Street Roots • March 10-16, 2017
News
Page 4
Oregon: ‘Now is you
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?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