Ten Activists with Pennsylvania Action on Climate (PAC) Arrested in the State Capitol for Demanding that Legislators Stop Taking Bribes While the Planet Dies
On Monday, June 13, a group of 50 activists with Pennsylvania Action on Climate (PAC) confronted the state legislature to demand they stop fueling the climate crisis with their greed and corruption. Ten activists were arrested and charged with criminal trespass.
At 1:10 PM EST eight members of PAC attempted to meet with Senator Gene Yaw, the current Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Chairman. In a blatant conflict of interest, Senator Yaw also works as an attorney for McCormick Law Firm, which represents gas companies. The activists demanded that Senator Yaw immediately resign from his side job with McCormick. The group also demanded that he fully repudiate all campaign contributions, independent expenditures, and unlimited gifts that he receives from the fossil fuel industry.
The activists were told Senator Yaw was in session and unavailable; however he was seen fleeing his office shortly after the activists arrived. Refusing to leave until being heard by Senator Yaw, the eight activists were forcibly removed, arrested, and charged with criminal trespass.
“The greed in our legislature for dirty money and corporate cash is killing life on this planet,” said Michael Bagdes Canning, one of the PAC activists arrested for occupying Senator Yaw’s office and an organizer with Marcellus Outreach Butler. Bagdes Canning is also a retired teacher, and the Mayor of Cherry Valley Borough. “It is delusional for Senator Yaw to think that the answer to our climate and energy crisis is more fossil fuels. It isn’t surprising for him to think that because he isn’t just a Senator, he’s also a practicing attorney representing gas companies,” Badges Canning.
In 2021-22, eight out of Senator Yaw’s top ten donors were fossil fuel companies.
At 4 PM EST a second group of ten PAC activists entered the House Gallery and showered the 203 Representatives on the House floor with $203 in $1 bills marked with the word “bribe” and other messages to put a spotlight on the Legislature’s greed and responsiveness to big-money interests while climate change continues to accelerate.
The activists also chanted “You take bribes, the planet dies,” and attempted to unfurl a large banner over the House Gallery balcony with the same message. Capitol Police ripped the banner from the activists’ hands. Two activists were forcibly removed, arrested, and charged with criminal trespass.
Doug Mason, a resident of Centre County and a retired soil scientist, was one of the ten activists present in the House Gallery.
“I'm concerned that the world is on the fast track to climate disaster. I’m speaking the truth and putting my body on the line on behalf of all children, especially my granddaughter Alivia and great-granddaughter Mila, as well as future generations and all nonhuman inhabitants of the planet,” said PAC activist Doug Mason. “Our demands to take action have been repeatedly ignored by our lawmakers in Harrisburg, who are complicit because of their close ties with the fossil fuel industry. I feel compelled to do nonviolent direct action to compel them to work for Pennsylvanians, and not for the fossil fuel executives.”
Fed up with a State Legislature that has taken $69.9 MILLION dollars from the fossil fuel industry from 2007-2018 while funding and fueling the ecological devastation ravaging Pennsylvania and the world, PAC is demanding that the State Legislature take the following actions:
Take aggressive and immediate action to avert the climate crisis.
Cease all state investments and grants to fossil fuel companies.
Make it illegal for the fossil fuel industry to buy our State Legislature by passing the gift ban, banning side jobs, closing the revolving door, limiting campaign contributions, and outlawing dark money expenditures.
Today’s nonviolent direct actions kicked off what the PAC says will be a coordinated nonviolent direct action campaign that will continue until ecological devastation and corruption are made illegal.
Pennsylvania Action on Climate (PAC) is a nonpartisan, grassroots coalition of activists and organizations dedicated to averting the climate catastrophe and building a healthy and safe Pennsylvania for generations to come. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2022 report made clear that drastic action is immediately needed to avoid our continued descent into the sixth mass extinction. PAC advocates against ecological devastation, and also against the corruption that dupes our State Legislature into dragging everyone through a collective mass eco-suicide. Flagrant corruptions in our State Legislature include side jobs, unlimited gifts, the revolving door, unlimited campaign contributions, and unlimited dark money expenditures. These mechanisms of bribery are employed by the fossil fuel industry, and other powerful special interests, to frustrate the will of Pennsylvanians and profit off of their misery and suffering while destroying the ecology that sustains all life on Earth.