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The BEAT
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Contact information for your legislatorsHow to make your voice heardThe most effective way to communicate with you legislators is to set up a personal meeting. Next a phone call where you really talk about the issue and why it is important - this often is with a staff member. It is great to get to know the staff and who is up to speed on your issues - then you speak directly to that staff member. Email and letters work, too. The most important things is to let the legislator know that you are in their district (if you are), that the issue affects you personally and why (that can be because you care a lot about creatures, or the issue affects your health, etc.), and if you have information to educate them about your position that is good to supply as well. Check out Mass Audubon's advocacy website and the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters. Each of these has an emailing list if you want to stay up to date on advocacy issues. (And Berkshire Environmental Action Team has a weekly e-newsletter with a section on the biggest projects undergoing review in western Mass.) Many of the environmental organizations in western Massachusetts belong to the Massachusetts Environmental Collaborative and in the Berkshires and beyond we have the Berkshire Conservation Collaborative - all to try to be more effective a ensuring good environmental legislation is passed and that enough money is devoted to the environment. At the moment the good news is that the Environmental Bond passed awhile back has funded the purchase or environmental restriction on about 20,000 more acres of land. The bad news is that Massachusetts ranks close to last (48th if I remember correctly) among states in environmental spending - less than 1% of our budget. And that includes funds for environmental law enforcement, running our parks, etc. Pathetic, in my opinion. The following links take you off of BEAT's website:
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