The Weekly - June 23, 2020 - 8

The Pulse
H E A D L I N E S

Protect Our Winters hosts Lobbying Camp to teach
nonwonks how to do politics. By Jenn Fields
WHEN PROTECT OUR WINTERS

(POW) realized the pandemic
would prevent it from sending
athletes off to Washington for its
annual week of lobbying this year,
the group decided to venture into
uncharted territory. Rather than
canceling everything, they'd bring
hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts along for those moments
of advocacy that often happen
behind lawmakers' closed doors
on Capitol Hill.
"We made that call about six
weeks ago," says Mario Molina,
POW's executive director. "We
realized, by doing things digitally,
you're not physically constrained by
space, so why not open it up to the
whole outdoor community?"
POW's inaugural Lobby Camp,
which was open to all, launched
on June 8 with a community
orientation that included insider
info on what Hill staffers do with
emails and phone calls, advice on
calling Congress yourself (share
your ZIP code!), a video and live
conversation with ultrarunner
Clare Gallagher ("It's honestly
easier than hamstring curls,"
she says of calling your elected
officials.), and explanations of
POW's legislative priorities that

de-wonkified topics such as solar
tax refunds.
Though the orientation focused
on climate, it was designed to help
participants with any type of advocacy, including the fight against
police brutality and institutional
racism. "What we cover tonight
during this training is information
you can use not just to be a climate
advocate, but to be a social justice
advocate, or a conservation advocate, or a tax-reform advocate,"
said Corey Cronin, POW's policy
and civic engagement coordinator,
at the start of the session.
As Congress considers more
coronavirus relief, POW's mostimmediate asks are to extend existing clean-energy tax incentives
and provide direct pay (via grants
and tax credits) for clean-energy
businesses, which have been hard
hit by the pandemic. "To not pay
attention to 500,000 sustainable
domestic jobs to secure energy
independence is not an economic
strategy for getting us out of the
recession," Molina says.
More than 750 people signed
up for the week of events, and
around 350 people logged on
for the orientation. Participants
asked questions as some staffers

VOTE THE ENVIRONMENT
In addition to advocacy, POW is focusing on its voting initiatives
this summer-including extra help for voters in marginalized
communities. In its June 14 statement on climate and race, POW
pledged to make its Make a Plan to Vote and Make a Plan to Vote
by Mail tools available for free to organizations serving communities of color that wish to partner with them and will cover
the cost of 20,000 mail-in ballots for those partners. "For us, the
most important thing is we need to get the outdoor sports community and any community that cares about systemic injustices
to get out and vote," Molina says. -J.F.

8 THE WEEKLY / OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2020

POW athletes testify before the
Democrats' Special Committee
on the Climate Crisis at the U.S.
Capitol on Sept. 12, 2019.

breezed through the presentation and others answered in the
chat. "Is contacting local officials
beneficial?" one person asked.
"Or are reps and senators the only
ones that matter?" Another asked,
"Does it undercut the movement
or your voice if they know the
person or org is working to replace
the representative but also lobbying them for change?"
Later in the week, POW aired
its athletes' conversations with
senators and representatives from
both sides of the aisle, and participants from all over North America

chimed in with questions for the
lawmakers.
"People can sometimes be intimidated by the idea of lobbying,
but in the outdoor industry, we
are very used to calling customer
service," Molina says. "We have
no problem picking up the phone
and calling customer service
and saying, 'Hey, I'd like to get
this fixed or get this replaced.' It
is no different with our elected
officials. They work for us, the
taxpayers, and it's our responsibility to speak out for the type of
legislation we want."

THE BEST CITIES FOR BIKES

Cycling is experiencing a boom during the pandemic. Here are
the places that have best embraced bike culture.
PeopleForBikes just released its third annual ranking of the best
cities for biking in the U.S. The national bike advocacy group evaluated more than 550 cities and scored them based on ridership,
safety, network and reach, and how fast the community is working to improve bike friendliness. City leaders use the rankings as a
tool to improve cycling infrastructure in their own communities.
"City ratings show us what works. Places that have built better
places to ride are seeing the benefits," says Kyle WagenSchutz,
director of local innovation for PeopleForBikes.
These are the top 10
cities for biking in 2020:
1. San Luis Obispo, California; 2. Madison, Wisconsin; 3. Santa Barbara,
California; 4. Washington,
DC; 5. Missoula, Montana;
6. Rogers, Arkansas; 7.
Fort Collins, Colorado; 8.
Denver; 9. Grand Forks,
North Dakota; 10. Fayetteville, Arkansas
Read more about how
biking is having a moment in the June 16 issue
of The Weekly. -A.A.

F R O M TO P : L E I G H VO G E L /G E T T Y I M AG E S , CO U R T E SY P E O P L E F O R B I K E S

ADVOCACY 101

https://protectourwinters.org/ http:// https://peopleforbikes.org/ https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/outdoorretailer/theweekly_06162020/ http://http://

The Weekly - June 23, 2020

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