The battle to make college more affordable has come down to a critical few weeks in the Senate. The banks and student loan companies already have spent millions of dollars on lobbying, PR firms, and advertisements in their attempt to stop reform and hang on to $87 billion in subsidies that could be going to help students.
Now Campus Progress is taking action. We’ve raised money to put this :30 second spot on cable TV and on Hulu in key states across the country:
We don’t have the kind of money student loan companies have, so we’re going to need your help spreading the ad on Facebook, Twitter, and email if we’re going to get the word out. Click here to help us spread the word.
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:
Secretary of the Department of Energy, Stephen Chu (a hero of energy efficiency dorks like me).
11:27 ‘Today I want to focus on the Energy Opportunity’ Hurray for CAP memes making it in the hearings!
11:28 China has made the choice. they are spending billions in clean energy, transmission,… my feed froze!!
11:30 ‘Obama announces billion dollar investments in smart grid technology! Hurray for rational people in the White House!’
Secretary of Department of Transportation, Ray LaHood
11:32 Acknowledging role of transit for climate reductions. Great to see that, but doesn’t really fall under climate bill purview…
11:33 Talking about smart growth. Can you believe it?! Only 2 years ago the Department of Transportation was working to subsidize suburbia!
Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar
11:37 ‘First energy independence, Second jobs, third healthy planet and safety of our children.’ Really? Your priorities are a little off.
11:39 ‘My department is the Carbon capture department’ (and the carbon extraction one!)
11:40 ‘We drill a lot of oil in our public lands, but at the Department we are mostly excited about the new energy frontiers’ ‘ We are fast-tracking deployment of clean energy, both sun, off-shore, on-shore’
11:42 ‘Our public lands can sequester carbon just as what will happen with investments in Indonesia and Brazil in CEJAPA’
— Editorial comment: these witnesses are not as fun as senators… + they don’t talk about young people!—
** For witness statements, go to the next post, here **
Just got back from the Senate office building where young people didn’t manage to enter the committee room.
10:47 Am – Voinovich doesn’t like the bill, big surprise
10:49 – Boxer ‘Climate change won’t be waiting for who is a democrat or who is a republican.’ Would like bi-partisanship but Senate lacks a Warner-like Republican.
10:50 – Voinovich ‘Building wind turbines is approximately the same as building nuclear power plants’ – does that include cost on waste disposal?
10:51 – Boxer ‘I am not advocating for taxpayers to build windmills OR nuclear. Trying to level the playing field so technologies can compete fairly’ – There you go!
10:53 – Lautenberg ‘We are looking at number of pages of bills to identify veracity. I didn’t know people were so concerned about trees!’ Calls for young people to be in the audience!!! Asks for them to testify about why we need to fight for this! Yeea!
10:55 – Lautenberg ‘It would be equally important to hear from the fisherman, asthma victims as much as farmers. We should look into the face of children and explain in their terms. How much would Americans be willing to pay in taxes to reverse these ills!’ My new favorite senator?
10:56 – Lautenberg ‘America wake up! Your kids are in danger! Your country is in danger’
10:59 – Can I just say “Climate deniers lie” every time one speaks? It would get a little redundant to keep on transcribing all of their disinformation (Sen. Barasso is speaking now, where are the Wyoming youth? Call him and tell him to invest in clean energy jobs)
11:00 – Barasso calls fossil fuels Red White and Blue energy… I can see red, but oil is certainly not white or blue!
11:01 – Merkeley “Choice of creating jobs for Americans, or sending jobs overseas” this hearing is all about republicans saying the bill will destroy jobs, while some democrats are saying it will create jobs. Doesn’t seem like anyone is taking the time to understand where the other is coming from.
11:04 – Merkeley “Whenever I ask college students what their top issue is, they always talk about climate change” – “You could argue this bill isn’t moving fast enough!” go get them Merkeley!
With so much at stake in the coming weeks, there has been much speculation about which problems will be tackled first (if at all) during this Congressional session. While Obama has laid out clear goals of fixing health care, tackling climate change, and improving higher education, it remains to be seen which issue Congress will make a priority.
Despite Rep. Henry Waxman’s promise to move a climate bill through the House by Memorial Day, The Wall Street Journalspeculates that health care will be addressed before climate change issues, which are more controversial:
“A growing number of Democratic lawmakers prefer health care, saying that has a far greater chance of producing consensus than climate change, inside the party and across party lines. And they argue that it would be a more tangible accomplishment to present to financially stressed voters heading into the 2010 midterm elections.”
Read the full article here, and keep checking back here to see how things unfold. In the meantime, call your Senator today and tell him/her which issues YOU think should be a priority.
Check out this new story from CQ Politics about where the administration stands on passing energy legislation this year, and then click here to find out how you can take action to support this legislation in the budget!
Here’s an excerpt:
When asked about resistance to the cap-and-trade proposal — those opposed have argued it will lead to a tax increase — Emanuel said, “When you have something of this magnitude, there’s going to be people that raise objections, because it’s a big change. Our goal is to get that done. We will see.
“You’re asking me right before the legislative process starts to make that prediction. I do think this, that even those who object to particulars know that we have to deal with this part of our energy policy and that the challenge now is, rather than to criticize and rather than say no, rather than to say never, is to provide ideas. And that has yet to happen from the other side.”
From The New Republic’s Environment and Energy blog The Vine:
Swing Senators Still Optimistic About Cap-And-Trade Darren Samuelsohn of ClimateWire has a very helpful piece re-assessing the prospects for cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate. A carbon cap can’t go into the budget reconciliation bill this year, which means Republicans can filibuster, which means it’ll need 60 votes to pass. But climate legislation isn’t doomed yet. A bevy of swing Democrats, from Mary Landrieu to Carl Levin, still sound sanguine, as they watch the debate over the House energy and climate bill slowly unfurl. One crucial dynamic: If Waxman and Markey can drag along key conservative Dems in the House, that could help garner votes in the Senate, too:
Consider Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), a member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. Ross also sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and his vote could be pivotal to the climate bill’s chances for success both in the House and with Arkansas’ senators, Pryor and Blanche Lincoln (D).
“I guarantee you if Mike Ross is OK with it, it goes a long way with me if he’s with it,” Pryor said. “I still have to make a judgement myself. But if he’s OK with it, it means a lot to me.”
All this talk about the budget, but haven’t had the chance to actually see it yet? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Check out the full FY2010 budget proposals below:
So, how it works: Obama released his budget proposal to Congress, outlining his key priorities for investments in America’s future. The House then decided on a “budget resolution”, or a budget proposal of their own, and the Senate did the same. The House Budget Resolution and the Senate Budget Resolution will lead to one final federal budget decided in Conference. Conference is when committees from both chambers of Congress resolve the differences between the budget resolutions to pass one final budget.
So check them out and see how the President and Congress have outlined investments for our future!
For more on how to decipher the archaic and confusing congressional budget process, click here.
Very few seem to have noticed, but Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander managed to introduce an amendment to the 2010 budget, which passed by unanimous consent, that discourages his congressional colleagues from passing the kind of student loan reform necessary to fund the other expansions and reforms to student aid that would make college more affordable and accessible.
Sen. Alexander offered the amendment because he disagrees with a proposal to originate all federal student loans from the direct loan program (DLP), while ending the guaranteed loan program, which is called the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Both programs offer the same loans to students, but work in different ways. In the DLP, loans are made from the federal government directly to students, while in the FFELP student loan companies make loans, which are then guaranteed against default by the federal government.
Switching to the DLP is projected to save taxpayers $94 billionover the next ten years, and President Obama and others have proposed using these funds for an expansion of student aid programs, like the Pell grant.
Sen. Alexander received at least $60,000 in campaign contributions associated with FFELP lenders during the 2008 election cycle, according to data from Opensecrets.org. The Institute for America’s Future and US PIRG estimate that an additional 5,225 students in Tennessee—and 260,000 more students nationwide—would receive the Pell grants that student loan reform would fund under President Obama’s 2010 budget proposal.
The language of the amendment would still have to be accepted by the conference committee that will reconcile the House and the Senate versions of the bill if it is to have any affect. The House version of the bill does not include this language, and allows for budget reconciliation on college affordability and health care. If Congress does not approve student loan reform, the administration may be able to effectivly switch to the DLP by other means. You can check out what other amendments passed here.
Funding our Future is a campaign to pass a progressive federal budget for 2010 and ensure that our nation.s key economic choices invest in our education, spark reform of our health care system, and address climate change through cap and trade and clean energy investments. Click here for more info.
