It’s Getting Hot In Here

I have a confession. I have been a political activist for over a decade and I just lost my lobbying virginity. And it was AWESOME! I can only hope it was the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship with Senator Diane Feinstein.

During the April congressional recess we’re encouraging young people who want to keep the Power Shift going to have meetings or town hall forums with their representatives to reiterate our demand for bold, federal energy and climate legislation being passed this year. After working with students in Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Georgia, and a bunch of other places over the last weeks I was starting to get jealous. Why were they having all the fun?? I wanted to meet with my representatives, too.

With Congresswoman Pelosi (Speaker of the House) and Senator Boxer (Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee) and Senator Feinstein I’ve got some pretty powerful women representing me. And like a good citizen (and youth climate activist) I got my political action on!

Today at 1:30 pm a bunch of rad youth organizers met with Senator Feinstein’s Director of Field Services Gina Banks. We prepped for this first “date,” researching the Senator’s positions, dissecting the ACES bill introduced by Markey and Waxman, and divvying up talking points, and an agenda.

Like every good relationship, we started with getting to know each other. Lauren talked about her work organizing constiuents in Northern California, Mike spoke about being a student at City College and getting a green jobs training program going there, Dominic spoke about being at the UN climate negotations, and I spoke about how AMAZING and POWERFUL and UNSTOPPABLE the youth climate movement is.

Gina Banks was cool. I don’t know who I expected, but definitely not someone I could see myself getting a beer with. And she knew her stuff. Her family’s really involved in renewable energy and we bonded over our shared California identity. Both in that lovely gloating way we Californians like to get about how everything starts here to show the rest of the country what’s possible, but also in how SCARY climate change impacts are on California. As Gina kept saying, “the consequences are DIRE.”

From massive draughts that are literally drying up jobs in the agriculature in the central valley (a group she met with last week said that their town faced 40% unemployment- if there’s no water you can’t plant and if there’s no plants you can’t pick) to crazy wild fires to our own lovely city being submerged under water, we are already feeling the impacts of climate change in a very real way in California and as residents of the state and citizens of the world we’ve got to do everything we can to curb greenhouse gas emissions and invest in a 100% clean energy economy.

After talking about how important energy and climate issues were to the Senator she told us how important it was for people like us (US!) to have these meetings. There are like 36 million people living in California and Sen Feinstein depends on the small faction of her constituents that actually call, write, and meet with her to keep the pulse on what’s going on. Let YOUR rep know you’re their constituent and you bold climate and energy legislation is really, really, really, REALLY important to you. Tell them why. Tell them a story.

Back to my first lobby meeting. We then told her all things that need improving in the ACES bill moving through the committee write now. Like how it MUST BE 100% auction, that all the targets (especially short term) need to be science-based (a position Lauren referred to as rational, which made me giggle), and that the “clean coal” provisions have GOT TO go.

We asked for the Senator’s position and Gina said she would have to check in with the Senator and the legislative aide that works on energy stuff in DC but that she’s “very supportive of cap and trade” as long as it’s “sensible.” We will DEFINITELY be following up on that.

We then gave Gina lots of presents to give the Senator such as: an urgent action sign-on letter by like every group you’ve ever heard of and a bunch of local Supervisor’s and State reps; a special photo album created especially by Green for All for Senator Feinstein with 50,000 signatures supporting green jobs; a new report that shows we can meet ALL of our energy needs without evil coal or nuclear while saving money and creating double the jobs as the dirty energy industry; and a sign-on letter to show she will stand up and support bold policy in the Senate. Next time I’ll probably bring a cookie or something.

We finished the meeting with her telling us how important it is that we’ve built a nation of activists (oh, do go on..) and how critical it is for our voices to be out there, louder than industry’s.

And with a few handshakes, my first ever lobby meeting came to a close. I now think I’m addicted. I used to be so wary and unexcited by lobbying and national political pushes, but at this critical time, I refuse be silent while the coal, nuclear, oil, and other dirty energy industries are screaming in our represenatives ears. I wanna call them everyday and visit them every week. We are right and they are wrong. We have truth on our side, now we just gotta turn up the volume!!