Gore’s global-warming testimony expected to draw big crowds
By Kelly McCormack
March 19, 2007
When former Vice President Al Gore testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday about the dangers of global warming, committees in both chambers expect huge turnouts.
Not only do committees plan to open overflow rooms to hold staffers and members of the press, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee will re-locate to a larger room.
“We’re seeing extremely strong interest in all quarters,” an EPW staffer said. The EPW hearing will be held at 2 p.m. in Dirksen 106, “a pretty large, theater-style room,” a second Senate aide said. “It’s one of the biggest we have. … I assume there will be some protesters there.”
The EPW staffer said the hearing “could run as long as three hours.” Gore, who recently won an Oscar for his documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth,” is slated to speak for 30 minutes before taking questions.
No one is testifying on the Republican side, the Senate committee aide said. GOP staff did not return calls for comment by press time.
Things aren’t looking any less claustrophobic in the lower chamber, where Bjorn Lomborg, a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, is slated to testify for Republicans.
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” said a House aide who is handling media requests for the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Air Quality panel and the House Science and Technology Committee Energy and Environment subcommittee joint hearing. It is set for 9:30 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn Office Building.
Excerpt from:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...007-03-19.html