Hill Staffers

Democratic leadership may have given up on passing major climate legislation, but their employees aren’t ready to throw in the towel. Six Congressional staffers were arrested Monday after a first-of-its-kind sit-in at Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office demanding he give climate negotiations another try. “Right now, we Hill staffers are peacefully protesting Dem leaders INSIDE,” Saul Levin, a policy adviser to congresswoman Cori Bush who was one of those arrested, wrote, as The Guardian reported. “To my knowledge, this has never been done.” The protest comes at a crucial moment for climate action in the U.S. In late June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act without a new legislative mandate.