Wrap-Up - Senate Clean Energy Jobs Hearings, Day 3

This post is from Justin Guay, Apprentice with the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Team

The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee wrapped up its three days of hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act today with one last full day of testimony from multiple panels. Despite genuine pleas for bi-partisanship throughout the past few days, a number of senators have demonstrated that their only interest is obstruction. Senator Alexander refuses to discuss the issues at hand, taking any chance he can to push his fanatically pro-nuclear policies. Sadly, he is really a side show to the scare mongering on job losses and consumer costs led by Senator Voinovich and backed up by Senators Inhofe, Barrasso, and Bond.

Miss the hearings? You can read our archived liveblog here.

Luckily, Senator Boxer stood firm throughout the three days of hearings, genuinely listening to opposition concerns and pledging to work together in a spirit of bi-partisanship. She had strong support from Senators Whitehouse, Tom Udall, Merkley, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Sanders, Cardin, and Lautenberg, who are clearly committed to the issue of climate leadership (any of these your Senators? You can send them a thank you below!). The message coming from these climate heroes was clear: Our children will ask us where were we when the world was burning.

From John Kerry’s impassioned 26 minute speech, to Vice Admiral Mcginn’s convincing testimony concerning the need for American leadership, the EPW hearings demonstrated that legislative action on climate is needed and the time to act is now.

Let your Senator know that you were watching, and thank them for supporting a clean energy future:

Sen. Specter (D-PA):

Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY)

Sen. Sanders (D-VT) 

Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN)

Sen. Kerry (D-MA)

Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI)

From Ohio?  Tell Senator Voinovich not to stand in the way of progress