Ohio High Schooler Gives Most Powerful Testimony in the Face of Big Coal

On Tuesday, January 20th, almost two hundred people came out to Cleveland City Hall for the final public hearing on FirstEnergy's request for the public to bail out the ancient Sammis Coal plant and Davis-Besse nuclear plant to the tune of $3 billion.

During Tuesday's five-hour marathon hearing, dozens of members of the public stood up to testify in opposition to FirstEnergy.  The hearing was so lopsided, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's headline on the hearing referred to it as a "pummeling." (Read a wrap-up of the whole "no coal bailouts" campaign here)

While personal stories and cheers for participants abounded, one particular volunteer's story stood out. Hilary Vogelbaum (pictured above on the right with her mom Judy Rosman), a 16-year-old high school student, delivered powerful testimony about her hope for the future and why she believes FirstEnergy's request should be rejected.  When she finished, the crowd not only burst into applause, they were all on their feet. 

We’re excited to share her testimony with you:

Good evening Commissioner.  My name is Hilary Vogelbaum.  I live Moreland Hills, OH.  I am 16-years-old, and I am a junior (in high school).  I am grateful to have the opportunity to have my voice and opinion heard.

I am extremely disappointed and saddened that anyone at First Energy would with a straight face ask to keep the Samis Coal Plant and Davis Besse nuclear power plant operating at full capacity for the next fifteen years. 

I care very deeply about our environment, and facilities like the Sammis Coal Burning Power Plant are exactly the type of facilities we should be seeking to phase out, not facilities we should seek to keep going at full capacity for another 15 years by giving them special financial deals.  It is my greatest hope that the members of the Public Utilities Commission will remember that it is NOT OK to keep pushing the cost of producing energy today onto future generations by imposing on us terrible environmental costs. 

I have a unique personal experience that I would like to share with you.  I have had the privilege of doing research on development of organic solar cells at Case Western Reserve University in the lab of Dr. Genevieve Sauve.  I cannot begin to tell you the passion that the researchers in Dr. Sauve's lab and similar labs have for moving our world to a new future of clean energy.  But these labs are struggling for survival because of lack of funding.  Often, our experiments would be put on hold because of lack of supplies or broken equipment. In a lab, where the future of clean energy can be born, funds to simply complete the projects are very, very hard to come by! 

Unlike the executives of First Energy, these researchers are barely making a living.  It takes a long time to get meaningful research done because of lack of supplies, equipment and personnel.  If we had the same funds for renewable energy research that First energy is asking for as a subsidy for its outdated coal and nuclear plants, we would have innumerable new jobs because we would create a thriving new renewable energy industry.

Let me give you some idea of what I am talking about.  The average National Science Foundation grant is about $150,000 a year to do new research.  That will fund two grad students plus supplies for a year.  I am begging you not to approve First Energy’s request, which will only prolong the life of a dirty old coal plant and an outdated nuclear facility which aren’t even naturally profitable.  Imagine what we could do if we took the $3 billion that First Energy wants consumers to pay over 15 years and put that money into renewable energy research. 

Instead, First Energy is asking that you approve giving them unfathomable amounts of money to prop up old technology, when we could look to the future, to MY future and the future of my generation, and create new, clean technologies right here in Ohio which would not have the same negative environmental impact as the Sammis coal burning power plant and the dangerous risks of the Davis Besse Nuclear Plant.

First Energy may sing some sad song about needing to preserve jobs at the existing plants. 

Perhaps because I am only 16, I see the future more than the past.  But I am asking you to think about it.  Think about the enormous number of jobs that would be created if instead of propping up old technologies, we invested in the future of energy by creating labs like the one I worked in which would create cheap, efficient solar power and other forms of renewable energy.

Every time a new industry is created, we need new factories, new engineers, new management positions, new line workers, new marketing efforts and all kinds of things that create new jobs of every kind.  Those are the new jobs we should be creating.

I want to be sure that there ARE jobs for my generation in the industry…not dirty coal jobs, or dangerous nuclear plant jobs, but clean tech engineering and production and sales jobs.  To create these kinds of jobs, we need to let our old technologies die instead of propping them up.  I am asking you to turn down First Energy;s request to prop up its old energy plants that use old, dirty and dangerous technologies which have huge environmental impacts and risks, and instead approve only measures which will help invest in a future of clean renewable energy.