WASHINGTON: Dozens of US teenagers occupied the office of the top Republican lawmaker on Thursday to protest against an expected government shutdown that they say will exacerbate the climate crisis.
The Sunrise Movement, a nationwide youth environmental campaign, said around thirty of its members flooded inside House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office while more than 100 crowded the hallway outside.
The group says eighteen protesters were arrested by police after refusing to disperse, AFP reported.
Ariela Lara, 17, a high school senior from the Bay Area in California, said that our generation is on the front lines of the climate crisis. We sit at the center of climate disaster and government neglect, and that is what we have been seeing from the Republican Party, particularly McCarthy, who is the face of it all.
Brandishing signs that read “The GOP Hates Gen Z” — a reference to the Republicans’ “Grand Old Party” moniker — the climate activists delivered speeches and sang protest songs during their half-hour “occupation” of McCarthy’s office.
McCarthy was not present during the protest at his office.
Demonstrators said that they were warned by police to move on, and that the arrests came after much of the group continued to block access to the doorway.
The government is likely to shut down this weekend, meaning potentially millions of federal workers sent home or working without pay, with Congress paralyzed by demands for spending reductions from the Republican right and unable to pass a budget for next year.
Climate activists’ concerns
The Sunrise Movement has expressed concerns over funding for emergency disaster relief and pro-climate provisions in President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.
