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:
