Cornell, U. Maryland Students Support Clean Energy

Adopted from the Cornell Daily Sun, dated May 3, 2007:

A proposal to charge students at the University of Maryland — College Park a small fee to purchase clean energy received overwhelming support from the undergraduate community.

Student leaders at UMD are hoping that the University administration will implement this fee by 2008 or 2009. The proposed fee would start at $4 and increase by $2 every year to reach a maximum price of $12.

According to a UMD Energy press release, if fully implemented, the fee would raise enough money to purchase 137,000 Megawatt hours of clean electricity per year at today’s prices and would be the largest purchase to date by a college or university in the United States.

The vote on the fee declared 91 percent of the UMD undergraduate community in favor of the fee. This came as no small surprise to many, as tuition and fees have been on the rise at UMD in the past several years.

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