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Over the last two years, OSPIRG’s staff and students helped state officials craft homegrown health reforms to prevent insurance companies from arbitrarily increasing premiums, cut wasteful health care spending, and give consumers more health care choices. These reforms were signed into law by the Governor last June. And a key piece requiring more accountability for insurance companies just went into effect. To win, OSPIRG students and staff wrote report after report showing how Oregonians and small businesses were getting hammered by rising health care costs, and how to solve the problem. This, in turn, generated more media coverage, which in turn, built more support for reform. In the meantime, we met relentlessly with state officials to press the case for reform. According to State Senator Chip Shields and State Representative Chris Harker: “OSPIRG [has] been at the forefront of fighting this battle from the start.” Because Oregon already got the ball rolling, we are now well-positioned to take advantage of the national health care law faster than almost any other state! |
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According to Congressman David Wu: “[OSPIRG’s] string of reports and white papers have shaped the way this country now debates the issue of textbook prices, sharpening our understanding of the issue and charting a clear path to solving the problem.” |
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Afterward, Charles Denson, OSPIRG's Chair, was invited by the White House for two days of meetings with the President’s top global warming advisors - including three Cabinet Secretaries and the EPA Administrator - on how young people can help solve global warming. We are also working with great organizations across the state like the Sierra Club to persuade Oregon officials to close Boardman, Oregon’s sole coal plant. If we succeed, we will be even closer to getting Oregon completely committed to a clean energy future of wind, solar and energy efficiency - and hopefully we never look back. |
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OSPIRG staff and students across the country worked for over a decade to build support for these reform ideas. We launched a national campaign and hired professional staff to work for us in Washington DC and coordinate the work of students around the country. We wrote reports and guide books for students showing how students were getting ripped off by credit card companies, we got reporters to relentlessly cover the issue, including the New York Times and we pressed lawmakers to pay attention to the problem. |
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To build public support, our staff and students have authored several reports, generated statewide media coverage, and are working with people like Mayor Piercy, Congressman DeFazio, State Representative Nathanson, and small business owners from across the state to get more lawmakers on board with more investments in public transit. |
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Together, we’ve helped tens of thousands of students register and vote since 2000. And, we’ve worked with social scientists from Yale University on groundbreaking experiments on voter turnout techniques that are now used across the country to increase youth voter turnout. |
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The law increases the maximum Pell Grant to $5,975 by 2017 so that more students can attend College without the looming threat of crushing debt. The law also expands the Income Based Repayment program which will allow over one million additional students the ability to manage their debt load after graduation. And perhaps best of all, it won't cost taxpayers a dime because it's funded by cutting wasteful hand-outs to banks and loan companies like Sallie Mae and Citibank. By ending these corporate hand-outs, Congress voted to support students, not Wall Street banks. OSPIRG student chapter money was not used to lobby for this bill. However, OSPIRG's staff and students spent years working with groups like OSA and USSA to demonstrate the need to end wasteful loan subsidies to lenders. Our research reports were widely reported on in the media, our Student Debt Alert campaign put students’ debt situation in front of influential policy-makers, and our Washington DC staff met with key federal players on this issue. You can read more about the final vote in this New York Times story, which includes a quote from Rich Williams, OSPIRG’s federal higher education advocate. To all of you over the years who shared your loan debt stories, thank you. You helped elevate the profile of this issue into something that politicians felt the need to do something about. |
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The University of Oregon chapter – led by Joel Durr - worked with Campus Recycling to educate the student body about the environmental and financial benefits to the university of reducing the university’s waste stream through composting. We found that students were really supportive of expanding the University’s composting program, collected hundreds of signatures and persuaded the administration to fund a pilot composting program at UO. This year, we will work to evaluate the program’s effectiveness and assuming it demonstrates its worth, advocate for the program to be fully funded. |
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