DEL.ICIO.USStudents lobby for green spending of stimulus money
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, February 19, 2009
About 30 college students from metro Atlanta rallied on the state Capitol steps Thursday morning to demand that the state direct some of the federal $787 billion stimulus package toward green jobs.
Criticizing Georgia’s reliance on coal for electricity, the students said they want the state to support clean-energy alternatives, such as solar and wind energy.
Political Insider:
Gone fishing.
Gold Dome Live:
2009 Legislature Guide:
• Track bills & more!
• Issues | Players | Links
Related Links:
• More Georgia politics
• Metro News
• National News
“We are both struggling to find jobs after graduation and worried that coal energy is not sustainable in the long run,” said Daniel Spiller, an Emory University senior and an event organizer with Metro Atlanta Students for Sustainability.
The students wore green hard hats and carried signs saying “Green Jobs Now.”
“It doesn’t make sense to pay more for a worse form of electricity,” Spiller said.
The students, who also hail from Morehouse College, Georgia Tech, Spellman College and Clark Atlanta University, planned to lobby their legislators to support House Bill 276, which would prohibit Georgia’s coal plants from using coal obtained through mountaintop removal by July 2016.
The bill would also place a moratorium on new coal plants until 2014. It would effectively stop a coal plant that was permitted but not yet built in south Georgia’s Early County by an out-of-state energy company, and another proposed plant in Washington County by in-state electrical cooperatives.
The students also planned to ask legislators to support Senate Bill 147, which would require 20 percent of the electricity sold in Georgia by 2030 to come from renewable and recoverable sources such as solar energy and landfill gases.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
