LEAD on Climate 2020 – Lawmaker Education & Advocacy Day

The largest virtual business call to action to address climate change.

LEAD on Climate 2020 will bring together businesses large and small, from sectors across the U.S. economy, to call on Congress to pass a resilient stimulus plan and to build back better while working toward long term climate solutions—including a price on carbon. The entire event will be online. Trainings and briefings will be held via webinar on the 12th and meetings with Congressional offices will be held via video and audio conferencing on the 13th.

Agenda

Tuesday, May 12th 2020 ​(all times ET)

You can register for Tuesday’s training webinars here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4319424139869638669

Please feel free to pop in and out of the prep sessions based on your interest and availability.

12:00 – 1:00 PM: Introduction & Training on Effective Virtual LEAD Advocacy

Anne Kelly, Vice President of Government Relations, Ceres Meredith Epstein, Senior Associate, Federal Policy, Ceres

1:00 – 1:30 PM: Business Council for Sustainable Energy Factbook

Lisa Jacobson, President, Business Council for Sustainable Energy

1:30 – 2:30 PM: En-ROADS: Climate Change Solutions Simulator

Roberta Barbieri, Vice President of Global Sustainability, PepsiCo Chris Page, Business Partnerships Consultant, Climate Interactive

2:30 – 3:00 PM: Climate and Clean Energy Stimulus Possibilities

Adrian Deveny, Energy and Environmental Policy Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Chuck Schumer

3:00 – 3:30 PM: Carbon Pricing Overview

Adele Morris, Senior Fellow, Policy Director, Climate and Energy Economics, Brookings Institution

3:30 – 4:00 PM: Political Outlook for Climate Policy during COVID-19 Crisis

Joel Makower, Chairman, Executive Director of GreenBiz will interview ​Leah Rubin Shen, Energy and Environment Policy Advisor, Office of Senator Chris Coons

4:00-4:30 PM: Logistics and Questions

Laurie Purpuro, Government Affairs Advisor, K&L Gates

4:30 – 4:45 PM: Toast from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Wednesday, May 13th 2020

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM: Virtual Hill Day

You will be assigned to several meetings with Congressional offices between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM ET (unless you share scheduling limitations with us). Your schedule will be sent to you by COB Tuesday.

5:00 PM: Virtual Toast: ​Join us to celebrate everyone’s hard work!

Logistics of scheduling and attending meetings

The LEAD organizers are centralizing Member and staff meeting requests for May 13th in order to stay coordinated and ensure we secure as many meetings as possible. If provided, we have used corporate facility locations in states and Congressional districts to maximize the number of meetings you are able to have with lawmakers most relevant to your business.

Because of the nature of how this process works, many of these meetings will be set up over the next several days, and even in the day or two before May 13th. As a result, we will not have a full and firm schedule of meetings until the afternoon of the 12th. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Companies will be attending meetings in groups, however the make-up of those groups will shift throughout the day in order to maximize your exposure to member offices where your voice can be most impactful.

We have reached out to you to get the specific windows of time you are available on Wednesday, May 13th and will use that information to ensure that your available time with us is appropriately scheduled.

There will be a designated facilitator for each meeting (either from K&L Gates, Ceres or an experienced company). Facilitators will offer introductory and framing remarks, and help to facilitate the conversation where necessary. There will also be a designated notetaker.

Hill meetings are typically 25-30 minutes. It is important to be succinct and on-topic in these meetings, and allow time for your partner companies to tell their stories – and also allow time for questions from staff or members.

Since so many companies have signed up for LEAD this year, the number of companies in a meeting will vary from small to quite large in some cases. For larger meetings it may be the case that not everyone will get to speak during the meeting. We will provide contact information for the offices you are meeting with so that you can send a follow up note with anything you want to share that you didn’t get a chance to raise during the meeting. Thank you for understanding and being flexible for this unprecedented virtual advocacy day!

Most meetings will use video conferencing through Google Hangouts. If you have video conferencing capabilities we encourage you to appear on video to have the biggest impact. If you don’t have the hardware or the internet bandwidth for video conferencing, you can join without video or call in. Some offices may have audio only meetings.

Please mute yourself when you are not speaking and use headphones to prevent feedback. Please dress appropriately as if you were attending these meetings in person on Capitol Hill. Suits on top and pajamas on the bottom is A-ok for video conferencing (as long as you double check you have angled your camera correctly). Please check your background for distractions (and political paraphernalia).