What time did you wake up yesterday morning? I woke up at 5:00 a.m. to go down to the Dirksen Senate Office Building and attend the first hearing for the new climate bill. The bill, co-sponsored by Senator Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Boxer (D-CA), is called the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act — aka CEJAPA and is similar in many ways to the recently passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) in the House.

Along with other 10 young people, dressed in Halloween garbs or green t-shirts , we tried to get into the hearing room to show that young people are paying attention and are ready to hold our elected officials accountable. Unfortunately, due to corporate hired linestanders, we weren’t able to get in. Linestanders you ask? Yup, here is how it works:

Hearing rooms are small, especially considering that most seats go to Senate staffers (from offices of Senators who aren’t on the committee) and press. Most hearings are held with barely any ordinary citizen in the room, but some contentious ones — like recent healthcare, defense and climate hearings – fill up pretty quick.  The few spots left are open on a first-come, first-serve basis meaning that people need to make sure to get there early if they care to have a seat in clear view of the senators and the CSPAN cameras.

Just like young people desperately want legislators to see them (and we make sure they do by wearing bright green t-shirts, holding hard hats on our laps, and holding small 8.5 x 11 signs),  so do the lobbyists that bring so much money to their election coffers. Thirteen line-standers for corporate lobbyists were in line ahead of us, but there were only nine seats were available in the room so we weren’t successful this time around. Young people waiting in line made a pretty big splash nonetheless by talking to Senators and press as they were making their way into the room.

After making sure that the young people who came from as far as Maryland were OK with going to the overflow room, I darted back to the office to listen to the hearing through the Committee website (more hearings are going on today and tomorrow, check them out here if you are interested).

The hearings were surprisingly interesting. For minute-to-minute summary, check out my live-blog about the opening remarks and about the testimonies. There were three things that came up during the hearing that every person concerned about the climate crisis should know:

1. Climate deniers don’t care about a debate

All Republicans and many conservative Democrats in the committee left the hearing when the administration officials started their testimonies. They came to give their opening remarks (most of them contained throughly debunked claims about the science and economics of the climate bill), and left as soon as there was a chance to hear from the experts from the executive branch. Not only do they not know the truth, but they don’t care about finding it out.

2. Coal state Senators think ‘clean coal’ is the only low-cost climate solution

This is so problematic, for so many ways. Byrd (D-IN), Specter (D-PA), Voinovich (R-OH), and more repeatedly said that the bill is unfair because there won’t be any solutions until 2020. Byrd even went as far as saying that Stephen Chu said so. Had he listened to the whole Chu testimony, he would have heard that we can achieve almost all short term carbon cuts simply with energy efficiency, while carbon capture and sequestration and nuclear plants won’t be producing power for decades. That’s a BIG difference.

3. We have many strong champions in the committee, but also many obstacles

Senators Merkley (D-OR), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Gillebrand (D-NY), Sanders (D-VT) and Whitehouse (D-RI) owned the stage by repeatedly calling for stronger action, dismissing the role of nuclear comparing it to cheaper alternatives (like efficiency and wind), and by channeling young people’s support to make the moral case for action. Unfortunately, the leaning of the Environment and Public Works Committee does not represent the whole Senate and it will be tougher for progressive Senators to speak loudly against polluter lies. Check out this great video of Senator Whitehouse protecting the Clean Air Act.

So, how do we move ahead given the uphill battle we are facing?

1.  Call your Senators and tell them this:

I have been following the climate hearings and was concerned that many Senators don’t know of any proven short term carbon reduction technologies. I know, and a McKinsey study confirms, that energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest and most abundant form of carbon reduction available. Please strengthen the support for energy efficiency in the Climate Bill so we will have less need to build new expensive capacity.

2. Educate your community

Offer energy audits in your community in exchange for calls to senators. Just knock on your neighbor’s doors, ask if they’d like cheaper utility bills, and if they say yes, give them a simple lighting audit (i.e. checking to see if they are using energy efficient lightbulbs). Tell them that there are many other ways to reduce energy, and that they can become much cheaper if the Senate passes a climate bill with strong energy efficiency provisions. When they ask how much they owe you, just tell them to make the same call you made in point number one.

3. Write a letter to the editor

4. If you are on Twitter, Tweet!

We need to get a climate bill strong enough to get a binding treaty this December during the international climate treaty negotiations. The best way that we can do this is by pushing President Obama to get more involved in the climate negotiations. Follow Tweet trends about sending @barackobama to #COP15 using the  #hope2cope hashtag.

Still wanting more?

• Check out the Wonkroom’s post on ‘Who’s Who On The EPW: Senate Committee Begins Landmark Climate Hearings‘
• Check out Grist’s post on ‘The big stories out of today’s Senate hearing on Kerry-Boxer’