MSU’s Citizens Climate Lobby bridges partisan divides

MSU’s chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) hopes to empower students “to be able to be the change you want to see in our politics, our laws and our community,” said Gracie Caldwell, a sophomore environmental studies major and former president of the CCL. 

The CCL is an organization focused on climate change founded in 2007; comprised of over 500 active chapters worldwide and over 200,000 grassroots volunteers, according to the CCL website.

“[The CCL] is a bipartisan common sense climate advocacy organization,” Caldwell said. “We want to make common sense changes in our laws, and we do this by lobbying the federal government.”

According to Caldwell, CCL meetings consist of going through “ideas for the next one or two months, different volunteer opportunities, leadership opportunities, issues that we'd like to be engaged with or different events across campus that we would like to help lead or facilitate such as Climate Week.”

For MSU’s Fall 2023 Climate Week, the CCL hosted an event called “Voices of the Eco-Right,” which gave students the opportunity to hear from a panel of Republican environmentalists. “We like to try to be [unbiased] when we are trying to fix our world,” Caldwell said.

According to its website, the CCL is committed to maintaining a nonpartisan stance and is open to anyone who is serious about solving climate change. “No matter where you live, what you wear or who you voted for in the last election, you are welcome.”

“We like to talk about issues,” Caldwell said. “We will never endorse a specific candidate and we will never endorse a party. We understand that someone who has come from a suburb or an urban area might have very different perspectives than someone who was raised on a ranch. Or someone who has seen the effects of flooding on their life might have a different set of priorities than someone who has seen a lot of pollution in their life.”

“Every year, MSU’s CCL goes to Washington D.C. to lobby our local senators and representatives,” Caldwell said. “We generally speak to the staffers. It's the staffers that will actually generally make the decisions on what the senator or representative should or shouldn't support. I was able to actually talk to Senator [Steve] Daines in person, which was a great experience. We were also able to get some co-sponsors from Representative [Ryan] Zinke on a few different acts.”

In the 2024-2025 academic year, Caldwell would like to get more people up to D.C. “It was an amazing experience and I want to bring that to more students. I'm excited to see what the club wants to do. I know members of our club have expressed an interest in volunteering and social engagement. We want to do more community grassroots outreach and we want to make sure our bonds are strong as friends.”

“We have a place where everyone is welcome,” she said. “I would love to see you at our meetings. Even if you can't make it, that's totally okay. We are not here to corral you into a seat at a meeting. We are here to provide resources and opportunities to engage and be involved in your community.”

You can find more information about the MSU CCL chapter on their Instagram, @ccl_montana_state_university.