Before submitting the referendum bill to the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) last Tuesday, proponents of renewable energy for the College spent so much time debating the best way to pursue their goal that they almost ran out of time to push a referendum onto the presidential ballot, which has historically drawn higher participation than other campus-wide votes.

The EAC initially considered whether to pass referendum legislation through the council, to ask the administration itself to foot the bill, or to solicit donations, as Quincy House did last April when they powered the House with renewable energy for one week.

With less than three weeks left before this week’s presidential vote, the EAC chose the referendum, which they thought would likely raise more money than a donation drive and send a signal of student support to Mass. Hall.

“Basically,” Pasternack says, “the administration wants to see that students really care about this.”

The administration has already proved they were willing to listen to and act on students’ concerns. In October, the University announced its own sustainability principles in response to students’ concerns about the environmental impact of developing a new campus in Allston.

The first of the six principles, for which University President Lawrence H. Summers has announced his support, states that Harvard will “demonstrat[e] institutional practices that promote sustainability, including measures to increase efficiency and use of renewable resources.”

“With him endorsing and publicly stating that the University should adopt these principles, we should really start to see this movement accelerate,” says Daniel O. Beaudoin, manager of operations, energy and utilities at HSPH.

In addition, some students and staff have argued that the University has a duty to buy renewable energy with some of the money it has saved since 2002 in energy costs thanks to the Resource Efficiency Program (REP).

“If the [Faculty of Arts and Sciences] is showing dollar savings one would question why one wouldn’t invest part of that savings into wind energy,” Beaudoin says.

A GUST OF SUPPORT

The College’s purchase of renewable energy has garnered nearly unequivocal support among the current candidates for council leadership, all of whom co-sponsored the legislation for the referendum.

“I think Harvard should be more environmentally conscious and serve as an example for other schools in this area,” says presidential candidate Matthew J. Glazer ’06.

Teo P. Nicolais ’06, who is also running for president, says the student body and the administration should seriously consider the prospect of the purchase.

“The key thing to evaluate is that whenever we increase a service to students, somehow or other we realize the cost,” Nicolais says, regarding the possibility that administration might match the student contributions. “One way or another that’s going to come out of the University’s budget, and that money could have been used for other services.”

While presidential candidate Tracy T. Moore II ’06 did not respond to requests for comment, Ian W. Nichols ’06, Moore’s running mate, has said he views a termbill fee as only a “temporary solution,” and that the administration should eventually foot the bill for renewable energy.