First Congressional Hearing

MAGE Institute's 1st Congressional Hearing - March, 2033

Scene length: 5-8 minutes

Setting

The MAGE Institute is less than a year old. The founding members of the Institute, Chris Carpenter and Jamie Schreiber, find themselves called to testify before the Senate Committee on Energy & the Environment. Senator Valenti, a low-ranking member of the Committee, and someone generally in favor of environmental regulations, arranged for the MAGE Institute testimony. The rest of the Committee is largely hostile to regulations.

Senators may interject with questions and statements, as they wish.

Recent Events

2030 - Fishing and aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico becomes unsafe due to nearly continuous red tides.

2031 - Cane toads are first spotted in CA and rapidly spread throughout the Southern US, outcompeting local amphibians, poisoning local birds, and inconveniencing many people by their sheer numbers.

2032 - The US is invaded by a South American species of louse that is very difficult to exterminate, causing the closing of summer camps, daycares and even schools in a desperate attempt to isolate the affected individuals.

Committee Members

• Senator Harold (TX): Ranking member of the Committee.
• Senator Wu (AK)
• Senator Sebastian (OK)
• Senator Kennedy (MA)
• Senator Winston (KY)
• Senator Seth (ND)
• Senator Dobbs (NV)
• Senator Magdalene (OH)
• Senator McMillan (AK)
• Senator White (WA)
• Senator Hiller (FL)
• Senator Valenti (CA)

MAGE Institute Members

• Chris Carpenter
• Jamie Schreiber

Characters

Senator Harold (TX)

This is your Committee and your Hearing. You call the shots around here. You were an oil and gas man before you came to the Senate and you still think of yourself that way.

Senator Valenti wanted some hippies to speak, so you okayed this brand new tree-hugger think tank with no money and people with no speaking experience. You'll let them babble for awhile and then send them packing. You know they'll find no support here.

Senator Wu (AK)

Alaska's economy is completely dependent on oil, gas and mineral resource exploitation and processing. Alaska was hit hard during the 2nd Great Depression, a little over a decade ago. Things are just starting to recover. The last thing your state needs is new regulations on the industries that are making the recovery possible.

Senator Sebastian (OK)

The United States is just starting to recover from the 2nd Great Depression. Over-regulation of business was one of the factors in the collapse and certainly a part of why the recovery is taking so long. Environmentalists just don't understand that if there is no economy, nothing else matters.

Senator Kennedy (MA)

Environmental fear-mongering is overblown by think tanks like this. With the economy as fragile as it is, coming out for regulation isn't a smart idea. Radicals like this who call for drastic action only undermine their own cause, anyway. You're sure Senator Harold let them speak for precisely that reason. Better to just poke holes in the more ridiculous claims and let it slide.

Senator Winston (KY)

Your daddy was a coal man. Your family has been in the business for generations. Since the old man passed on, your brothers run the show, the largest coal business in Kentucky. You went into politics to protect the family business and that's exactly what you'll do today.

Senator Seth (ND)

Being a Senator is great. Your seat in the Senate was bought and paid for by a host of business interests in North Dakota. You just get to block any sort of regulation that might trouble them and submit whatever legislation they'd like to see. In return, you get to go to all the swank parties, dine with the cream of the crop, dance with the finest women... except when you're stuck in Hearings like this. At least the two women are attractive...

Senator Dobbs (NV)

What? It's hard being 87 years old. You can never make out what people are saying. Even with this newfangled hearing aid. Shame about these environmentalists wanting things changed. Not going to happen in your life time. Now if only you could hear what it was they were saying.

Senator Magdalene (OH)

Sure, protecting the environment is an issue, but it's one of many and not a very important one. In the current climate, nothing will happen anyway. Better not to waste political capital on it.

Senator McMillan (AK)

Alaska's economy is completely dependent on oil, gas and mineral resource exploitation and processing. Alaska was hit hard during the 2nd Great Depression, a little over a decade ago. Things are just starting to recover. The last thing your state needs is new regulations on the industries that are making the recovery possible.

Senator White (WA)

Environmental protections might be nice, but there are simply more important matters to attend to. It is not worth antagonizing important industries (and shortchanging your next election campaign) by fighting for something as trivial as environmental protections.

Senator Hiller (FL)

Florida has been hit hard by some of the hurricanes over the past few decades. There isn't enough data to show that there is any link between pollution and storms though. Of course, there hasn't been any significant money spent on looking into such matters since the 2nd Great Depression, either. You'll hear these folks out, but there is no reason to rush into anything at this point.

Senator Valenti (CA)

Americans may have largely forgotten about the value of science and all of the environmental predictions made around the turn of the century, but you haven't. If only it weren't for the 2nd Great Depression...

You go to war with what you've got, though. It's a real blessing that you were able to get this hearing and get a real environmentalist think tank to speak. You know Harold only let them in because they're new and likely inexperienced. You'll do your best to help put as much information in the official record as possible, though.

Chris Carpenter

This is it. You're finally in front of people who have the ability to save the world and billions of lives along with it. This is what you've been working for your whole life. Now if only you hadn't completely forgotten the speech you had planned and worked on for the better part of a month...

Two goals: scare them with the facts and... Oh God, what was the second one. You need to get your hands to stop shaking.

Second one was to call for strict regulation of before it's too late. There was a better packaging so they'd accept it, but you really can't seem to remember anything. Oh God, you need to get control of yourself.

You're losing it. This must be a panic attack. Jamie... maybe Jamie can help. There is no way you can give the speech you planned on giving.

Jamie Schreiber

Chris is freaking out. You've never seen her so nervous. She looks as though she's about to either freeze up or explode. You came here for moral support and to maybe answer a question or two, but if Chris doesn't come around soon, you're going to have to do all of the talking.

You know Chris had two goals here. First, scare them with a reminder of what's happened over the past few years.

2030 - Fishing and aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico becomes unsafe due to nearly continuous red tides. Red tides had grown increasingly common in the area over the past half century. Human activities were responsible for the effect. You wish you could remember all of the science, but Chris was supposed to handle that.

2031 - Cane toads are first spotted in CA and rapidly spread throughout the Southern US, out-competing local amphibians, poisoning local birds, and inconveniencing many people by their sheer numbers. This is just one example of how climate change is driving the migration of different species and upsetting ecosystems. It's going to get a lot worse as time goes on if something isn't done about it.

2032 - The US is invaded by a South American species of louse that is very difficult to exterminate, causing the closing of summer camps, daycares and even schools in a desperate attempt to isolate the affected individuals. Another sign of species movement into new areas due to climate change. Right now its just inconveniences, but what happens when this turns deadly?

The second goal is calling for a return and strengthening of the old environmental protections dropped during the 2nd Great Depression. At the very least, they need to bring back the old protections, as limited as they were. The economic crisis is over anyway, even if it wasn't increasingly obvious that far greater protections are needed.