On a 27-degree morning Senator Barbara Boxer was in a windowless conference room on Washington's Capitol Hill to hear from a group of fashionably dressed Southern Californian women whose sun-streaked hair and unseasonable tans belied a less-than-sunny mission: to push the US Government to act on global warming.

"We represent the entertainment community," says Kelly Chapman Meyer, whose husband, Ron, is the president of Universal Studios Group. "We use our resources and our connections to push for environmental issues."

"We want a climate bill that's not going to die," says Colleen Bell, a philanthropist and writer whose husband, Bradley, is the executive producer and head writer of the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

Meyer told Boxer, a Democrat who is one of her home senators, that warmer weather has intensified climate-related problems in the lapping waves near her house in Malibu. "I'm a surfer," she said. "The algae bloom is insane."

Boxer said she was working to push climate legislation through the Senate, adding that she also worried about global warming. "We can see it happening, we can feel it happening," she said. "The fashion industry is so upset because they can't sell their cashmere sweaters."

When you are the wife of a movie mogul, you can do more than simply complain about the unusual weather that is wreaking havoc on your favorite surf break. Equipped with a Hollywood aura and impeccable social connections - not to mention sheaves of data-filled talking points - you can count on at least 20 minutes' worth of respectful attention in Washington, with legislators willing to throw open their doors for activists who share the last names of some deep-pocketed donors.

Which is why a team of eco-wives from the entertainment industry descended on Washington last week, hoping to ride a bit of the momentum from Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize in a city that can be unusually receptive to Hollywood celebrity, even if it has been deadlocked over environmental legislation this year.

The five women - members of the Leadership Council, which was founded seven years ago by Laurie David, the soon-to-be-former wife of Larry David, and Elizabeth Wiatt, whose husband, Jim, is the chief executive of the William Morris Agency - raced through private meetings with 11 senators and representatives in 29 hours. They argued that the eerily muggy autumn should inspire more than chit-chat in the lifts of Capitol Hill.

"These people have stacks of paper on their desk this thick," Meyer said of the lawmakers, holding her palm at eye level. "The point is to make sure that we get our agenda at the top of the pile."

With their connections and fund-raising abilities, they have a better chance than the average constituent. The fresh-faced, athletic Meyer is an ardent skier who grew up in Colorado. She is a chairwoman of the 29-member Leadership Council (formerly the Action Forum), an all-star team of greens working the moneyed hillsides of Los Angeles County, from Beverly Hills to Malibu.

Besides Meyer and Bell, the team included Dayna Kalins Bochco, the president of Steven Bochco Productions (her husband, Steven, is a creator of NYPD Blue), Gwen McCaw (her husband, John, is a telecommunications billionaire), and Linda Stewart, who runs a branding and advertising firm called Cucoloris. (Laurie David was at home tending to other matters.)

Glamour does have the power to open doors in Washington, said T.R. Goldman, a senior editor at the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, who oversees lobbying coverage.

"Washington has a bit of an insecurity complex when it comes to dealing with Hollywood," Goldman said. "When confronted by the might of Hollywood, these people listen."

But some observers roll their eyes when Hollywood tries to muscle through Congress. Kenneth Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said the women were "entitled to their opinion, but they're laymen, essentially". Hollywood, he said, lived far away "from the economic lives of normal people who don't have drivers and don't get flown on Learjets". Would the media, he asked, be covering it if a group of plumbers came to town?

The New York Times