After a very chaotic week on Capitol Hill, I wanted to write you with an update on what happened in the Senate on Friday.

First and foremost: the oil industry’s Senators did not manage to pass legislation that would force President Obama to build Keystone XL.

Because you — people all across the country — jumped into action this week, they backtracked and instead held a vote on a nonbinding resolution that says it would be nice to build the pipeline, but doesn’t actually do much about it. For that vote, they got the stomach-churning number of 62 Senators to vote with them. As usual, the ones who had taken the most money from the fossil fuel industry lined up to cast their votes—the cosponsors of the bill, on average, had taken $807,000 in dirty energy money.

Now, this amounts to symbolic chest thumping by the oil industry: showing just how many Senators they can get to jump when told to. It’s not the worst thing that could have happened, but it reminds everyone why, in one recent poll, congress

had approval ratings lower than head lice and colonoscopies — even on the symbolic stuff, they can’t get it together to stand up to the oil industry guys cutting them checks.

In a certain way though, this vote couldn’t come at a better time. Congress is going on break, and for the next two weeks, these 62 Senators will be back in their home states, doing things like meeting with constituents — people like you.

Home states are where some of the most heroic work took place the last week — in Minneapolis, say, where 150 350MN.org activists showed up on very short notice at Sen. Klobuchar’s office in a snowstorm to tell her to vote no on Keystone (and she did, it should be added).

If you’re interested in following in the fine example of those leaders who held actions at their senators offices, you have a chance in the next two weeks.

We’re looking for people who can step up to lead, and then we’ll put the 350 network into action to get people to join you. If you want to lead an action, just click here to tell us when you’d like to do so:

Look, there are two ways to react to a democracy for sale. One is to walk away in disgust, which is what the Koch Brothers count on. The other is to stand up and say: no more. If you visit your Senator, take some pictures or some video so we can share them around. It’s time to build this broader fossil fuel resistance.

And remember, Capitol Hill is not the center of the world. Around the country last week our friends at Tar Sands Blockade have been actively targeting Keystone investors; faith groups have been hauled off to jail in front of the White House to protest the pipeline; and the divestment campaign has expanded off college campuses and into municipal and state governments.

Yes, we’re launching the next phase of our fossil fuel divestment campaign, bringing it off campus to include city, state, and town governments; religious denominations, museums, foundations -- anyone with an investment portfolio. If someone’s investing in the destruction of the future, we’re going to ask them to sell those shares.

Here’s how to get started. Our web-team has set up a new online petition tool that makes it easy for you to join up with a local campaign or start your own. These petitions will help you build up some local pressure, as well as start a local email list you can use for organizing (they’re so easy to use, even I can figure it out). Click here to find or start a local divestment petition.

Once you’ve got a petition going, it’s time to start organizing. Host a local meeting to get your group together, set up meetings with your key decision makers, make the case for divestment, and then figure out the type of pressure you’re going to need to get a victory. You’ll find some useful resources up on the GoFossilFree.org website -- and don’t hestitate to get in touch if you need help.

The first phase of this campaign, on American colleges and campuses, has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Inside Climate said it was “spreading like wildfire,” and writing in the Nation, Harvard student leader Chloe Maxmin said it was “engaging more students than any similar campaign in the past twenty years.” The fourth college to commit to make their portfolio fossil free -- College of the Atlantic in Maine -- divested last week, which is way ahead of our wildest hopes.

And truthfully, Phase 2 has been up and running quietly for a while: the City of Seattle has already announced plans to divest, and 6 conferences of the United Church of Christ have joined to urge the national denomination to do the right thing.

But now it’s going to get big fast, in no small part because a we’ve got a very talented new staff member, Jay Carmona, who will be running the battle. She’s worked in City Government, organized with our friends at Media Matters and Get Equal, and she plays to win. “Divestment is targeting the one thing that those companies can’t buy, which is their reputation,” she told Yale e360 earlier this week.

I’m pretty fired up too. The best arguments for divesting if you’re a city: “why would we spend millions putting up seawalls and so on, and at the same time invest in the companies making it necessary?” If you’re a church: “why are we doing business with an industry that’s running Genesis backwards?” If you’re -- well, if you’re a human being: “if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage?”

I think those arguments will prevail. Not easily -- but no one ever said it was going to be easy. You can get started right here: www.GoFossilFree.org/start.