. And this is an election Florida power and light. That's a next era energy company. The Jea scandal wasn't the only one that's been revealed in recent years just a just a few days ago a consultant to Florida State, excuse me Florida Senate Republicans admitted to the approving of a scheme to recruit third party candidates to siphon votes away from a South Florida Democrat, a few election cycles ago. That Democrat was a thorn to the Florida power and light. In fact, we know from text messages that the then CEO of Florida power and light had texted his, his vice presidents during the time of that election season, quote, I want you to make his life a living hell. Obviously, and quote, and that company has been accused in a lawsuit by its sharehold by its sharehold holders of orchestrating that ghost candidate scheme. And while we can all agree that those are egregious behaviors, I believe that there's more regular shocking events that come from the industry, come from the industry funded or industry connected front groups. This is meant to so misinformation among its customers about renewables and new technologies that we need to reduce emissions. The bottom left shows an ad from a few years ago run by a front group connected to the utility companies there consumers energy and DTE energy were fighting a rooftop solar bill at the time. Running ads talking about how solar is going to cause blackouts. This was right after the storms in Texas, which solar did not caught, you know, solar did not cause those blackouts in Texas. You can go to the next slide please. We also see utilities engaging in acts that really drive up the energy burden on its customers and the impact that that has on communities. I mentioned the energy text messages to get supporters for that gas plant. It was revealed that the folks in the hearing were actually getting paid for their positions to make those remarks in front of public officials deciding whether or not to approve of that gas plant. Reporting from a few years ago detailed how DTE energy again in Michigan, not just was disconnecting customers over their bills and an alarming rate, but then they were also selling that debt to collection agencies to then harass customers for that money. And it's not just DTE with the alarming rate of disconnections. The utility industries trade association called the Edison Electric Institute was the main obstacle in preventing federal legislation from passing Congress during the height of the pandemic to prevent disconnections nationwide. This is a preventable practice. Disconnections keep millions of Americans in poverty and narrow their avenues of escape. And finally just put some hedge headlines in the bottom left. We're constantly seeing utility CEOs getting pay increases from their from the shareholders from their boards of directors and bonuses. While at the same time the company is coming in for rate increases and more rate increases and building fossil gas plants to increase their profits. You can go to the next slide please. When it comes to the deployment of renewables, we see that utilities are building or buying large scale wind and solar at a very, very slow rate. At the same time, however, they're fighting restrict and restricting distributed resources like rooftop solar and community solar. You could click through a few of the images please. Yeah, one more. Thank you. So this is this is done not just at the legislative level but through the regulatory dockets at public utility commissions by advancing flawed or limited modeling that favors their preferred approach to keep fossil fuels or to get fossil fuel plants approved or restrict renewables. Years ago, I ran this ad on the on the left there in Arizona when solar was taking off and kind of kicked off the solar policy fights in the United States and and this continues today. You see on the right more recent ad from EIS grass root advocacy group called we stand for energy. You know they're, they've been running ads from a few years ago to get people to push for legislation that would weaken rooftop solar. And on the left on the bottom there. That's from utility companies manual that I hired for and, you know, passed around to its members. So you all might have started to hear this phrase private solar or utility scale solar get called it universal solar. And that was part of this PR campaign this Mrs information effort by included a variety of issues so that industry could rebrand themselves as clean and and when I'm sorry clean and when during the communication of rate height applications. And we know for at least in the year 2020 that over $400,000 went from EI to that firm. And that highlights on this issue. I'm Taylor if you could click off of those and go to the DC image. Thanks. The DC AG has noted how PEPCO and excellent company has committed quote a pattern of systematic violations and hand in its handling of community solar projects in the district, potentially overcharging more than 6000 customers. Actions are set back for DC's efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, transition to clean energy and make sure that low income residents benefit from solar. If you can go to the Michigan ones. Sorry, there you go. Second, I mentioned how utilities are using flawed modeling and dockets. Here's a quote. I'm sorry it's long but it's from the Michigan Public Service Commission from a few years ago and this was involved. This was including a gas plant in Michigan and you know I've underlined the points here to show how DTE was not transparent and forthcoming with intervenors looking to understand. Well, how is the utility utility modeling future demand and the energy that it needs to meet that demand and and when intervenors finally got that data. I discovered that DTE was essentially putting their thumb on the scale so that the models wouldn't favor renewable energy or energy efficiency would favor their own the gas plants that they could build because that's primarily how a utility company gets its profits. And go to the next slide. Thanks. Finally, I want to talk about this new rush to build gas plants that's happening in real time right now. 9.2 gigawatts of gas was added to the power grid last year, mostly in the Midwest and the southeast. These regions aren't done adding gas, the utilities there. Duke Energy is looking to build 9 gigawatts of gas in their service territories in North and South Carolina. The TVA, which is the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility corporation has proposed 6.6 gigawatts of gas since 2021. And we know. Taylor, could you click a few? Yep. That's great article recently detailing this push for gas in the southeast. And then a few more. Yeah. And so this gas build out, we're seeing utilities quickly push these gas plants through the regulatory process. Berkshire, Hathaway energies, Envy energy, Southern companies, Georgia power, Arizona public service, all in recent times pushing for these gas plants to get built. And we know that over 20 years, methane emitted would trap about 80 times as much heat as CO2. So, and due to this, the extensive methane leaks that are happening at just about every stage of fossil fuel production from drilling to transportation. It's just that small leakage rate that makes gas contributing as much as coal to climate change. And then can you go to the coal one? Thank you. And my last point here, we're still seeing coal utility, we're still seeing utilities keep coal online. Berkshire, Hathaway energy, their mid American utility in Iowa, for instance, loves to tout the wind that they have built in Iowa. But they operate one of the largest coal fleets in the country. They sell almost 40% of their energy to other utilities. These, these plants have no public retirement date. It's not just mid American, other coal plants that have had climate goals are continuing to keep these coal plants online and pushing back the retirement date. So, I know I talked about a wide variety of issues within the utility industry and highlighted a few specific companies, Entergy, Florida Power and Light, Duke and DTE. I do want to convey though that this is not just limited to those companies. While utility that serves you might not be the largest emitting company or it's not disconnecting the most amount of its customers. It's likely engaging in some or a lot of this behavior that I just mentioned and harming its customers in the climate. So, thank you for the time. I was glad to be here. Awesome. Thank you for that, Matt. So, let's go over a few buckets of the main ways that we can take on utilities. And then we're going to have some more examples for some folks and then talk more about some upcoming programming and training that we'll be having. So, first, legislative and ballot measures. We've seen that as an effective way. There's a new wave of ballot measures that have been happening across the country. Look at pine tree power that's been happening in Maine. Also in San Diego and also a lot of lobbying initiatives like the public power campaign in New York. Public public corporate accountability and finance community run renewables. We see it as a great way to resist and to also empower communities to run their own power. And also targeting public utilities commissions. So, next, we're going to bring in Mario Nanasi. We're really lucky to have her here today. Mario is a lawyer and activist. She led the political and legal strategy to reject the liquefied natural gas fight proposed by the New Mexico gas company in Rio. Mario also led the political and legal strategy to oppose Avangrid, even Drola and PNM $8 billion merger and one. This was her greatest victory because Avangrid is a ruthless international conglomerate that sought to bulldoze New Mexico and send profits to Spain. Mario will share the strategies that she and her feisty team at the new energy economy deployed in their battles against corporate predation and New Mexico. She can take it from here. Mario. Thank you. Hi everybody, my name is Mario Nanasi. I have the honor of being the executive director of New Energy Economy. Yes, you can change the to the next slide. At New Mac at New Energy Economy, we live by a sort of two pronged theory of change. Resist the violence of the current extractive destructive energy model by intervening wherever possible to stop further investment in fossil fuels and false distracting solutions. And then we invest in the alternatives demonstrating that another path is possible and like Crystal was talking about make real the benefits of community owned renewable energy for for all of our communities, especially those that have been harmed the most by our current system. So one of the ways that we do this is to intervene, legally intervene in the public regulation commissioned here. And our largest electric monopoly utility is called public service company of New Mexico, which they don't serve the public, but that's their name. And so we call them PNM. And so one of the things that we try to do is to expose the people at the top and what they're doing and the ways that they steal cheat and lie. And so as you see we try to raise things like this, which is good using social media and, and, and also the press to to out them, and they're essentially their corruption because they are not only extracting the fossil fuels and nuclear from the ground, but they are also extracting the wealth from the people and and exporting it to Wall Street just like Crystal had that great pyramid. Okay, next slide, please. So, while the executives at PNM just like Matt was talking about all the executive pay keeps going up and up and up real median household income goes down. And so that creates also income and inequality. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a real integration of a climate justice and economic justice movement and putting these things together is vital for for us to be able to win. Next slide. So, here we had a multinational corporate energy giant. Iberderola, who owns 81.5% of Avangrid want to take over our, our monopoly monopoly electric utility. The new energy economy exposed the company's track record around the world, including unreliability, diminished service quality, exploitative and harmful billing practices, environmental harms, as well as the danger of increased rates. And then one other thing that became very important is the loss of local control and a slowed energy transition, despite their Avangrid's three leaf logo. The hearing examiner and a unanimous commission found, and I should just tell you, and new energy economy was the led the opposition, and was the only party that finally opposed the settlement. And I wanted to show you like, oh yeah, I wanted to show you, can you go back for one second on this slide? You see this guy, you know, smoking a cigar and burning up money. We put the Avangrid CEO's face on there and did this kind of messaging. Now you can go to the next slide, which was just so true. They want to portray themselves as a green transition, but they were supporting fossil fuels gas in particular, but nuclear as well. And so why did PNM want this? Three executives were going to get $29 million. And that's the kind of thing that we would expose. And we use the legal arena to get this information. Next slide. And then expose it. I want to tell you that this is one of the most amazing moments of my life. During our Supreme Court argument, PNM and Avangrid's stock stopped, they stopped trading on Wall Street because our argument was so powerful in the Supreme Court that look at what happened to their stock. And that's one of the ways that I measure. And also I think that all of us as activists should really follow. Like, I didn't know that being a climate activist was going to talk about was going to require reading SEC documents, but there's a lot of stuff in those SEC documents. And after we argued in the Supreme Court and trading stopped, which I had never seen in my whole life, I just turned 60 this year, that trading stopped on Wall Street for both PNM and Avangrid during the Supreme Court. And later, after our argument, look what happened. Avangrid voluntarily pulled their appeal in the Supreme Court. And so the victory that we won in front of the hearing examiner and a unanimous Public Regulation Commission, which found that the risks and harms of the merger, which is really a takeover, outweighed any benefits for ratepayers. And on January 3rd of this year, they walked out and we won that. Next slide. So the next thing I want to just talk about really quickly is another victory that we just won last month. And this was the community had come to New Energy Economy and said, hey, there's a plan to build an LNG facility, $180 million, a liquefied natural gas plant in Rio Rancho, right outside Albuquerque, the largest, most populated, most populous part of our state. And so we held demos. And next slide. And then we also, again, used our power with discovery to find out a lot of information about really what was at the bottom of this. And that was to make the New Mexico Gas Company more money. Big surprise. And we outed that. And so we went and we first of all had a community meeting at a local library where 60 people showed up. We knew about four of those people. So that was pretty cool. We got petitions with 700 signatures to the New Mexico Gas Company. There was in that area, there was 26 neighborhood associations and they all passed resolutions opposing the LNG plant. We successfully advocated for a passage of a resolution in front of the Bernalillo County and got on TV and got great press for that. And then we got local legislators to get involved as well and also write a letter to the Public Regulation Commission opposing this. And on March 14, we won. And, you know, we only are talking about a couple of minutes here, but I just wanted to let you all know that where they live is they have to prove that the plant is cost effective. And so we take them on about that. And just like Matt was talking about, we got discovery that said in their own words, hey, the way that we're going to move. I'm going to, it's called rate base. That's the, all the money that we pay them a year from what we are currently paying them, which is about 800 million. And they said in four years, their rate base, meaning our rates, the rates that we are going to have to pay in our bills would go up to $1.3 billion. So almost double with this LNG facility. And that we got out and that was in their own handwriting. And so we won. And we proved that they were lying and it wasn't going to be cheaper for us, but and it wasn't going to be cost effective. So I think there's no more slides, but maybe. No, okay, you're, you're, you're awesome. Thank you so much, Mario. So yeah, I am going to give you guys a bit of an overview about what to expect with 350.org this year and what we have in store with our utilities program. So looking ahead, we have a public education series that'll be starting an in person campaign training camp as well as a new campaign kickoff in the fall. So just to zoom out starting May 7th, we're going to begin our public education series, which will be an online free accessible education series for anyone to join. We're going to start with a training on legislative campaigning and ballot initiatives. Then community run renewables hearing from various experts and people have been successful across the country. Corporate accountability and finance campaigns. There will be a special webinar in partnership with our network council about their utility justice campaigns and how you can get involved. Then we'll be having a training on targeting public utilities commissions. There will be a training on power mapping and campaign research. We'll have a special training on IRA direct pay. I know it's super wonky. So just helping people kind of decide for that so they can actually do it. And then we're going to celebrate with a trivia night and celebration afterwards. After this initial leg. In late summer, we are also looking at a storytelling narrative workshop series with our 350.org. Communications and digital staff. And we're also really excited to be building out a webinar about utilities advocacy in the US territories and partnership with energy democracy project. So really, really excited about what we have coming up again. All of these webinars are going to be free. They're definitely going to be interactive. There will be tons of resources afterwards and reading materials. So keep an eye out for that. We'll definitely be inviting folks soon. And for the in person action camp, keep your eyes out. Early September, we'll be convening 25 advocates from all levels of experience to meet in person with a team of experts to be coached on how to build and run their own campaigns. There will be an application process for this and we definitely are hoping that we can source some sponsorships and get some folks who may not have the means to come to be able to participate. So keep your eye out for that. And then in the fall early October, we do aim to be kicking off some new utilities campaigns across the country. So that's pretty much our arc for 2024. And I wanted to pass it over to Taylor to talk about some work that's already starting that she's been building out with her legislative toolkit on utility accountability. Thanks, Candice. Um, yeah, so this, this, there is this utility accountability legislation, which is one one way out. Candice has kind of gone over some of these many different approaches where we can take on these utility companies. And so one way is through accountability legislation. So if folks are not familiar with this issue, actually utilities across the country in most states are currently allowed to charge us for through our bills through our utility bills for lobbying and for their trade issues, like to the American Gas Association, and to cover all kinds of political expenses that they should be taking out of shareholder profits but are instead actually passing on to ratepayers like you and me. So legislation has been passed in Connecticut, Colorado and Maine to stop this practice to stop utilities from charging ratepayers for lobbying and other political activities. And similar bills have been introduced in 11 states this year. This really excellent map is from the Energy and Policy Institute from Matt's organization. Where you can go and see if there's a bill currently being considered in your state or if you're one of the three lucky states where this bill is already passed. And so we made a toolkit so that you can work on legislation like this in your state. So I'm going to put the link to that in the chat. And it's designed to provide you with really all that you need to pass a bill to introduce and pass the bill like this in your state. So that's kind of an overview of the issue of the legislative process. If you aren't familiar, if you haven't worked on legislation before, outline some key steps like going like doing your research. There's a model bill that EPI and Solar United Neighbors has have developed so you can really just take that model bill and bring it to a champion in your legislature and work with them to make it work for your state. It walks you through how to identify an approach a bill sponsor, how to organize and pass the bill, and it includes a lot of good resources to help you. And so I will review this toolkit in more detail during our May 7 session on legislative approaches to taking on utilities. But in the meantime, please check it out and you can reach out to me if you have any further questions or you want to talk further about supporting a bill that's currently under consideration in your state or if you're interested in working on getting one introduced. So yeah, thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you, Taylor. We are now going to kick it off to Lila our network manager to talk about what the network council is up to. Hi everyone so cool to hear about all of the different campaigns going on. We have a couple of 350s independent affiliates here today to talk about the awesome campaigns that they're running to take on the fossil fuel utility industry, specifically in Wisconsin and in San Diego. So we'll hear first from Phil, who is a founding member of San Diego 350. I'm going to talk about the campaign to take down SDG and E which is about as evil a utility as you'll hear of, and then we'll pass it over to Emily, who is the co director of 350 Wisconsin to talk about their utility campaign in Wisconsin. Take us away Phil. Thank you Lila. So next slide. I'll make this as quickly as quick as I can. We focused on Semper Energy, because they are fracked gas infrastructure company that is based here in San Diego say so they are local. And of course, like a lot of companies that work in fracked gas natural gas, they spend themselves as being part of the safe transition blah blah blah. So we are trying to clearly make the point that no methane fracked gas is not a safe transition fuel through a variety of approaches. One of the things we did is to create a website so you can see the address on there. And I think let's let's sort of skip these demands for now but you know, move on to the next. What I wanted you to kind of look at is the variety of sort of things that we've tried. And then do a real quick sort of thing about the results that we've had. What I've done here is just leave everything up. I've bolded the things that are actually protests. And we did things that were, you know, launched during COVID so we had to accommodate that. We'll look at some photos in a minute. So this is the first part. Next slide. And we basically do about two big protests at Semper headquarters or perhaps somewhere else over the course of the year. So next slide. Most of this is photos. So this is I don't even remember exactly which one this was but of course, having strong art is really, really important. Yes, and this is really helpful because this gives you a lot of different things that we did. There's the car caravan in the lower left that we did during COVID we had a climate chaos express, excuse me, which was a van that we decorated with with art and with magnets. We went all over the area with just those banners. So these were ways to kind of try to reach people during COVID where we weren't always out in the streets. Next slide. And then we also did nonviolent direct action. So we were down at the front of Semper headquarters blocking their front doors. That's what we're doing here. We approximately blocked the doors for about two hours. They pushed a little bit to see if we would we would give and we didn't and then they kind of more or less left us alone. So that that was a that was an interesting campaign and then or interesting project. Next slide. The police and both both of these cases were called but did not arrest us. So we wanted to escalate with the next action. So at this point, we actually blockaded the back where they had to get into the parking structure. And one of the issues we ran into here was having enough people that would actually be willing to do nonviolent direct action and risk arrest. We got five. So we were able to block all of those with the five, but it can be tricky. So that again was about two hours did not get arrested. Next slide. And we have one that's coming up on May 9 will be down at Semper headquarters with this, not full scale, but fairly large about eight foot tall cardboard Derek. And next slide. So just to look at the results really quickly. The impact on Semper. They know that we're doing this. So we're a need we're a bit of a thorn in their side. To an extent, did they change their policies? No, they didn't. Did they change their business model? No, we wanted to get media and almost always we got media. So that was useful. We did reach a wider audience, but the impact on public and electives is really hard to gauge in terms of that. We don't necessarily have a really good rubric for doing that. We hope that we've moved the needle that methane is not a safe transition fuel, but that's hard to know. But I want to just pick out those last two. I know I'm over time, but protests are also a great source of visual images that that different chapters of San Diego of 350, excuse me, can use. So that's really important, actually. And then it gives us all experience in doing nonviolent direct action, which we need desperately. I do want to mention also that San Diego 350 has been supporting the power San Diego initiative. This is to get on the ballot this November to fire SDG and E, which is a company under Semper energy and replace them with a not for profit utility. And I'm finished. Thank you. Thank you so much, Phil. Emily, take us away here. Thank you, buddy. Thanks so much for having me here. I'm here to talk about 350 Wisconsin's efforts on utilities. So where I'm based in Madison, our local utility Mg and E has a really long track record of corporate greenwashing. And it's convinced a lot of our very liberal progressive community that they are an eco injustice minded company. And then another major utility in our area, aligned energy also has people that are devoted to community engagement as part of their greenwashing strategy. We found out that two of these utilities Mg and E and Alliance were proposing rate hikes that would exacerbate inequitable energy burdens, primarily in low income and BIPOC communities. And the proposals will also be gutting net metering, which is the process that allows homeowners and businesses with solar panels to sell their excess energy back to the grid, which makes it more affordable. The steps for regular members of the community to engage with Wisconsin's public service commission are very complicated. And in a lot of ways they feel like they were designed specifically to discourage broader community participation and the way that the dockets are presented to the general public. It's really not equitable or inclusive for anyone who doesn't have a deep knowledge of public policy and energy regulation, or a lot of time to just scour the PFC website every day. So nevertheless, to survive these hurdles, we as 350 Wisconsin were one of 18 intervenors in these great cases before our PFC. And we were one of only a couple who centered our arguments specifically on environmental justice, particularly with the focus on the universal right to affordable clean energy. So we mobilized members of our community by providing a lot of inclusive opportunities for engagement that anyone could take regardless of how much time or knowledge they had. So we presented the issues and language that was really clear and accessible and also emphasized how these dockets were relevant to everyone. We also provided talking points and sample comment language because I know that being faced with a blank comment page is really intimidating to a lot of people. And as a result of this, the public service commission received a lot, a lot more public comments on these cases than it's typical for them, which is a really clear indicator to our commissioners saying that they need to be paying attention to what the public is saying, and the public is saying that they want energy justice and clean energy. And throughout this whole process we saw a lot of overlap with a lot of the things that were covered earlier this evening by by Matt in terms of deceptive modeling practices, etc. We also similar to San Diego 350 we brought in our own unique brand of grassroots activism and art of Islam. So we at 350 with constant have a reputation for really colorful and creative dance flash mobs that really unexpected time. So as part of our, you know, we were doing the inside game with the legal intervention but we also had a walking on sunshine flash mob featuring solar panels costumes and choreographed dancers. One of the busiest farmers markets in the country here in Madison. And then we followed our flash mob with clear calls to action for password by so really engaging as many people as possible. And as a grassroots organization we were also able to say things that are grass tops and more policy oriented partners couldn't or shouldn't. We could really strongly call out the utilities for their dirty tactics and be clear that we were calling them out. We also take a firm and unyielding stamps for energy justice without compromising which, you know, some of our allies in this fight did end up accepting some compromises. So these are some pictures of our flash mob at the farmers market. Next slide please. In addition to getting a lot of media coverage, partially because of the flash mob. I'm really excited to say that we had wins in both of our cases. We had other organizations so someone who has worked on utility cases for decades. She called these the biggest wins she's ever seen in her career. So a big deal here in Wisconsin. The rate increases that were proposed by the utilities were significantly limited. And now our public service commission is going to take up the question of what programs utility should put in place to reduce energy burden and future docket. So we're hoping that will place more burden on the utilities themselves and on the customers to make things affordable. The public service commission is also going to start looking at the future of solar net metering on a statewide basis instead of utility by utility, which is going to offer a lot more opportunities for public input and also open the door for more equitable practices that would be implemented statewide. We're really looking forward to carrying these lessons that we we earned the hard way. It was a lot of work. We're looking forward to carrying those forward and hoping that our experiences can help others. We do have several major battles coming up, including proposals to build and fast track new fossil fuel infrastructure specifically fossil gas plants here in Wisconsin. So we're really looking forward to taking these lessons and engaging as many people as possible. Because we think that engaging with your states PFC or PUC or whatever your state calls it, it shouldn't require having legal experts and policy experts and a lot of money. So we're putting together tools for allies in our community to use the uplift everyday voices. And if anyone has questions about that, please I hope you can reach out to me I'm going to put my email address in the chat. So obviously what's applicable to Wisconsin will not be applicable to every state, but still happy to share share what we learned with all of you. And next slide please. I'm also excited to announce, as was mentioned earlier, the 350 network council which is a group of several 350 affiliates. This summer is going to be turning up the heat on the utility. So the network council will be hosting a series of distributed actions around the country. Call for energy justice accountability from our utilities and the people in power and affordable renewable energy. So please stay tuned for more information from your local 350 affiliate. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you Emily. And I'm going to pass it off to Nico to close this out and talk about next steps. All right, everybody. Thank you so much. Crystal, Robert, Mark, Mariel, Philip and Emily for all the amazing information about the campaigns that you're doing and all the stuff that we're facing. Thank you, Kansas and while Taylor and Yanni and the rest of the 350 staff for all the work. I'm going to put some links in the chat. If you want to get some updates on our utilities work this year, the campus is kind of laid out. You can click on that link there. And if you're interested in doing some more building some partnerships and working building out this campaign together. We also have a form that you can sign up. It's a Google doc form. So please fill that out and you can get some more information about partnering up. Finally, if you are interested in continuing the conversation beyond utilities as well. We have a slack channel. Everyone's favorite thing slack. And you can just click on that link and be connected to a bunch of other 350 volunteers around the country. And I think with that, we are closing right can this congratulations everyone. Great job. That's it. Thanks y'all. Yeah, please we'll be sending out recordings of this as well as all the links that Nico just talked about if you guys want to follow up. And yeah, thanks for coming out. Have a great night.