Declaration of Iowa Energy Independence
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for voters to dissolve the political party affiliations which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of citizenship, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all consumers are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are clean environment, affordable energy and competition in a free and fair market. — That whenever our legislative leadership becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new leadership, to allow the citizens of Iowa economic self-determination and energy independence. It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such faulty leadership, and to provide new guards for their future representation. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these our communities; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their current representative. The history of our leadership being owned and occupied by energy industry executives and their surrogates is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute conflict of interest in our legislature. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused to acknowledge global climate change, insisting that addressing it would cause us harm, and fought measures to simply measure greenhouse gasses.
He has voted against efforts to help Iowa become energy independent, seeking to force us to continue purchasing out-of-state-coal energy from his employer and preventing us from realizing the economic potential of harnessing Iowa wind power.
He has refused to support other laws for the accommodation of funding to help rural energy suppliers switch from out-of-state coal energy to locally harnessed renewable energy.
He has called together political contributors from places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the interests of Iowans, for the sole purpose of serving their financial interests, such as Aquila of Missouri, Basin Electric of North Dakota, and Florida Power and Electric.
He has stood in support of an establishment of unfair market practices for landowners seeking to create their own energy in competition with his energy industry backers.
He has combined with others to subject us to representation foreign to our own interests, giving his assent to their acts of predatory business practices:
For denying us fair market competition to lower our energy prices:
For protecting his energy corporation backers, by taking a seat on the Iowa Power Fund board, an entity whose creation he voted against, and designed to instill us with energy independence:
For attempting to prevent us from realizing the economic opportunity of the renewable energy movement:
He has abdicated government here, by choosing to represent out-of-state corporate interests, alien to those whom he represents.
In every stage of these grievances we have elected him in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. An energy industry executive, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a conflict of interest, is unfit to be the representative of our communities.
Signed this day, July 4th, 2008
T.J. Templeton, Democratic candidate for State Representative, Dist. 3
