At the recent caucus meeting, Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman presented a gripping video about our need for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

Watch it:

In the 24-hour news cycle, following politics often feels like following sports. The media gives the play-by-play and declares winners and losers so we can all cheer for our favorite teams.

Many politicians, unfortunately, are all too happy to play along, transforming the legislative process into a series of sound bites to score points for their side.

For our generation, the fight for clean energy and climate change legislation is not a game. It’s our future.

Last night, we joined a few hundred fellow clean energy advocates at Nationals Park attending the annual Congressional Baseball Game.

Not being ones to pass up an opportunity to heckle GOP manager and BP apologist Rep. Joe Barton, we donned stylish BP MVP t-shirts with Barton’s name on the back, brought our oil barrels, distributed Big Oil All-Star baseball cards and rosters with Big Oil campaign contribution stats, waved “Strike Out Big Oil” and “Let’s Go Clean Energy” signs, and led a few rousing renditions of “Take Me Out to the Oil Rig”.

The game was all in fun, but the fight for a comprehensive climate bill is completely serious. If a congressman makes an error in the outfield, it might cost their team a run in a charity baseball game. If they drop the ball on clean energy legislation, it will cost us dearly in terms of jobs, national security, and a sustainable planet for our generation.

Far too many “Climate Peacocks” are willing to pay lip service to the climate crisis, but when it’s time to act place their party over the planet.

Politicians need to remember why they are in Washington — to act in the best interests of their country and constituents, not their party and corporate benefactors. It’s time for them leave the game on the field and do the real work of passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill.

Graduation is a time of transition and new challenges. For many of us who recently graduated, or will in the coming years, it is also a moment of deep uncertainty. We face both the immediate challenge of surging youth unemployment, and the long-term threat of a world plagued by catastrophic climate change.

Our future hinges on another transition: America’s shift to a new clean energy economy.

Our generation was hit disproportionately hard by the recession. A Pew Research study showed that fully 37% of young people aged 18-29 were unemployed or involuntarily out of the workforce in 2009. Unfortunately, 2010 isn’t looking much better.

While no one piece of legislation will solve both our economic and environmental crises, passing a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill will have a dramatic impact on both issues.

A 21st century clean energy economy has the potential to create millions of new jobs that can’t be shipped overseas. It has the potential to create a sustainable future powered by clean, efficient, renewable energy sources.

Several recent independent analyses showed the the American Power Act proposed by Senators Kerry and Lieberman would create an average of 203,000 to 440,000 new jobs per year between 2012 and 2020.

Clean energy has the potential to become one of the country’s largest industries, and already wind power employs more Americans than coal. These jobs, and a clean energy industry bolstered by the American innovation that would be unleashed by comprehensive energy reform, could become the driving industry in our economic engine.

It’s up to our leaders in Washington to unlock this potential by passing comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

To show Congress we need clean energy jobs, we are collecting résumés from young people to deliver to the Senate and demand they give us this opportunity.

Add your voice: Apply now for a clean energy future!

If you are currently on the job hunt, we are also excited to be hosting a free Resume Workshop Webinar with the experts at Democratic GAIN! RSVP to join in Wednesday night at 8pm EDT.

Yesterday was quite the day for BP and its CEO Tony Hayward. The beleaguered Hayward spent hours in front of the House Energy and Commerce committee taking a grilling over the Deepwater Horizon spill that BP has yet to cap.

Not that he really said much. As a matter of fact, Hayward said very little, leaving the real fireworks to a couple members of Congress.

Two of those stand out, one far more than the other. The lesser of the two came from Republican Michael Burgess of Texas. Hayward cut him off at one point, saying, “with respect, sir, we drill hundreds of wells around the world.” Responded Burgess, “Yeah, that’s what’s scaring me right now.”

Burgess is not alone. However, one member of the committee appears to be on the other side, and was willing to go to great lengths to say so. Another Texas Congressman, Joe Barton (who has taken nearly $1.5 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas in his career), apologized to BP and Hayward. Watch this clip. All that was missing were the patented tears Barton is known for displaying on the House floor.

Joe Burton decided the American people needed to hear an apology given to the man who’s company caused this mess. I decided I felt apologetic as well, so here goes:

I’m sorry America. I am sorry that companies like BP take short cuts that put their operations in jeopardy and our environment at risk. I am sorry Big Oil spends millions every year to make sure they don’t get caught in the act and to ensure that if they do, they won’t be liable for it. I am sorry there are members of Congress who think Big Oil needs more money, bailouts, and less liability.

I am sorry Gulf Coast. I am sorry you will lose millions, if not billions in the immediate aftermath of the spill. I am sorry you will lose untold billions to the long term effects. I am sorry 11 of your sons are dead, lost to the negligence of their employer and poor oversight. I am sorry your livelihood is threatened by millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf everyday, putting more lives and families at risk, along with some of your strongest businesses. I am sorry you are going through this again, especially given the ability to prevent these occurrences.

Which brings me to my real apology, on behalf of the US Senate. I am sorry to the current generation, already reeling from an economic downturn, for not taking action on legislation that would not only help our environment, but make us more secure and create millions of jobs. I am sorry to the future generations that will have to deal with the brutal effects of climate change because we don’t have the will to stop it from happening. I am sorry that other workers may die and environments will be polluted, because we would rather bicker. I am sorry that we could not stand up, like the House did almost a year ago, for the American people. Mostly I am sorry that we are ignoring the will of those who have elected us.

Polls show that 63 percent of you want us to pass a clean energy bill that would limit pollution and help investment in, and usage of, clean energy. A bill like that would create those jobs and help our security. Yet, here we sit, in the same state of inaction we have been in for months. For that, I apologize.

An apology won’t pass a bill. Action will. While there may be some members of Congress beholden to Big Oil, there are plenty who can step up and heed the call for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. Our national security demands it. Our environment demands it. Our economy demands it.

This country is in a place where a transition from the dirty energy policies of the past to a new, 21st-century clean energy economy is vital. And when it happens, there will be no need to apologize for it.

The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny…

The one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet.

-President Obama addressing the nation from the Oval Office

Just last week we achieved a major victory by rejecting Senator Murkowski’s “Dirty Air Act”, but already we are at another pivotal moment in the fight for our clean energy future.

Senate leadership will soon decide whether to move forward on a comprehensive climate and energy bill or take a weaker “energy only” approach.

Tell them we don’t need a band-aid. We need a climate bill with real solutions to end our addiction to fossil fuels.

Last night, President Obama used his first speech from the Oval Office to show the strong leadership needed for a bold shift to a clean energy economy.

We must demand this same leadership from the Senate.

The President was right that “what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -– our determination to fight for the America we want for our children.”

Right now, our destiny is shaped by our dirty energy addiction. Tell the Senate it’s time to take back control.