community news
august1
2019
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Digging into Cap-and-Trade continued from front page
health and well being of Oregonians,
and ensure Oregon’s economy remains
vibrant. In 2010, the Commission
launched “Roadmap to 2020,” designed
to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduc-
tion goals. According to the Commission
Oregon’s current levels of greenhouse
gas emissions are well above the State’s
2020 goal. Projected emissions under
current policies does not put Oregon on
a path toward achieving its long-term
2050 goals. The Commission’s goals,
along with membership in the Under2
Coalition, were the driving forces be-
hind HB 2020.
Following the failure of HB
2020 Governor Brown said she and oth-
er Democrats across the state had been
elected in 2018 with a “clear mandate”
to address climate change. “Let me be
clear, I am not backing down,” she said.
The impacts on energy costs
For part two of this series I
spoke with Oregon State Senator Betsy
Johnson, a Democrat, whose opposi-
tion to HB 2020 helped sink it in the
Senate. Johnson referred me to the re-
search and opinions of Greg Peterson,
a professional engineer from Corvallis,
with 45 years experience in government
infrastructure and energy systems. “I’m
all for reducing our carbon footprint, but
the U.S. is already leading the world in
GHG reduction, by using more efficient
vehicles, conservation, and converting
to natural gas power plants,” says Peter-
son. “HB 2020’s goal of reducing 1990
greenhouse gases by 80% is double that
needed to make Oregon carbon neutral.”
Peterson did his own extensive
work, analyzing HB 2020 in great depth,
including its impacts on energy systems
and costs, and how it would impact Or-
egonians use of motor vehicles. Peter-
son found many flaws in HB 2020. He
had a lot to say about its lack of detail,
erroneous assumptions, and the negative
impacts it would have had on rural com-
munities. Among Peterson’s findings:
• An estimate of the cumulative financial
costs to move all Oregonians out of their
current vehicles and into alternative fuel
vehicles (AFV), a key component of HB
2020 in meeting the 2050 goals, shows
there are many unknowns: which AFV
type will be supported, questions about
potential battery capacity increases, how
we will recharge AFVs, and the lack of
viable offerings of SUVs, vans, pickups,
buses, and truck models.
• The extra transportation cost to those
urbanites who don’t travel much, will
likely be lower than average, but they
will see a significant rise in natural gas
and electricity cost. However, the worst
burden will be on rural communities,
who drive long distances and haul heavy
loads every day.
• Transitioning to a lower carbon foot-
print will involve expensive and large-
ly unproven technologies, that by their
very nature, carry a high risk of failure.
Assumptions in the plan are unrealisti-
cally optimistic, especially regarding the
cost and use of alternative energy.
• A cost estimate for decarbonizing
natural gas or the electrical grid shows
there are many technical details omit-
ted that will significantly drive up costs
when implemented. Estimated costs are
sometimes vague and too optimistic.
• The plan for the electrical grid as-
sumes ever-declining cost of wind, pho-
tovoltaic (PV), and EV batteries, which
may or may not happen. However, since
mega-scale solar and wind renewable
production is dispersed and intermedi-
ate, they can’t operate alone. Dispersed
alternative energy sources will be spread
out over a very large landscape and re-
quire new transmission lines and other
infrastructure.
• To date, alternative energy has been
less than 7% of Oregon’s grid and has
been relatively easy to integrate. In-
creasing alternative sources to 50% or
more (with the rest coming from hydro,
nuclear, and biomass) will be vastly
more complex and expensive. Some
newer alternative energy projects use
battery storage, but these are very ex-
pensive and still have limited capacity.
For another perspective I spoke
with Bev Danner, Community Invest-
ment Director at Community Action
Team (CAT) in St. Helens, about HB
2020 and its impacts on the communities
where she works. Danner works in pro-
grams related to weatherization, housing
rehabilitation, and affordable housing.
“HB 2020 is far too complex
and is just a complicated and convoluted
bill,” said Danner. “With all the amend-
ment and changes, it was really difficult
keeping up and understanding it. From
the beginning I saw some flaws.”
Danner said one of the reasons
she works in the weatherization business
is because she has a deep concern for the
environment, and says she fully recog-
nizes the concerns about global climate
change and our need to address it.
Danner says she saw what she
calls “greenwashing” in HB 2020, in-
cluding provisions that allow polluters to
buy their way out of reforms by buying
carbon credits, along with off-sets that
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reduce the entire purpose of the bill.
She says she was concerned
about the impacts of HB 2020 on low
income populations, and especially on
rural communities. “It felt like there
was a very disparate impact,” she said,
“and that’s what really got my atten-
tion.”
She said HB 2020 did include
provisions to provide rebates to subsi-
dize higher fuel costs for low income
populations. “I saw those, but they were
cutting those off at 250% of the Federal
poverty level. But what about that per-
son who is $5 over that limit, whose in-
come is still going to be detrimentally
impacted? In my work there is always
a group of people who aren’t quite clas-
sified as low income, but their incomes
are very modest and they’re just getting
by already.”
As an example, Danner points
to portions of the plan that would pro-
vide incentives to move people into
alternative fuel vehicles. “Low in-
come populations can’t afford electric
vehicles at this point,” says Danner.
“They’re typically driving older vehi-
cles because that’s what they can afford.
People want to participate in reducing
carbon emissions, but they have to be
able to participate in a way where they
can still survive. When we get to those
low income levels that becomes a con-
cern.”
Danner said increased fuel
costs built into HB 2020 would drive
up the costs of almost all goods and ser-
vices, and in turn, things like rent – all
the things that can impact a low income
household – especially for more remote
communities like Vernonia.
“I really feel like they didn’t look
deeply enough into the unintended con-
sequences of this,” said Danner. “This
was modeled after similar programs in
California and the East Coast, but this is
Oregon. We needed an Oregon lens on
this bill and we needed to be more inclu-
sive and look at the impacts on all the
people in Oregon who live the Oregon
lifestyle. This was not the Bottle Bill.”
Looking forward
The Oregon Legislature’s deci-
sion to not enact HB 2020 leaves a lot
of questions unanswered. Several recent
reports raise alarming concerns about
global climate change, which portend
drastic impacts to food supplies, drink-
ing water, sea level changes and our eco-
nomic future – many of those impacts
arriving much more quickly than have
been predicted.
Oregon Governor Brown has
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hinted that she might consider an Execu-
tive Order to implement HB 2020, al-
though that would most likely only fuel
the fires of discontent already ignited be-
tween the rural/urban divide.
Hopes for a non-partisan re-
working of the bill, that might more real-
istically and slowly accomplish the car-
bon reduction goals laid out in HB 2020,
while laudable, seem unlikely given Or-
egon’s, and the nation’s, current political
climate.
Somewhat more encouraging
seems to be the recognition by at least
some of Oregonians that might have fall-
en into the climate change denier camp
previously, that yes, in fact, climate
change is real and needs to be dealt with.
Meanwhile the doom and gloom
reports continue to pour in, sometimes
daily.
The results of a study conducted
by the University of Minnesota, with
researchers from the University of Ox-
continued on page 12
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