Gore’s global-warming testimony expected to draw big crowds

When former Vice President Al Gore testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday about the dangers of global warming, committees in both chambers expect huge turnouts.

Not only do committees plan to open overflow rooms to hold staffers and members of the press, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee will re-locate to a larger room.

{mosads}“We’re seeing extremely strong interest in all quarters,” an EPW staffer said. The EPW hearing will be held at 2 p.m. in Dirksen 106, “a pretty large, theater-style room,” a second Senate aide said. “It’s one of the biggest we have. … I assume there will be some protesters there.”

The EPW staffer said the hearing “could run as long as three hours.” Gore, who recently won an Oscar for his documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth,” is slated to speak for 30 minutes before taking questions.

No one is testifying on the Republican side, the Senate committee aide said. GOP staff did not return calls for comment by press time.

Things aren’t looking any less claustrophobic in the lower chamber, where Bjorn Lomborg, a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, is slated to testify for Republicans.

“It’s going to be a nightmare,” said a House aide who is handling media requests for the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Air Quality panel and the House Science and Technology Committee Energy and Environment subcommittee joint hearing. It is set for 9:30 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn Office Building.

“Pretty much everyone is calling in from out of town and everyone in town is calling,” the aide continued.

Not everyone shares the space concern. The House is “accustomed to dealing with hearings of this size.” a spokeswoman for the Science and Technology Committee, Alisha Prather, said. Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider indicated her department will operate routinely.

Chris Van Horne, owner and president of CVK Group, which charges $35 to $50 an hour to wait in line for clients, said yesterday they may send people to wait overnight to secure a room.

“I’m sure phones will start ringing off the hook” Tuesday, Van Horne said.

The Congressional Services Company, another group that sends people to wait in line for hearings, suggested yesterday that they may already have people in queue although only of a handful or requests had come in by yesterday, said President and Founder John Likens.

“[Many of our clients] don’t want to deal with the circus,” Likens said. “[They’re] going to watch it from the office.”