There's this club throughout many different school districts called 'Model Congress' in which students create bills and try to pass them in committees and eventually full sessions (if they pass in committee).
I just joined the club this year, so I was late to the signup for a trip to a college. But a few people dropped out, so some spots opened up, and I ended up being assigned to the Committee of Commerce, Science and Transportation in the Blue Senate (blue senate =/= democrat specifically, just the color they use). I wasn't too jazzed about being in that committee, but I was mostly glad I was able to go. I found out my committee the day the bill was due, and this was my first bill ever, so I rushed to create it. I called it 'An Act to Combat Climate Change Through Nuclear Technology', and its goal was to construct nuclear power plants in the United States where they are the most beneficial.
Most of the opposition to the bill, in Committee and the Full Session, was due to concerns about the safety of nuclear energy. Thankfully I prepared specifically for that and had a lot of notes on me.
That really helped when people made con speeches about how nuclear energy isn't safe because of Fukushima, because I had notes on hand, so I was just like, "Is the speaker aware that there are no proven, recorded deaths from Fukushima?"
First, I had to get the bill passed in Committee. Despite not being very excited about the Committee was assigned to, overall I definitely enjoyed it and learned quite a bit. Interestingly, in Committee, the first opposition the bill faced (so in the main con speech) was that it was deducting money from the Department of Defense. That was easily cleared with an Amendment to the bill so that it deducted money from multiple departments. One guy also was concerned about the fact that my bill was targeting cities with the highest population density. He asked if a small city with a high proportion of people for its size (so it could have a tiny population but be very tiny) should get priority over a large city with a smaller DENSITY.
That was also easily fixed with an Amendment making the bill target cities that require the most energy to function. Those were the only Amendments made in Committee, and the bill passed comfortably, despite concerns raised by some members about nuclear safety.It was easy to respond to those concerns with my notes, particularly because I could point out how every nuclear disaster basically happened due to bad engineering and human error, and explain why that's true for Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, and so therefore that it's not a problem innate to nuclear reactors.
Then, the next day (which is earlier today), I introduced the bill in full. One delegate made a really wonderful Amendment that changed the bill from contracting the businesses to giving them tax breaks.
Basically, before in my bill, the government would provide businesses with money necessary to build the plants, and every large reactor costed ten billion dollars on average. The tax breaks saved money for the government and encouraged more businesses to create power plants. So I really supported that Amendment. However, I think it conflicts with some of the other sections of the bill and/or makes them irrelevant, so I probably should've amended those as well in hindsight. But that's fine, because it passed.
Again, there was a lot of concern about nuclear safety, particularly with storage of nuclear waste, which I didn't end up getting to comment on (the nuclear waste part), except with one question in the beginning. But that's fine. Some people also raised concerns about terrorism, and I didn't get to respond to that either. But in the end it didn't matter. Besides, even a con speaker said the terrorism concern was bunk.
With the first vote, it didn't pass. It was something like 38 35 3, so more in favor than opposed, but the three abstentions counted as votes against it. I motioned to divide the house, which basically means you can't abstain, and with that it was TIED. I thought that meant it wouldn't pass, but apparently if it ties the President of the Senate (or something, basically the Chair who oversees everything in the room) votes, and he voted for it so it passed.
I think I needed this small political victory.
First Bernie Sanders lost, and then Donald Trump won, and that politician I was campaigning for in a town near me lost, and the school isn't doing much about a discriminating club at my school. But I'm good with this. If anyone has a Model Congress at their school, I really recommend joining.
Which I could've easily fixed but apparently I'm a moron who didn't realize the bills would probably go into another level.
