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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, August 6, 2015 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Pendleton council owes us honesty Pendleton’s city council is talking the more it will cost us to restore them. Currently, we don’t have in circles, trying desperately not to the money to make even minimal say the only two things councilors headway on the problem, and that is can possibly say about the city’s WUXHDERXWDEXGJHWLQÀDWHGZLWKWKH terrible roads. two new sources of revenue (fuel tax Either: and utility fee). 1) Sorry, it’s too expensive. We So what’s the plan Stan? FDQ¶W¿[\RXUVWUHHW It’s clear that right now voters are Or: suspicious of the council’s ability 2) We’re going to tax you an to spend their money wisely. We egregious amount to begin a long, want better infrastructure, but we slow slog to getting Pendleton’s sure as heck don’t roads back up to want our dollars to code. go toward building Obviously, It is going to a road to an empty neither of these are take decades industrial park, or to answers residents a bridge traveled by want to hear. But of financial just a few cars per what other correct prudence, day. And Barnhardt response is there? Road and the Eighth Council members increased Street Bridge have have tried all sorts taxes and fees, been the costly of mixed metaphors infrastructure and unwieldy cost cutting priorities for council analogies to describe this crisis. But and economic recently — along with the unpopular enough is enough. growth to get upgrades to the Taxpayers are Eastern Oregon owed some honesty out from under Regional Airport here, and council Pendleton’s road and Main Street. should stop with Obviously, city the hemming and problem. council is in a hawing and come no-win situation. It out with it. took decades of mismanagement, Voters need to know the plan. poor budgeting and bad leadership Maybe not the computer algorithm to get us to this position. It will that shows where our money is WDNHGHFDGHVRI¿QDQFLDOSUXGHQFH best used. But we need to know increased taxes and fees, cost cutting how increased funding is going to and economic growth to get us out do more than just coat the problem of it. with a thin layer of asphalt. We And city council won’t say it, so need to know how funds raised by I guess we have to. The poor souls a proposed fuel tax and utility fee will be used. We need to know what who live on Perkins who organized and stood before council to tell their WKHFLW\¶VSKLORVRSK\LVIRU¿[LQJ tale are not going to get a new street. streets — do we continue to do Neither are the hundreds of others upkeep on our best, most-traveled who live on streets that are just as thoroughfares, or do we do some damaged. The city cannot institute costly renovations and improve our worst neighborhood cul de sacs? We a gas tax and then take all those need to know how development and nickels and have just one tiny, shiny growth will reduce the tax burden on street to show for it. We need a plan, long term the city’s stagnant population. and realistic. We don’t need city Because unless they see that plan spelled out, it will be hard to government to beat around the bush: convince voters that a gas tax is we need to know how hard it’s going something they can get behind. We to be and how expensive it’s going DOONQRZWKHFLW\¶VURDGVQHHG¿[LQJ to be. Because it will be both, no And the longer we delay, the more matter how long council tries to decrepit our roads will become and dance around that fact. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES U.S. Senators Governor Ron Wyden 2EDPD¶VÀH[LEOHFOLPDWH¿[ F Mississippi’s Republican governor, or many years, I used to spend Phil Bryant, described the EPA plan as at least part of the summer in “burdensome.” the gorgeous Laurentides region And then there’s Mitch McConnell, of Quebec, an hour northwest of the Senate majority leader, whose Montreal. By the mid-1980s, with state, Kentucky, is in the heart of each return trip, I could see a growing coal country. He has openly called on environmental threat to the area’s states to defy the EPA. On Monday, he beauty: More and more trees were described the new rules as “a triumph dying. When I asked people what was Joe happening, the answer was simple: Nocera of blind ideology over sound policy and honest compassion.” “pluie acide,” or acid rain, a form of Comment But just as with the acid rain pollution caused by sulfur dioxide and controversy, the opponents of nitrogen oxides that were spewing the new emission-reduction rules have it IURPFRDO¿UHGSRZHUSODQWVLQ$PHULFD exactly backward. The EPA rules have a far A decade or so later, the trees had stopped greater chance of creating jobs, being less dying. An environmental disaster had been burdensome and epitomizing sound public averted. What had happened? policy than the opposite. The answer was that the The single most DGPLQLVWUDWLRQRIWKH¿UVW important fact about the President George Bush, new regulations is that they working hand in glove with don’t tell utilities how to the Environmental Defense get their emissions down. Fund, devised a market- Instead, they allow the based plan, now known as VWDWHVÀH[LELOLW\WR¿JXUH cap-and-trade, to reduce out how to lower their sulfur dioxide emissions. own emissions. Some may Congress passed it in 1990. choose a cap-and-trade The brilliance of the scheme system — as California and is that while it set emissions nine states in the Northeast targets, it did not tell power have already done to great companies how to meet effect. (In California, those targets, allowing them for instance, carbon DJUHDWGHDORIÀH[LELOLW\ intensity — the amount of ,WDOVRSURYLGHGD¿QDQFLDO carbon pollution per million incentive: Companies that dollars of gross domestic cut their pollution beyond product — is down 23 percent from 2001, their caps could trade their leftover emission while its GDP has grown.) They can stress allowances to companies that were having HQHUJ\HI¿FLHQF\RUUHQHZDEOHHQHUJ\7KH\ trouble staying under the limit. can offer incentives to push innovations that ,QGXVWU\RI¿FLDOVDQGPDQ\VWDWHRI¿FLDOV would make carbon capture more affordable, complained bitterly about the new system, which would allow for the continued use of saying it would be costly and tie companies coal, still America’s most plentiful energy up in regulatory knots. But that’s not what source. Or they can do all of the above. Since happened. “Industry had incentive to many of these things are already happening, innovate,” recalls Fred Krupp, the president the new government policy is really just of the Environmental Defense Fund. As an giving industry an extra shove in the right interim measure, power companies began direction. using low-sulfur coal while they worked to Jim Rogers, the former chief executive of come up with better and more affordable Duke Energy, told me that he thinks natural scrubbers. Today, average levels of sulfur gas could serve as the same kind of bridge to dioxide pollution are 76 percent lower than emission-lowering technology that low-sulfur they were in 1990. The cost has been far less coal was in the acid rain days. The point is, than the critics feared. there is really no reason the Clean Power On Monday afternoon, President Barack Plan won’t work — except for political Obama unveiled his Clean Power Plan, intransigence, which is far worse today than it formalizing some tough new rules from ZDVGXULQJWKH¿UVW%XVKDGPLQLVWUDWLRQ the Environmental Protection Agency that In his 2010 book, “The Climate War,” Eric are aimed at reducing the carbon emitted by power companies. There is no bigger Pooley, the former managing editor of Fortune source of carbon pollution; the goal is that who has since become the Environmental by 2030, carbon emissions will be reduced Defense Fund’s communication chief, notes by 32 percent from their 2005 level. In the WKDWWKHZKROHWLPHRI¿FLDOVDWWKHIXQGZHUH ¿JKWDJDLQVWFOLPDWHFKDQJHQRWKLQJLVPRUH working on cap-and-trade to solve the acid important. rain problem, climate change was never far Once again, opponents are up in arms, from their thoughts. They wanted to prove, forecasting calamity for the utility industry ZLWKVXOIXUGLR[LGHHPLVVLRQVWKDWDÀH[LEOH if the rules are allowed to stand, with at least market-based system worked — and would a dozen states planning to sue the EPA. The work for carbon emissions as well. attorney general of West Virginia, Patrick It did. And it will. Morrisey, has said the regulations would Ŷ lead to “reduced jobs, higher electricity Joe Nocera is an Op-Ed columnist, joining rates” and increased stress on the power grid. The New York Times in April 2011. Once again, opponents are up in arms, forecasting calamity for the utility industry if the rules are allowed to stand. Kate Brown Washington office: 221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 La Grande office: 541-962-7691 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 Senator Jeff Merkley Bill Hansell, District 29 Washington office: 313 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753 Pendleton office: 541-278-1129 Representatives 900 Court St. NE, S-423 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1729 Sen.BillHansell@state.or.us Greg Barreto, District 58 U.S. Representative Greg Walden Washington office: 185 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-6730 La Grande office: 541-624-2400 900 Court St. NE, H-38 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1458 Rep.GregBarreto@state.or.us Greg Smith, District 57 900 Court St. NE, H-482 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1457 Rep.GregSmith@state.or.us LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. Be heard! Comment online at eastoregonian.com and check out our new East Oregonian Opinion Facebook page. It’s a great place for reasoned online debate of local and national issues.
