Get Connected and Make Change at the State Level!
Southern Energy Network has built and is actively supporting state student networks in five Southern states: Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida; and are working on building capacity to support networks in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Get connected to your state network and join a supportive community of youth around the state committed to building a clean energy future in your state! Share resources, leverage your collective power beyond campus to fight dirty energy facilities and support good local and state energy policies. Most state networks have annual or bi-annual state summits, days of action, and lots of opportunities for leadership!
Highlights from State Networks
- Tennessee students introduced legislation into a mock state legislature, the Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature (TISL), in November 2006. The legislation does the following: 1) mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (i.e. agrees to the Kyoto Protocol), 2) requires all new and renovated state facilities to consider green building guidelines, 3) increases energy efficiency in state facilities by 15% by 2025, and 4) ends coal surface mining in TN (i.e. stops mountaintop mining). All four bills passed the House and Senate and a couple of the bills even made it onto the governor's desk in the spring.
- Students in Florida are working together to pass renewable energy fund initiatives on five University of Florida campuses and then to pass this through the state legislature so that any Florida school could opt in to this initiative. Successful initiatives at these five schools would raise over a $1 million a year for renewable energy and efficiency on these campuses!
- Students in North Carolina collaborated with other environmental groups around the state to plan a day of action to stop Duke Energy's proposed coal plant. Students took the lead on organizing this a day of action against the CEO of Duke Energy and North Carolina's Governor.
- Students in Georgia utilized their state network, the Georgia Students for Sustainability, to overwhelmingly pass a resolution through the student Board of Regents which requested that the board of regents give blanket support to all the states Green Fee's, and which recommended that the Board of Regents make sustainable energy managment plans a priority for development at all state institutions.
