Three decades of protecting our environment and standing up for renewable energy

For more than 30 years, CREDO members have played a major role in some of the biggest progressive accomplishments in our country’s recent history, and we’re especially proud of our members’ activism and victories to protect the environment, slow runaway climate change and advance the adoption of clean energy.

Millions of CREDO activists have taken action for climate justice over the years – and we’ve won some amazing victories. Here’s just a small sample of some of our members’ recent accomplishments:

In 2011, when President Obama was still considering backing a plan to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry more than 800,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil per day from Canada through the United States, activists and members of CREDO staff – including former CREDO CEO Michael Kieschnick and current CREDO Action Co-Director Josh Nelson – were peacefully arrested in front of the White House in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of CREDO members who signed petitions to block the pipeline.

After years of activism by CREDO and our members, including more than 4 million petition signatures, 500,000 public comments, 42,000 calls generated, numerous protests and vigils and $2 million donated to progressive groups fighting KXL, President Obama ultimately rejected TransCanada’s application to build the pipeline in 2015.

In 2014, after years of activism by CREDO members to ban fracking in New York, which included more than 400,000 petition signatures and public comments, over 10,000 phone calls to the governor, and thousands of CREDO members who attended dozens of rallies, large and small, in every corner of the state, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned hydraulic fracturing in the state.

In 2016, CREDO and our members won a string of victories against the fossil fuel industry and showed that when we act together to stop climate change, we can make a real difference. Here are just a few:

• We stopped the Jordan Cove natural gas export terminal, which would have encouraged more planet-warming fracking nationwide and churned-out carbon pollution.
• We forced Arch Coal to suspend its application for the Otter Creek Coal Mine, the largest proposed coal mine in the country which would have extracted a jaw-dropping 1.3 billion tons of coal and devastated more than 7,600 acres of land.
• On the heels of our major fracking moratorium victories in New York and Maryland in 2015, CREDO activists helped stop a bill in Florida that would have allowed fracking while overturning nearly 70 local resolutions banning fracking—despite millions spent by the oil and gas industry in lobbying and campaign contributions.

In 2017, after nearly 500,000 CREDO members signed petitions to stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, other indigenous leaders and the Iowa landowners who led the fierce resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, the Army Corps of Engineers declined to issue a key permit.

And just recently, as the Trump administration renews efforts to move the Keystone XL project forward, CREDO members, along with our allies 350.org, Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International, are helping to fund a critical initiative by the Bold Alliance called the Solar XL campaign, a project to build solar arrays on the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska. Community members along the proposed pipeline route have already installed two solar arrays, and more are planned in the coming year.

From protecting sacred Native lands from the grips of Big Oil to stopping the world’s largest coal export terminal from being built in the Pacific Northwest to resisting the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, CREDO and our members have helped to gather more than 50 million petition signatures and generated more than 80,000 calls to key decision makers in our long-standing efforts to protect the environment, promote renewable energy, slow climate change and stop dirty fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

In addition, CREDO and our members have donated more than $19 million to progressive organizations fighting for climate justice and stronger environmental protections, like Earthjustice, 350.org, Rainforest Action Network and Friends of the Earth.

To see all of our recent victories for climate justice and other progressive activism accomplishments, please check out our victories page here.