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Date: 4/19/2022
AMHERST – Sen. Ed Markey visited the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) on April 14 to announce $995,000 in federal funding secured for the university’s Energy Transition Institute (ETI).
ETI is dedicated to helping vulnerable communities and developing solutions for things like grid resilience and clean power generation to inform and ensure an equitable energy transition.
“We’re celebrating a great thing today,” Markey said. “I know how much Amherst cares about climate because about three years ago, I had a climate summit out here and 1,000 people came for two and a half hours to have a discussion about climate. We have an incredible interest in that issue out here and that’s why [Congressman] Jim McGovern and I are thrilled to announce $995,000 to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in order to study climate.”
Markey said the funding will aid ETI in inter-disciplinary climate research and engage communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. He also wants it to educate the next generation of leaders in the clean energy economy.
“ETI is co-created with local partners to develop climate solutions that are equitable and just,” Markey said. “We have to continue to strive to create a clean energy future that leaves absolutely no one behind. It’s well past time that we engage in a full and fast transition to a clean energy economy and that’s what this funding is all aimed at achieving.”
Markey said Massachusetts is at the epicenter of the “crazy chemistry test that the oil and gas and coal industry have been conducting on our planet,” saying that Boston Harbor is the second-fastest warming body of water on the planet.
“We’re at a critical juncture. We have to get this done,” Markey said. “The planet is running a fever and there are no emergency rooms for planets. We have to engage in preventative care and ensure that we provide all of the resources to all of the communities that want to respond to this existential threat to the planet.”
According to Markey, young people already know that the preceding generations haven’t answered the problem correctly.
“It’s up to all of these incredibly creative, idealistic and brilliant students at UMass to be given the resources they need in order to begin in Holyoke. To begin with the problems in the communities that have always been most adversely impacted, but to apply those solutions to everyone.”
Markey was in Holyoke earlier in the day for a press conference at the Independent System Operator of New England headquarters where he protested the nonprofit power systems operator’s proposal to delay the elimination of the Minimum Offer Price Rule, which can prevent some renewable energy and energy storage from qualifying for wholesale electricity auctions.
McGovern said he can’t think of anyone better to make the announcement than Markey, who has been a leader in battling climate change for some time. He said while some refer to projects like ETI and the Green New Deal as socialism, to him they’re revolutionary, signaling to the UMass tagline behind him.
“If anyone has any doubt that we need to commit ourselves to a cleaner, greener future, look what we’re going through now as a result of the war in Ukraine,” McGovern said. “Plus the greed of the fossil fuel industry who are just gouging Americans at the gas pump and their heating bills. We need to make this transition and UMass is going to help lead the way.”