The following message was sent to DLACs yesterday. It was followed up by another message to DLACs in certain states asking them to have letters written to Senators serving on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which is now considering distracted driving legislation. We are requesting language to be added to that legislation which would specifically exempt Amateur Radio licensees. The states are located in 13 Divisions (no Roanoke or Southeastern Division states). If you would like a list of Senators in your Division who are on the committee and/or a copy of the sample letter, please let me know. After some re-engineering in cooperation with Chwat's office, we will be asking some DLACS next week to get letters written to particular Senators and Congressmen on the charitable mileage deduction issue. We had hoped to do this sooner, and are grateful to everyone who has already written letters on the subject, but getting it fine-tuned turned out to be more complicated than we thought at first. 73 - Kay N3KN -----Original Message----- From: Henderson, Dan N1ND [mailto:dhenderson@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 3:19 PM To: Division Legislative Action Chairs Cc: Henderson, Dan N1ND Subject: DLAC Update and Action Request Dear DLAC Members We would like to give you a heads-up that there will be a couple of items heading to the DLACs in the next couple of days for action. With the 111th Congress in its final weeks, the ARRL is making a push on several pieces of legislation. S 1755 has passed the Senate and is pending in the House Energy and Commerce Committee (along with HR 2160 - the House version). This week we have contacted ARRL members in the Committee Chairman's home district asking the Committee to expedite its consideration. We continue to focus attention on this important bill. In addition, as part of this end-of-session effort by the ARRL, we will be sending you requests to contact members and ask for letters on two topics: amending a piece of distracted driving legislation in the US Senate and increasing the allowable charitable mileage deduction when driving as a volunteer. A couple of things to keep in mind during this active time... When contacting ARRL members by email, you should first clearly identify yourself as an ARRL official appointed by your Division Director to serve as the contact person between the ARRL and its members on legislative issues. As always, if you or the ARRL member has a question on any request or about the Grassroots program, please contact my office. Be sure to explain that with the end of this Congressional session approaching, the ARRL is making a concentrated effort to further our agenda so there may be additional requests sent during the next several weeks asking for ARRL member action. ________________________________________________________________________ Later today, we will be sending a request for ARRL members to contact certain US Senators regarding S 1536 - "The ALERT Drivers Act" - which is scheduled for consideration by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. S 1536 addresses distracted driving and texting. Our Washington team has been preparing the groundwork for an amendment that would exempt amateur radio usage from inclusion in S 1536. The amendment we are seeking would exempt "two way mobile radio transmitters or receivers used by licensees of the Federal Communications Commission in the Amateur Radio service" from the provisions of the bill. We are asking ARRL members to ask their Senator to support this amendment. We are targeting letters to the members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will require DLACs in 13 of the 15 divisions to be in contact with ARRL members in several states. All Divisions except the Roanoke and Southeastern Divisions have at least one Senator on that Committee. Those requests will be sent to you in separate emails and will have specific contact information for each Senator. DLACs can access the email address look-up feature on the new ARRL Website at http://www.arrl.org/grassroot-members You must be logged on with your callsign and password. If you have problems accessing the page, please contact me. We are asking that you implement the Grassroots contact structure in your Division. We ask that the ARRL members in each state with a Senator serving on the Committee to send a letter to that US Senator asking that S 1536 be amended to exempt Amateur Radio. A sample letter will be sent to the DLACs involved in a separate email. As always, each ARRL member may personalize the sample letters if they wish. The contact information for each senator will be included in the draft sample letter you receive. As in the past, we are requesting that each ARRL member send his or her letters to our Washington representative via one of the following methods: As a signed attachment to an email to: arrl@chwatco.com As a signed fax to: 703-684-7594 As a regular letter to: John Chwat Chwat & Co. 625 Slaters Lane Suite 103 Alexandria, VA 22314 If the ARRL member chooses to email their letter, please ask that they send it as an attachment to the email instead of it being the text of the email. This allows the letter to be easily printed and delivered. Should they decide to draft their own letter instead of editing the sample, please ask them to remember the following key points: * Identify the bill by number and title: S 1536 "The ALERT Drivers Act". * Specify that they are asking that S 1536 be amended to exempt "two way mobile radio transmitters or receivers used by licensees of the Federal Communications Commission in the Amateur Radio service." * Keep the letter brief and on topic - one page at the most. * Ask the Senator to consider becoming a co-sponsor and support this amendment. * Thank them for their consideration. Simple is better when writing these letters. Senators and their staff are looking to gauge interest and support for the bill. A lengthy letter that strays off topic can detract from the focus of asking for support. If ARRL members prefer to send their letters directly to their Senator, remind them to send a copy of their correspondence to Chwat & Co. This allows our team to discuss accurately with the Senator and their staff the amount of support for the bill in each state. ________________________________________________________________________ During the week of August 16, we will be forwarding to all DLACs a request for letters supporting an increase for the charitable mileage deduction. Additional information on that project will be sent to you with that request. We are treating these requests separately. Sending these requests as a single unit risks having one request detract from the others. Separate letters for each piece of legislation or topic demonstrates stronger support for each issue. Further, the distracted driving bill is currently only under consideration in the US Senate, while the charitable deduction proposal is a topic for both bodies at this time. Thanks for your service as a DLAC. The individual letters to the DLACs will be emailed later today. As always, if I can help, please let me know. 73, Dan Henderson, N1ND Regulatory Information Manager ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio(tm) 860-594-0236 dhenderson@arrl.org