Congress is heading back home for the August recess this week. Apparently our Senators need to rest after they failed to take up both a clean energy and climate bill and an oil spill bill.

Legislative inaction must be more tiring than I realized.

Still, I don’t view this month as a cooling off period. If anything, it’s time to turn up the heat.

Over the next few weeks, Senators will be holding “town hall meetings” in their states. Last year, these meetings came to define the health care debate. This year, they could help us reshape America’s energy policy.

If you are like me and you are still stunned that the Senate refused to pass a bill that would have created nearly 2 million new American jobs, put our nation at the forefront of the clean energy market and helped end our addiction to oil, then go to a town hall meeting and tell your lawmakers what you think.

Tell them that it is in America’s best interest to embrace clean energy now.

And while you are at it, please tell them to block attempts by some Senators to weaken the Clean Air Act-the 40-year-old law that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives-in an effort to further delay reductions in global warming pollution.  

Some naysayers claim that voting on visionary legislation is a risky proposition when we are this close to an election. They are wrong, and history proves it.

As I wrote in a recent blog post, 13 of the most powerful environmental laws were passed during the fall of an election year or in the lame duck sessions following elections.  

We can pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall, but only if we demand it of our lawmakers.

Use this August to make your voices heard. You can find your Senators’ schedules by checking their Senate websites, as well as their candidate websites – Republican or Democratic.

In the aftermath of 9/11, we saw thousands of workers develop devastating respiratory conditions and other illnesses as a result of exposure to toxic dust that filled the air in the days and weeks after the twin towers fell. To this day, these peoples’ plight continues to add misery to the ongoing tragedy of 9/11. What makes it even worse is that these people were assured the air was safe.   As we all know now, it wasn’t.

Today, sadly, history may be repeating itself in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Thank you to Ligia Ercius-Dipaola, who posted this video on the NRDC Action Fund Facebook Page)

Amazingly, despite reports like this one, BP “continues to pretend that – just like an oil spill of this magnitude could never happen – there also could not possibly be a worker health concern.”  While the potential health hazards posed by chemical dispersants and oil itself are debatable, it is clear that significant risks existed.  

Already, we’ve seen evidence of the impact that spilled oil can have on human health. For starters, an increasing number of workers and residents in Gulf Coast areas have reported “suffering from nausea, vomiting, headaches and difficulty breathing.”  Considering that oil contains “petroleum hydrocarbons, which are toxic and irritating to the skin and airways”, as well as volatile chemicals “which can cause acute health effects such as headaches, dizziness and nausea” it’s no surprise that these symptoms are appearing.

(Thank you to Gary Chattem, who posted this on the NRDC Action Fund Facebook Wall)

So now, with the “60 exposure-related complaints filed with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals”, not to mention the “overwhelming evidence that many of the compounds found in crude oil are dangerous,” shouldn’t BP be protecting the people who are cleaning up this mess? If they aren’t doing so, why aren’t they?

The bottom line is this: people along the Gulf Coast deserve to know the facts regarding the dangers they are facing and how to protect themselves.  It’s bad enough that their economic livelihoods are in danger of destruction in part due to BP’s greed and recklessness.  But if their lungs and other organs are damaged by oil and dispersant particles in the air, more than their economic livelihoods could be damaged.

None of us should ever forget that this disaster was brought on, at least in part, by BP cutting corners to save a few (million) bucks, and by the government’s failure to prevent the company from doing so.  As a result, the unthinkable has happened.  We must learn from those grave mistakes, not repeat them.  That means, in the long term, ridding ourselves of our dangerous, destructive addition to oil.  But what must happen now – right now – is for BP to stop cutting corners with the health of the people cleaning up the Gulf.

At the minimum, BP must switch its philosophy from “hope for the best” to “do whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to make sure people are safe.”  If BP won’t “make it right,” as the company’s ads like to say, then the government should force BP to do so.  In the words of one Venice, LA mother: “I’ve got the two most beautiful children in the world. If something were to happen to them, how could I look in those baby blues and say, Mommy didn’t know?”  It’s a great question.  What’s the answer, BP?

One of my first real memories of tragedy was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. My entire school was cheering on teacher Christa McAuliffe, and when the shuttle blew up in midair, I remember standing with my sobbing classmates, trying to make sense of what we had witnessed.

As an adult, I felt a similar connection the day after September 11. In the midst of a national crisis, Congressmen from both parties and both chambers stood on the Capitol stairs and sang “God Bless America.” I will never forget that moment and the sense of common cause it inspired in all who heard it.

Shared national experiences are pretty powerful things.  Although one can’t really compare a terrorist attack on our nation to a mechanical failure that causes catastrophic loss, the experience of communal mourning is still similar…denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  But what this list does not mention is “resolve”.  No one can deny that regardless the nature of the event, when this nation marches to the same drummer, it creates a powerful beat that can move mountains.

Yet I didn’t feel that sense of common cause last month when the Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 people.  I didn’t feel it when the oil erupted like a volcano, gushing endlessly into the Gulf of Mexico. And I still don’t feel it even as the local tourism industry shuts down, fisheries are closed, water is endangered and the ecosystem is in peril.

Plenty of people are concerned about the Gulf, but it hasn’t permeated the national mood yet. In fact, instead of honoring the loss of life and examining the ongoing risk, some lawmakers seem to want us to forget all about this tragedy.

House Republicans have responded to the situation in the Gulf by talking about gas prices and calling for expanded offshore oil drilling.  The Energy Rapid Response team they have assembled doesn’t even include a member from the Gulf Coast–only landlocked lawmakers who aren’t affected by the pain of oil spills.

It must be easy to whine about paying more at the pump when your constituents aren’t dealing with cleaning up an oil slick that is spreading by the day.

In all fairness to the droning, disconnected Energy Rapid Response team, we do have some elected officials actually from the area who are choosing to side with the oil companies instead of their constituents.

Senator Mary Landrieu, also known as the oil industry’s PR director, is begging people not to rush to judgment even as her state’s wildlife refuges are coated with oil and Louisiana’s economy is threatened.  She claims to be on the side of the mom and pop drillers.  Wow.  If a big oil company like BP is having a tough time cleaning up their massive, historical mess, can you image what would happen if this kind of explosion happened to a small driller?

If there is one Member of Congress that gives me some hope it is West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who has met tragedy with the courage to stand up to negligent, dirty energy companies.  West Virginia was the site of the April 5, 2010 collapse at the Upper Big Branch coal mine that killed 29 people and injured 2 others.

Senator Byrd took time to reflect on the tragedy.  Instead of being an apologist for Massey Coal Company, he is representing the best interests of his constituents by demanding that dirty energy is made to pay for their mess and that West Virginians reexamine the role of the coal industry in their state.

Dirty energy has consequences.  We see that very clearing in the Gulf and in West Virginia.  We see how we pay the price for dirty oil and coal in losses: the loss of life, the loss of fishing and tourism jobs, the loss of economic growth and the loss of ecosystems that sustain us.

Loss is what happens when you make a pact with dirty energy. And even though we may not necessarily have a national drum beat quite yet, Americans are beginning to recognize that we can break this dangerous pact. Seven in ten say that it’s time to break our dangerous addiction to oil by fast-tracking clean energy legislation and by increasing our use of sustainable and renewable power and fuels. We can shift to cleaner technologies–things like fuel-efficient cars and renewable power–that will slash our reliance on oil and coal.

I would much rather see Americans rally around the promise of clean energy than yet another fossil fuel disaster. Wouldn’t you?

Heather Taylor-Miesle is the director of the NRDC Action Fund. Become a fan on Facebook or Twitter.