Accomplishments
Campus Climate Challenge
WashPIRG students at The Evergreen State College helped organize a referendum where students voted to have the campus buy 100% renewable energy through the Green Tags program. The program is funded through a $1 per credit student fee, and 10% of the money goes to fund research for local renewable energy projects. Now Evergreen students are working with the campus administration to create a sustainability plan for the future. This plan involves using 100% recycled paper on campus, reducing energy use, and installing on-campus renewable energy sources.
Clean Cars
To address the problem of auto pollution, WashPIRG students campaigned successfully to pass tough auto emissions standards in Washington. As part of this campaign, students hosted car shows that showcased low emission vehicles, and generated TV, radio and newspaper coverage in Olympia and Seattle.
New Voters Project
WashPIRG students working on our New Voters Project in 2004 registered over 3,000 voters and contacted over 7000 students to remind them to vote. This contributed to an 11% increase in youth voter turnout nationwide.
Hurricane Katrina Relief
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, WashPIRG students traveled to New Orleans over spring break to aid in the relief effort. They raised over $4000 for the trip and to purchase supplies needed to help with the reconstruction of the city. Numerous community fundraising and educational events were held, and upon returning from the trip, students followed up with educational forums for the public detailing the Katrina crisis.
Forest Protection
WashPIRG reporting helped show that half of our national forests were disappearing due to destructive activities such as logging, road-building, and mining. This prompted WashPIRG to play an important role in convincing the Clinton Administration to move to protect over 2 million acres of forests here in Washington and 58 million acres across the country of National Forests from such activities. WashPIRG is now working to ensure that the Bush administration implements the plan.
Cleaning up Washington's Waterways
WashPIRG staff helped to sercure funding for the Department of Ecology to implement its proposed program to eliminate discharges of persistent bioaccumulative toxics like lead, mercury and dioxin. This legislative session, WashPIRG, in coalition with a number of environmental groups across the state, worked on legislation to ban mercury from our consumer products.
Developers Defeated
Working with a coalition of groups, WashPIRG's Aisling Kerins helped defeat developer-backed Initiative 745, which would have required the state to allocate 90 percent of its transportation budget to road-building. The victory helped preserve hope that Washington can create a sustainable and effective public transit system in the Puget Sound area.
Stopping Student Debt, Increasing Federal Financial Aid
WashPIRG students worked to keep college affordable by getting over 250 students to make phone calls to Congress in opposition to a $13 billion cut in federal financial aid funding. They also organized college students from all over the state to tell their own stories about the importance of student aid before the Commission on the Future Higher Education. At Evergreen, students created a task force to ensure continuing involvement with the student aid campaign. Higher Education
WashPIRG worked with a national coalition to convince the
U.S. House of Representatives to pass HR 5, which would cut in half the
interest rate on student loans. The bill passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support, by a vote of 356 to 71. The bill would lower
interest rates over five years on subsidized Stafford student loans,
which are used overwhelmingly by students from low- and middle-income
families. This would save the average low or middle-income borrower
starting school in 2007 $2,300 in debt.
Credit Card Marketing
WashPIRG's groundbreaking report of credit card marketing on campus has prompted legislation and other policies to restrict misleading marketing of credit cards to college students.
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