Galvanizing the troops around efficiency
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 20, 2009
"I think we had a major impact on the thinking going on in the Legislature," says Rob Brown, executive director of Opportunity Maine, the non-profit that previously focused on keeping young, educated Mainers in the state, which submitted its own energy-related bill (through Democratic Bowdoinham representative Seth Berry) to the Legislature; many of its provisions were folded into the bill as it exists today, albeit not as aggressively as OppME would have hoped, especially on questions of funding and green-skills education.
Indeed, this issue is serving as a catalyst for players inside and outside the State House to form a young alliance that includes organizations such as Opportunity Maine and the League of Young Voters, as well as a young, new set of legislators. This makes sense, given the recent generational push toward all things green. As reporter David Bernstein noted in a May 11 Boston Phoenix article about the broadly defined "Millennial" generation of eco-friendly young adults: "Global warming, more than any other issue, carries an urgency among Millennials of all backgrounds and ideologies ... To this generation, this fight is not only about climate change — it is about creating green jobs and increasing national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil." Bernstein was making those observations to show that the Republican Party risks alienating yet another demographic if they ignore sound, far-reaching, sustainable energy policy. We highlight them here to point out that the Legislature has the public support and interest to create revolutionary legislation in Augusta, in whatever form makes sense here (Bernstein's article talked specifically about support for national greenhouse-gas cap-and-trade policies).
"Young freshman Democratic legislators really strongly advocated for workforce development" in the context of energy efficiency, says Portland's Diane Russell, one of those representatives, who calls weatherization and increased energy efficiency a "moral imperative." Russell adds: "We've really banded together and have created this informal next-generation caucus."
Let's see what they can do.
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