1. My kids like to play outside.

2. I like to play outside.

3. I have a child with autism and no one can tell me it was not caused by environmental factors or degradation.

4. Several studies tell me it might have been.

5. Our family has lost a child to a mysterious illness that no one can tell me was not caused by environmental factors and degradation.

6. The CDC has told me it might have been.

I have a parade of reasons why I need Congress to pass the strongest legislation possible to stop global warming, clean up the environment, conserve energy and create clean green jobs.

The last four listed here are obviously the hardest. I will never know if fewer chemicals in the air that I and my children breath and less toxins in the environment where we live would have saved a baby's life or spared another from a lifetime of challenge. The evidence is unclear, but it is mounting. It is possible that pollution, plastics, ozone eating gases and chemicals in what I eat and drink caused harm to my kids. According to some studies it is “highly” possible.

Our nation has seen an 80 percent increase in the number of children with autism or similar neurological disorders in the past decade. Asthma rates have skyrocketed. In this same decade the measures of global warming and the level of toxins and pollutants in our environment have continued to go up.

And yet despite mounting evidence of harm to the planet and possible human health impacts caused by pollutants, oil companies, dirty chemical plants and other industries spewing toxic waste have spent 16 times more money than conservation groups lobbying lawmakers just since April to take the teeth out of the American Clean Energy and Security Actthat is a foundational element of President Obama’s agenda for change for America. In fact, Exxon-Mobil alone has spent more than twice as much as the entire conservation community combined in the last three months. As President Obama and his team work to move a future-saving clean energy and green jobs bill through Congress, America’s most prolific polluters are revving their engines and trying to run progress over.

We must stop them.

Thousands of people have signed letters calling for Congress to pass a strong global warming bill. But with just one week left before the floor debate begins, we have to step up the pressure to approve a strong bill. Already the opposition’s well-monied lobby team has pushed to weaken or strike critical elements of the bill. We need Congressmen McDermott, Reichert, Larsen, Baird, Inslee and Smith to put their muscle behind this bill and strengthen it on the House Floor when it comes up for debate in just a few weeks. We need them to know this a strong act is crucial for a million reasons.

NOW is time to give Congress a parade of reasons why it must adopt a strong clean energy and green jobs bill. Please, join me in this effort: write or email your member of Congress today and give them your reasons to pass the act with all its teeth. Speak out today:

Give Your Congressperson Your Parade of Reasons to Pass a Strong Clean Energy Act

This bill is incredibly important. It’s the key to attacking global warming and jumpstarting a green economy. It’s key to our health and the health of our children.

Polluting industries will do anything to water this legislation down or keep it from winning congressional approval. Why? Because, they don’t want to change their ways. And they don’t care if padding their pockets costs a life.