President’s Message

From Our Board President

by Kathy Juedeman

From the vantage point of protecting clean air and water, and encouraging clean energy, the 2021 Montana legislative session has been the most challenging in a generation. I want to acknowledge every MEIC staff member, and I know the MEIC Board would join me in showing appreciation for their hard work. All of our staff showed outstanding dedication and daily perseverance to the MEIC mission, even while facing the most disappointing legislative environmental bill roster imaginable. One issue that I watched closely this session was rooftop solar. We have solar at our home, where it allows us to dry clothes and charge our car with energy produced from the panels. We also have solar and a wind generator installed at our family ranch, where the energy produced is an integral component of the family operation. Wind generates energy to heat the calving barn, for block heaters for tractors, and to keep stock tanks filled and ice-free. Installation of solar was a good choice at both locations for us, and it would be a similarly good decision for many of our Montana neighbors. HB 359 and HB 448 threatened make solar prohibitively expensive for Montanans across the state. MEIC and its allies defeated those bills, which was very good for Montana. Our MEIC team worked hard every day leading up to and during the session, and Cover: SB 379 I admire their constant good humor. I’m protest at sure you saw that the MEIC team was NorthWestern’s extraordinarily well-informed on their Missoula office. topics and presented that information (as they always do) in a balanced and community-centric way. While there’s much to commend in their work, the sum of this session’s efforts was their laser focus on preserving and protecting the Montana that we love. The other heroes in this legislative session are you, our MEIC members. Communications & Engagement Director Katy Spence put up a new online bill tracker early in the session, and WOW. MEIC members used the information that they found there to increase already dedicated member efforts: Zooming to hearings, writing letters to the editor, sharing actions on social media, signing petitions, making phone calls to key legislators, sending emails to individual legislators, and sending emails to entire committees. All told, MEIC members took almost 46,000 actions through our website. That is an incredible mobilization fighting for Montana’s environment.

All these efforts made a positive difference in the outcome of a number of bills and even in the tone of conversations, encouraging legislators to consider positive viewpoints on clean air, clean water, and clean energy. These conversations build stronger baselines for discussions in future sessions. They showed that we do care, and we aren’t going away.

MEIC members demonstrated a community working together to keep Montana’s air and water clean, and our governing officials could see that force of will. Thank you for your continued support of MEIC and our mission.

There is more work to be done. Be sure to read the message from our co-Executive Directors on pg. 23.