We’re All in This Together
Back to DC for the Climate
Last summer, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with Citizens’ Climate Lobby to advocate for climate policy for the first time. I was a new Mainer then, still measuring my time here in months. I felt unqualified compared to the experienced advocates I was paired with. Not to mention, I was nervous about representing a state I was only beginning to understand. Despite my uncertainty, I felt a deep sense of obligation to participate in the conversation about meaningful climate policy.
This summer, I went back to D.C. for my second year of lobbying. After nearly two years in Maine, I understand the shape of my life here better: the winter routines, the rocky coastline, the community I have started to build. More importantly, I understood something I did not last year. Namely, the most useful thing I could bring into a lobbying meeting was not facts about Maine or perfect policy expertise. It was my story.
Off to DC
In July, I joined a group of Maine CCL volunteers meeting with Senator Susan Collins. Our group was there to advocate for bipartisan permitting reform, continued funding for the U.S. Forest Service, and the Fix Our Forests Act, a bill focused on improving forest management and reducing wildfire risk. My role was to speak specifically about the Fix Our Forests Act.
Speaking to Senator Collins in the U.S. Capitol building, I told her why the bill mattered to me personally.
With some hesitation, I shared that I left California in part because climate uncertainty had made the idea of building a home there feel unstable. I grew up in Sacramento and spent ten joyful years in Los Angeles. But when my partner and I were deciding where to build our life together, we chose to build that life in Maine instead of California. Wildfire risk, drought, and the pressure on housing after climate disasters all made returning feel hard to justify. Watching the people and places I love be impacted by the Palisades fire and others in California had shown me how quickly the idea of home could become fragile.
Advocating for Maine’s Forests
Maine is now my home. It is also the most forested state in the country. In speaking about the Fix Our Forests Act, I was not speaking abstractly about wildfire risk or forest management. I was speaking from the experience of having left one home partly because of climate uncertainty, and from the desire to protect my new home from facing the same kind of devastation.
Senator Collins’ response stayed with me. Looking directly at me, she said she had not yet heard of the Fix Our Forests Act, but because of my story, she would make a point of looking into it.
That moment changed how I understood lobbying. It is easy to imagine lobbying as something formal, transactional, or reserved for experts. And of course, policy details and preparation matter. But lobbying is still a conversation between people. Often, the lived experience you bring into the room, especially when it requires vulnerability, can be the most powerful thing you offer.
Making an Impact
Both years, I left D.C. believing that lobbying was the most important way I could have spent a Tuesday in July. After my second CCL lobby day, I understand more clearly why I will return next year. I will continue to lobby because Maine is my home now, and California is still my home, too. Protecting the places we love requires ordinary people to find the courage to use their voices and speak honestly about policy that can have national impact.
Be part of the solution
Join Citizens Climate Lobby at cclusa.org/join or join us at an upcoming CCL Portland Chapter meeting at 9 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month. Next meetings are September 12th and October 10th at the Portland Media Center, 516 Congress Street, or online.
