Student advocacy group calls for clean energy use

When the Massachusetts Legislature passed a resolution calling for the federal government to use 100 percent clean energy within the next 10 years, its success was shared; local advocacy group Massachusetts Power Shift help energize the measure’s supporters.

MAPS, a student-run environmental advocacy organization, which wrote the bill at the beginning of the year, first presented the resolution to the state Senate March 9. Senate Republicans initially blocked the resolution twice, but it ultimately passed. The bill moved on to the House, where it was passed the same day representatives received it.

Although the resolution is non-binding and does not have to be signed by the governor, MAPS activists said they hope their goal will put political pressure on other states and the federal government to pass aggressive measures to combat climate change.

President Barack Obama’s administration aims to ‘ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025,’ according to the White House website. The 100 percent clean energy goal set by MAPS and the Massachusetts General Court, however, far exceeds the one set by national leadership.

‘We do think [the goal] is feasible and that it’s the most progressive idea on the table right now,’ MAPS Campaign Co-Coordinator and Boston University College of Arts and Sciences junior Nick Dahlberg said. ‘However, we are content in the fact that if it doesn’t work it makes other actions look moderate.’

Massachusetts legislators have already passed several climate change bills in the past year. However, this resolution is the first of its kind from any state, Dahlberg said.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton) and Rep. Frank Smizik (D-Brookline), who co-sponsored the resolution, said MAPS worked with both the House and the Senate to create the resolution and ensure it passed.

‘It was their advocacy that convinced Rep. Smizik to bring it to the House, so all credit to them for pushing forward on this issue,’ Smizik’s staff director Ben Healey said.

Pacheco said MAPS kept pushing for the House and Senate to move the resolution forward to a national level.

‘[MAPS] was very involved and instrumental in this movement to see if we couldn’t make a statement and push forward on the state level and nationally,’ he said.

MAPS activists said they still see their goal as possible, although it is somewhat of a ‘daunting task.’

‘ ‘We think that climate change is a really urgent issue and it’s not something that falls on either side of the political spectrum ‘-‘- it’s something that affects all of us,’ Dahlberg said.

Lisa Conley, a counsel for the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, said Massachusetts has an opportunity to be a leader on this issue because it has set the most aggressive goals in the country, after California.

‘We’re a smaller state, so the environmental impact will probably be less than in California, but as far as being an individual state, we are more than doing our part,’ Conley said.