and those with low incomes and in industrial areas, as well
as communities of color, experience these effects more
acutely.
The money paid by polluters for the ability to pollute
then gets invested in clean, locally produced energy,
creating in-state jobs. According to PolicyInteractive,
“our consumption of CO2 emitting products are almost
exclusively purchased outside Oregon, while the
investments will be made inside Oregon.”
Bowerman says the bill reduces emissions and makes
the largest emitters “pay for the privilege of contaminating
the commons.” Some cost will get passed on to the
consumer, about $62 a year, PolicyInteractive’s research
shows. But for the $62 of investment, Bowerman says the
return would be more than $186 per resident.
Not taking action on climate change will cost Oregon
over $1 billion a year, Bowerman says. Implementing it
nets Oregon $1 billion.
Eberhard’s research also shows that the cost of inaction
is more expensive than implementing the Healthy Climate
Act, in that “climate pollution will cost Oregonians billions of
dollars in health-care outlays, vanished salmon and recreation
industry losses,” she writes in her analysis of the bill.
According to a report by the Oregon Climate Change
Research Institute, Oregon is facing wintertime floods
that can damage transportation systems and summertime
droughts affecting fresh water for fish and humans.
There will be more coastal flooding and more wildfires.
Everything from tourism and skiing to the shellfish industry
will be negatively affected by climate change.
third of the top donors, individuals and entities combined
were from out of state, giving nearly seven times as much
as all small donors combined.
Big money drowned out small donors in 2014, the
OSPIRG Foundation says.
The Sightline Institute says that coal, oil and gas
companies spent $2 million in Oregon politics in 2014.
Sen. Alan Olsen received $17,250 in donations from coal,
oil and gas, Sightline says, the third highest in the Oregon
State Legislature.
Olsen, a Republican, is vice chair of the Senate
Environment and Natural Resources committee. Edwards
is chair. Also on the committee are Democratic Sens.
Floyd Prozanski and Michael Dembrow and Republican
Sen. Doug Whitsett. Donations to Olsen’s election fund in
2015 included $1,000 from Idaho Power Company and the
Oregon Fuels Association.
The Healthy Climate Act needs to make it out of that
committee if it’s going to get voted on by the Senate.
The bill also faces more nebulous money from lobbyists.
Sightline says, “Oregon saw $927,920 of lobbying
expenditures from the fossil fuel industry in 2014.”
The Healthy Climate Act is also up against
misinformation, according to Julia Olson of Our Children’s
Trust. OCT helped draw up the HCA and currently has a
climate change lawsuit in Oregon’s U.S. District Court.
Olson says that there’s a lot in the HCA that conservatives
and Republicans really like, and there are Republican
lawmakers who “understand climate change and the threats
it poses,” but they are “hamstrung” by partisanship.
youth get their day in court, the discussion will revolve
around actual scientific facts.
Olson says her experiences in the halls of the Legislature
talking to politicians has shown “they don’t have to look
at the facts. I’ll talk about the facts and they will say
something completely baseless.” At least in the courtroom,
she says, she doesn’t think the fossil fuel industry will
perjure itself or try to bring in climate-denier science. “The
industry groups have known and admitted for years this is
a problem” so they can’t deny the science “as they can do
in the media and halls of Congress.”
There will be a hearing on the suit in Eugene March 9,
Olson says.
According to Edwards, “This bill is a mechanism to
accomplish what the lawsuit says we ought to accomplish
— an umbrella policy that provides certainty that Oregon
will be meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals. It’s one
more shoulder to the wheel.”
Science is something that Megan Kemple of 350
Eugene wants to see specifically included in the Healthy
Climate Act. The bill also faces the challenge of making
its way through the committees, votes, bargaining and
changes that it takes to get legislation passed in Oregon.
Kemple says the current version of the bill, coming out
of the Jan. 14 joint committee meeting, no longer includes
language about greenhouse gas limits being set based on
best available science, and she wants to see that language
back in the bill.
Also of concern to Kemple and other bill supporters is
whether transportation fuels, which make up 37 percent of
The Healthy Climate Act is a 'cap-and-invest' bill that will actually
move Oregon to a 'statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit for the year 2050 that
limits greenhouse gas emissions to levels that are at least 75 percent below 1990 levels.'
In other words, Oregon would be calling a halt to the steady slide of climate change.
THOSE OPPOSED?
Historically, Oregonians are not always that fond of
our neighbors to the south, but when it comes to battling
climate change, California has got us beat. The Golden
State passed a bill, AB 32, similar to the Healthy Climate
Act, back in 2006 while Oregon was still dithering over
a decision to put goals on limiting carbon emissions.
Opponents in that state, similar to those opposed to the
Healthy Climate Act, said capping pollution would hurt
industry.
Bowerman says PolicyInteractive’s research shows
otherwise. For example, California has created more than
15,000 job years, with pay scales above $70,000 in the past
five years in the utility-scale solar sector — a “job year”
is one job for one year. With a cap-and-invest bill in place
for the past 10 years, California has led the nation in job
growth and experienced economic growth while lowering
greenhouse gas emissions.
California started the trajectory of its greenhouse gas
emissions on a downward slope, Edwards says, and “the sky
has not fallen even though is was predicted that it would.”
Sounds like a no brainer.
But not so fast.
Edwards says he expects “opposition from usual
suspects — utilities, Big Oil and industrial emitters that
are more worried about their bottom line than the health of
the climate.” The same list of usual suspects that objects to
anything that would raise their costs and “meanwhile, the
planet continues to warm.”
Big Oil, Big Energy and Big Industry have more than
just a tendency to pollute in common. They also have Big
Money.
According to a January report by the OSPIRG
Foundation (a sister organization to the Oregon State
Public Interest Research Group), two-thirds of the top
donors who gave $5,000 or more during Oregon’s last
election cycle were entities, not individuals. Businesses,
labor groups, nonprofits and other entities gave eight times
more than all small donors who donate $100 or less. One
SENATOR CHRIS EDWARDS
At issue, Olson says, is not only big money from
industry groups but the fact that “we have to change our
energy sources and do business in a different way; that’s
scary to people.” She adds, “There’s fear around change.”
The 21 youth in the constitutional climate change
lawsuit are not only up against the government, they
are up against three trade associations that represent
nearly all of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies:
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (Exxon
Mobil, BP, Shell, Koch Industries, and virtually all other
U.S. refiners and petrochemical manufacturers), the
American Petroleum Institute (representing 625 oil and
natural gas companies) and the National Association of
Manufacturers.
Despite a large and well-funded foe, Olson says one
advantage to a lawsuit over legislation is that when the 21
Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions, get regulated early on.
While regulations on the other sectors — electric power
generation and industrial emissions — would start in 2020,
the transportation sector would not start until 2025. That's
the same year the bill calls for emissions to be 20 percent
under 1990 levels. “Transportation fuels are not small
potatoes,” Kemple says. “They are the largest sector of our
greenhouse gases.”
Kemple also says 350 does not want proceeds to go to
Oregon’s highway fund, as revenue to that fund will likely
not result in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Healthy Climate Act faces one more challenge:
another climate change bill seeking to make headway in
the short session. The Clean Energy and Coal Transition
Plan was negotiated behind closed doors by environmental
groups and utility companies. Bowerman says that bill is
being put forth by a “big four” group of Portland-based
environmental groups — Oregon Environmental Council
(OEC), Renew Oregon, Climate Solutions and the Oregon
League of Conservation Voters (OLCV). Those groups are
going for incremental change rather than a comprehensive
approach with the energy industry bill, he notes.
Bowerman says now is the time for the Healthy Climate
Act, and incremental change is too slow. “There’s no
disputing actual numbers. It’s time to cover a lot of ground
quickly.”
Kemple adds that those same environmental groups
that hashed out the competing bill also have the time
and resources to put behind both bills and are supporting
the HCA. As for herself, Kemple and other grassroots
supporters will be working nonstop to pass the Healthy
Climate Act.
“This bill’s going to pass,” Kemple says. “It may not
pass in this short session, but we are going to get a cap, if
not this session then next.”
The Oregon Legislature’s short session begins Feb. 1.
A rally for the Healthy Climate Act will be from noon to 1 pm Wednesday,
Feb. 3, at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, 900 Court Street NE. RSVP
at bit.ly/1TDfiot.
eugeneweekly.com • January 28, 2016
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