Sierra Club demands Dominion Resources dump ALEC at ALEC's headquarters
On the 4th of September, the Sierra Club backed up by Virigina residents including the Mayor of Alexandria showed up in front of the offices of ALEC, the American legislative Exchange Council. They were demanding that Dominion Resources stop contributing money paid by Virginia ratepayers to this far-right thinktank. ALEC is the largest non political party donor of campaign cash in Virginia, and Dominion's customers literally have no choice but to help ALEC corrupt the political process simply by paying their electrical bills.
ALEC is nationally notorious as the author of "stand your ground" laws in states such as Florida, where this law was widely regarded as playing a role in the death of Trayvon Martin. They are also active in voter suppression efforts intended to give the GOP a strategic advantage such as voter ID laws. Due to this, several speakers condemned Dominion for funding an enemy of civil rights. Dominion's interest in ALEC probably stems from ALEC's aggressive lobbying against any kind of environmental or climate change legislation.
It is appropriate that the Mayor of Alexandria participated and spoke at the rally, as Old Town Alexandria is very low lying and already has problems with flooding. Already a fancy flood control system is being installed, but sea level changes from uncontrolled global warming could easily overwhelm it and erase large parts of Alexandria from the map, adding them to navigation charts of the Potomac River instead.
Other speakers called out Dominion for their efforts to export fracked gas out of Cove Point, build two new high tension transmission liones in Virginia, and build a massive natural gas pipeline to Portsmouth, Va.
My guess is what would make Dominion drop ALEC right quick is a rate strike where a significant part of their customers started paying their electical bills into an escrow account that would then be held back until Dominion dumped ALEC and/or shorting their bill payments by the percentage of gross revenue Dominion sends to ALEC. Dominion thinks their ratepayers have no choice due to Dominion's monopoly status, but the fact is people really DO have a choice if they organize!
