Because of the activism by young people like the 10,000 environmental Power Shift activists who traveled to Washington, D.C., to the tell Congress it’s time to force the corporate polluters to pay up and clean up, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

We’re moving past the same-old tired debates and toward jobs and a clean, green future.

The activists were in the nation’s capital for a four–day clean energy conference and mobilization training, organized by the Energy Action Coalition. They capped off their conference this morning with rally in Lafayette Park with the White House on one side and the national headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the voice for some the nation’s biggest corporate polluters—on the other. Said Sherri Masterson from Miami (Ohio) University:

We want President Obama to do more to hold these big corporations, like BP, accountable for screwing up the environment and make them pay to clean up their pollution.

Most of the boisterous crowd was sporting green hard hats symbolizing the need to create green jobs for the nation’s environmental future and their economic future. They carried signs such as “Make the Big Polluters Pay,” “Climate Justice,”  “Green Jobs Now,” “Clean Air is a Right Not a Privilege” and my favorite

BP, Didn’t Your Mama Ever Tell You to Clean Up Your Mess?

Trumka praised the young people for their “powerful activism” and said “you’re changing the conversation here in Washington and across America… It’s a movement for an economy that creates jobs and cleans our planet.”

Because of your action, we’re moving past manufactured deficit hysteria. We’re moving past the same-old tired debates and toward jobs and a clean, green future.
You’re shifting America’s focus. You’re building power and political will to force our elected leaders to consider the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the jobs we have, and the future we need for ourselves and our children.

Following the rally, the group shifted its attention to other side of the park and marched on the Chamber headquarters chanting “Make Big Polluters Pay” and “The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me.” They then moved on to BP headquarters and then the offices of coal-burning electrical utility company Gen-On.