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Report from the Council of Club Leaders 2006 Meeting
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by Regina Hendrix | 2006

The CCL meeting features our own Larry Gipson, and much info on Mountaintop Removal coal mining

Chapter chairs or chapter delegates from across the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico met in San Francisco for the annual meeting of the Council of Club Leaders (CCL) prior to the annual board meeting September 14-16. The Council functions as an advisory body to the Board of Directors and provides a formal communications link between the chapters and national club leaders. CCL meets in joint session with the Board of Directors during the official annual meeting of the Club each September.

Paul Wilson, our WV Chapter Chair, asked me to attend the 2006 meeting since he was occupied with the Nominating Committee during this time. This meeting provided an opportunity for me to become more familiar with the inner workings of Sierra Club. There’s a lot going on in our organization nationally, some of which I hope to pass on to our members and the rest of which I hope you will explore by signing onto http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/. There were nine resolutions passed on such subjects as SLAPP suits, Canvassing Deference and a resolution to keep the print version of the Planet, if at all feasible. I have the text of these resolutions and can E-mail them to you upon request. My E-Mail address is regina1936@verizon.net.

We heard from Carl Pope, our Executive Director and Lisa Renstrom, our national President. Their State of the Sierra Club addresses emphasized energy issues and the challenges and changes Sierra Club will need to make in order to address these issues:

- In terms of global warming as a problem, the debate is over.

- War in Iraq and gas prices are fueling tremendous public support for action to do something about oil—unrelated to the global warming issue.

- The states are leading the way by adopting clean car standards, caps on greenhouse gas emissions and mercury clean up laws.

Thanks to the CCL ExCom Committee Chair, Lane Boldman from the Cumberland Chapter in Kentucky, our own Larry Gibson from Kayford Mountain was invited to make a presentation on mountaintop removal (MTR) and how it has affected his life, his land and his community. Larry’s talk emphasized our need to break the coal cycle. At the end of Larry’s talk there was a standing ovation. The board members and CCL delegates gained an understanding of how MTR affects the Appalachians and they learned about our loss of 400,000 acres of mountains and 1200 miles of streams. We are looking forward to visits and flyovers by members of the board who have expressed an interest.