INPIRG lobbies Bayh for real-life changes

INPIRG wants to make Senator Evan Bayh their hero.

Thursday, members of the Indiana Public Interest Research Group stood outside Ballantine Hall with an 8-foot cut-out of the Indiana Democrat. Bayh’s cut-out wore the uniform of 1990s TV environmental cartoon hero Captain Planet.

Passers-by were encouraged to have their picture taken with the image.

“It’s a more creative way than sending him a letter,” said INPIRG intern and IU senior Brodie Burgess.

It’s part of INPIRG’s campaign to encourage Bayh to support the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

The act is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 as well as provide incentives for greener cars, homes, jobs and technology, according to
OpenCongress.org.

The bill is in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which Bayh is a member. INPIRG worries the bill will become weakened in the committee.

The group wants to put all the photos on a Facebook group and invite Bayh to join.
They also plan to put photos in a scrapbook and use them to lobby Bayh later in the year.

INPIRG expected more than a hundred people to have their picture taken by the end of the four-hour demonstration, Burgess said.

“Indiana is an environmentally stunted state,” Burgess said. “Coal is not the answer for the future.”