Proceed With Caution

In efforts to change an entrenched status-quo, especially at Harvard, there comes a point when sheer idealism must be abandoned in favor of a more practical solution. For the Environmental Action Committee’s struggle to get an optional wind energy fee on the termbill, we believe that point is now. After 82 percent of voters favored the termbill fee in last month’s Undergraduate Council election, little doubt was left as to whether the issue of wind power was a priority for students. As we said then, there is no reason why the University cannot be a leader in a new wave of smarter, cleaner energy consumption.

Since that vote, however, Harvard administrators have shown surprisingly strong resistance to using the termbill in this way. They have instead hinted that the College might purchase wind power through some other mechanism. The merits of using clean wind power, regardless of its source of funding, are of such overriding importance that we are open to weighing alternative strategies. But it would be premature for the Faculty Council to vote on the proposal at this time as it currently plans to do at its Jan. 26 meeting. Instead, the Council should demand that the administration propose a viable, concrete plan for funding wind energy as an alternative to the termbill fee. Only once this alternative has been fleshed out should the Council decide whether to approve or deny the student referendum. We hope the Council postpones its deliberations.

Skeptics of the termbill fee insist that the College should not entangle itself with social action, or short of that, they argue that the termbill is an inappropriate place to do it. We disagree. There is no compelling reason why the term bill cannot not be used. The strongest argument against using the termbill is that it would force students into supporting something with which they did not agree. However, because of the overwhelming majority that supported the referendum and the fact that it will be optional, anti-democratic concerns seem to be of little merit.

Other opponents have made the case that while there is nothing particularly wrong with putting a renewable energy option on the termbill, this will start us down the slippery slope of a termbill bloated with a laundry list of various optional fees. This logic is tenuous at best. While a termbill saddled with all kinds of various fees would certainly be regrettable, it is not clear what other sorts of fees are about to be added. Additionally, we are confident that the issue of global climate change is of such singular importance that its placement on the termbill is warranted.

While we would prefer the use of the termbill, the exact source of funding is not of upmost importance. If the termbill fee is eventually revealed to be an impossibility, due to faculty or administration resistance, another suitable outcome would be an announcement that the College was following the example of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. That graduate school notably changed its energy policy, and a took a lead well worth following, by converting its energy use to wind power. The way it did this is even more admirable, not through an optional fee or other end-runs around bureaucracy but through regular budgetary procedures.

The potential for such an announcement is not as farfetched as it might seem. While University President Lawrence H. Summers and other key administrators have made their opposition to the passage of the termbill fee well-known, they have hinted that there may be an alternative way to fund the use of wind power. We applaud the signs of imminent action and are open to any new proposals the administration may present. This is especially true if, as has been suggested, they end up transferring more energy use to wind power than the termbill proposal would.

Yet drawing up such a proposal takes time. Unless the Faculty Council is provided with a substantive wind energy plan before they meet in 12 days, they will not be able to examine the termbill proposal alongside its alternatives. Since such a comparison is crucial, we urge the Council to delay its consideration of the termbill fee until such a time that Harvard administrators provide them with a fully developed alternative. Termbills for the spring term have already been drawn up, so this issue no longer has the same urgency it did a month ago. The Council can thus err on the side of caution and not risk derailing the entire wind energy movement at Harvard. It should be remembered, though, that a delay in the vote does not lessen Harvard’s obligation to enact some sort of wind energy proposal. The student body has overwhelmingly stated that it considers wind energy worth paying for, the school would be wise to heed that voice.