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Street Roots • March 10-16, 2017 News Page 4 Oregon: ‘Now is you _.......... ?or A ll’s M ichelle Romero wants the Beaver State tojbttow C alifornia’s lead: Price carbon emissions a n d reinvest the revenue in com m unities m ost affected by clim ate change Jg L — g BY EMILY GREEN STAFF WRITER awmakers in Salem are considering five different bills with the same goal of significantly reducing Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions. Two of the proposed bills would create a cap and trade program, two would create a cap-and-price permitting program and the other would create a carbon tax. A public hearing on these bills before a joint meeting of Oregon’s House and Senate environmental committees on March 1 was packed, with names of testifiers filling five pages. The overwhelming majority of public comment was in support of passing some sort of legislation to rein in carbon emissions, with many endorsing Senate Bill 557 specifically. This bill would implement an incrementally decreasing cap on the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions and create a carbon pollution market for sources emitting more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon or carbon-equivalent greenhouse gases per year. WhileTO states already have a carbon- pricing market in place; SB 557 is most * similar to the cap and trade system California adopted in early 2012. California invests gains from its carbon market into green projects in communities most affected by climate change. A driving force behind this investment strategy was the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit Green For All. Founded by CNN commentator Van Jones in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Green For All is focused on initiatives across the U.S. that use polluters’ dollars to fund green economy projects in low-income areas. Green For All Deputy Director Michelle Romero traveled to Oregon to offer the support of Green For All to lawmakers should-they pass Bill 557, which includes ?p r ^ ^ m s ^ f r ^ d n g ;carbon market E panels on affordable apartment buildings revenue in economically depressed near transit; we’re looking at thousands of communities. trees going into urban communities affected “I’m here because we’ve been watching by traffic congestion to help clean the air Oregon for a while and believe now is your there and create good green space. And in time,” she said at the public hearing. some places, we’re helping communities do Earlier that day, Romero sat down with really innovative things like transform a Street Roots at Climate Solutions’ office in third-acre lot of unused public land into a Old Town to discuss how Oregon’s most . green space with fruit trees that is creating vulnerable communities could benefit from healthy foods for the community, job a carbon-pricing program. Before coming to training around Green For All in community "We need to reverse early 2016, gardening, and the damage el the Romero, 29, spent things like that; fossil tael iadustry the bulk of her There have been and help elean itp burgeoning career solar investments in at the Greenlining communities across and green wp these Institute, working California. One area eemsnnnltlee/7 to bring historically was out in Fresno, MICHELLE ROMERO, marginalized voices for example. Our D E P U T Y D IR E C T O R , GRE'EN FO R À U . into the democratic central valley region processes. can get really hot. For one woman (Maria Zavala), what that Emily Green: I was hoping you could tell investment in solar meant was that her - our readers about Green For All’s agenda to and she was a single mother supporting her “promote a clean-energy economy to solve the kids after the loss of her husband just a year urgent problems of both our economy and our prior — her electric bill went from $200 a environment.” Can you give me a couple o f m o n th to as low as $1.50 a montli^. examples o f what that looks like on the ground? Michelle Romero: One way to grow the green economy is to dedicate investments in growing that economy in communities that are on the frontlines of some of the worst pollution. We need to reverse the damage of the fossil fuel industry and help clean up and green up these communities. In California, for example, where our director, Vien Truong, helped lead the fight to get a billion- dollar fund for disadvantaged communities, we’re seeing things now like electric van pools in migrant farmworker towns where there wasn’t an established bus line; we’re seeing 400 opportunities in just one city to work in the solar industry, putting solar (This reductionvnim ^gy^P ci^lsa^o attributed to a new energy-efficient home Zavala helped Self-Help Enterprises build before she moved into it. This nonprofit helps low-income residents in the San Joaquin Valley, known as the world’s most productive agricultural area, achieve homeownership by using sweat equity as a down payment.) E.G.: Where did that billion-dollar fund for disadvantaged communities come from? M.R.: That money comes from polluters. The cost of carbon pollution is not free - families and workers, we pay with our shortened lifespans as a result of cancer, asthma, pollution-related disease. We’re paying an increased produce cost at the See CARBON, page 5
