A3
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2019
State Legislature treads carefully on carbon tax
Lawmakers respond
to climate change
“We’re not saying don’t
do it,” she said. “We’re
saying let’s make sure we
understand the total cost.
This is a really big deal.
Only one state has done
this.”
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
This week, lawmakers
are introducing a bill that
would make Oregon the sec-
ond state after California to
adopt an economy wide cap-
and-trade system to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions.
The bill has support from
Gov. Kate Brown and the
statehouse’s other top Dem-
ocrats, but even its champi-
ons are treading carefully to
protect the state’s economy
as they aim to address cli-
mate change.
Oregon has been inching
toward this major environ-
mental policy shift for years,
as it has become increasingly
clear that the state can’t meet
its 2020 goal for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
House Bill 2020 builds
on an earlier version of cap-
and-trade legislation known
as the Clean Energy Jobs bill
that lawmakers considered
but failed to pass during the
last session.
State House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, and Sen-
ate President Peter Court-
ney, D-Salem, revived the
controversial bill by creating
a Joint Committee o n Car-
bon Reduction that has been
working on the new version
since last summer.
Now, both leaders and the
governor say they’re com-
mitted to getting the bill
passed this session.
Debating the costs
Oregon’s cap on carbon
emissions would directly
apply to about a hundred
companies — including
fuel suppliers, utilities and
manufacturers.
But opponents say its indi-
rect effects would be much
broader. A new group called
the Partnership for Ore-
gon Communities, made up
of various farming, logging
and manufacturing industry
groups, has taken a vocal role
in opposing the new bill.
Their website features
videos of farmers around the
state warning that cap and
trade will drive up prices for
fuel and electricity.
Jenny Dresler, with the
Oregon Farm Bureau, said
her group estimates the pro-
gram could drive up fuel
costs for farmers between
$1,000 and $3,000 a year
initially.
“Farmers are price takers,
which means they typically
can’t increase the price of the
goods they produce in order
to account for increased
input costs,” she said. “What
this bill asks them to do is
to absorb those costs. This
would be one of those add-
ons that some families just
can’t afford.”
Supporters of the bill with
the environmental group
Renew Oregon prefer the
Bill still needs work
Dirk VanderHart/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Hundreds of people protest in favor of cap-and-trade legislation at the Oregon Capitol in Salem on Wednesday.
term “cap and invest” over
cap and trade. They focus on
the costs of climate change
— such as more destructive
wildfi res and drought — and
the investments the state can
make with the income from
selling carbon pollution per-
mits. They have their own
video featuring a farmer who
supports cap and trade.
“This can’t be a one-sided
conversation about the costs
of action without talking
about the costs of inaction,”
said Jana Gastellum, with
the Oregon Environmen-
tal Council. “The urgency
of climate change couldn’t
be more apparent. I have
moments of real worry that
we may be slipping beyond
the point of no return where
it’s too late to avoid the worst
impacts.”
How the program
would work
Under the new bill, Ore-
gon would set a cap on car-
bon emissions and require
companies that emit 25,000
metric tons of carbon diox-
ide equivalent — roughly the
amount of carbon released
from burning 136 rail cars of
coal — to buy pollution per-
mits, also called allowances.
The state would reduce
the cap on emissions and the
number of allowances over
time with the goal of cut-
ting the state’s emissions to
80 percent below 1990 levels
by mid century.
Companies would be
able to trade pollution per-
mits and buy credits to off-
set some of their emissions.
Farm and forestland owners
would be able to sell credits
through projects that seques-
ter carbon.
The market created by
Oregon’s program would be
designed to link up with the
existing carbon market in the
Western Climate Initiative
so that Oregon companies
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could trade pollution credits
with companies in California
and Canadian provinces.
The state will auction pol-
lution permits, and the bill
directs that money toward
investments that will help
Oregon adapt to climate
change and transition to a
low-carbon economy.
The investment portion
of the bill covers things
like home solar panels and
weatherization, wildfi re pre-
vention and drought protec-
tion, as well as job training
and assistance for dislocated
workers. It also prioritizes
investments in low-income,
tribal and rural communities.
Reyna Lopez, who rep-
resents farmworkers and
tree planters with the group
Piñeros y Campesinos Uni-
dos de Noroeste, or PCUN,
says her members are
already facing hotter work-
ing conditions and unhealthy
air quality because of cli-
mate change.
“I think many people are
thinking of climate change
as something that hasn’t got-
ten here yet,” she said. “But
front-line communities like
farmworkers are experienc-
ing it today.”
She says her mem-
bers could benefi t from the
investments in job training
and renewable energy.
“I want to see those
investments come to Wood-
burn,” she said. “I want to
see our young people get
trained to become part of the
green economy of the future.
This could change the whole
trajectory of their lives.”
Sandra
McDonough,
president and CEO of Ore-
gon Business & Indus-
try, which has about 1,600
members, said the state runs
the risk of losing jobs if the
added costs of cap and trade
drive manufacturers out of
Oregon.
“We’ve been lucky here in
this state,” she said. “We’ve
maintained a fairly strong
manufacturing
presence,
and a lot of our manufac-
turers are in global markets.
We’re going to be looking
at how the bill impacts them
so at the end of the day we
can hold onto some of these
really great jobs, a lot of
which are in rural communi-
ties around Oregon.”
The bill offers free pol-
lution permits to companies
that compete globally and
that might choose to leave
Oregon rather than pay for
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pollution permits. About 30
of all the regulated compa-
nies — including sawmills,
paper mills and a variety
of other manufacturers —
would fall in this category
and receive 100 percent free
permits in 2021, the fi rst year
of the program.
After that, the number of
free permits for these “ener-
gy-intensive, trade-exposed”
companies would go down.
The bill also offers free per-
mits for natural gas utili-
ties to assist low-income
customers with higher bills
and for electric utilities that
are already reducing car-
bon emissions to comply
with the state’s renewable
energy portfolio standard
and requirements to phase
out coal-fi red power.
McDonough said those
adjustments will help, but it
doesn’t eliminate her con-
cerns about cap and trade
driving up energy prices for
Oregon businesses.
Environmentalists say
the bill is a good start but it
offers too many free permits
that the state can’t afford
given the urgency of climate
change.
Sen. Michael Dembrow,
D-Portland, helped write the
bill, and he says he knows
the stakes are high — for
both the environment and
the economy.
“This is a serious pro-
gram we’re talking about,”
he said. “This is a program
that would be economy-
wide. We would be capping
emissions in the transpor-
tation area, manufacturing,
electricity, home heating,
and we need to do it right.”
Environmentalists
strongly support the bill’s
interim target of reducing
carbon emissions to 45 per-
cent below 1990 levels by
2035, but leaders have con-
sidered dropping that pro-
vision and allowing a more
gradual decline in emissions
through 2050.
At an event last month,
Dembrow said lawmakers
will need to consider the
results of an economic anal-
ysis due out later this week
before making a decision on
that target.
The bill was met with
consternation from Repub-
licans when Dembrow
brought it into the Joint
Committee on Carbon
Reduction last week.
Sen. Cliff Bentz, R-On-
tario, and Sen. Fred Girod,
R-Stayton, even voted not
to let the legislation into
committee because of how
it was drafted.
“I participated aggres-
sively in trying to put this
bill together,” Bentz said,
“and the balance of the bill
is not what we worked on.”
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