A4
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Tuesday, August 16, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Public input
needed on
carbon plan
T
he push to give cities in Oregon more leverage
to decarbonize buildings got defanged in the
Legislature this year. Instead, the bill got a
do-over. It created a task force to look at ways to
decarbonize buildings.
If opponents of Senate Bill 1518 thought they won a
victory, it seems they won a delay. The task force has
a list of policy options it is getting ready for the 2023
Legislature that are even more wide-ranging. Maybe
legislators won’t take action on all of them. But watch-
ing the options the task force is considering could be
like looking into a crystal ball to see Oregon’s energy
future. That’s especially true if Democrats continue to
control the Legislature and the governor’s office after
November.
Electrify. Electrify. Electrify.
That’s a consistent theme. Natural gas for heat, for
cooking? Yes there are voices on the task force who
keep bringing up how natural gas should continue to
play a role. Maybe we are wrong, but those voices sure
don’t seem to reflect the majority view. The task force
wants renewable electricity to be king.
We could hear it Aug. 9 in the discussion about a pos-
sible new mission for the Energy Trust of Oregon. The
discussion was to change its mission. The Energy Trust
gets its money from customers of the big utilities and
uses it to stoke energy efficiency. It is now fuel neutral.
Electricity and natural gas are both OK. The proposal is
to change its purpose to greenhouse gas reduction and
equity. Oregon’s natural gas companies may not appre-
ciate that.
We could hear the call for the electricity focus in the
discussion of electric heat pumps. Heat pumps can heat
and cool. They do what they do very efficiently. Task
force members talked about ways to encourage more
people to install them — incentives on top of any new
federal incentives or existing incentives.
There was even a discussion about the state bypassing
the choices consumers or builders make for appliances
in new homes and going to manufacturers and distrib-
utors. The thinking is incentives or rules could guide
manufacturers and distributors to offer only options
powered by electricity and that are high-efficiency.
Then no “wrong” choices would be made.
Another topic that came up is to follow California’s
lead on requiring appliances to be “smart.” Smart in
this context is that appliances can schedule their use
when there is less electricity demand. So maybe your
car charger or dishwasher kicks itself on at 1 a.m. That
could help spread out the energy demand over the day
and reduce the need for peak electric capacity. Orego-
nians might like it, if they could control it. They might
not like it if someone else was switching their appli-
ances on and off.
What’s missing in these discussions is the input of
Oregonians. Yes, there are many fine people on the task
force and they represent different perspectives and in-
terests. You should take a look at the ideas on the table
and tell them what you want. You can see the concepts
under consideration here, tinyurl.com/Oregon081022.
And you can tell the task force what you think by email
here, JTFREB.exhibits@oregonlegislature.gov.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald. Columns,
letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
YOUR VIEWS
Oregon should not
circumvent eminent
domain law
The Oregon Public Util-
ity Commission plans to
disregard Oregon’s regula-
tions governing eminent
domain raises huge con-
cerns.
Eminent domain: Any
governmental body, includ-
ing city, county or state,
can condemn property if it
benefits the public, for in-
stance, a right-of-way for
a freeway. However, a pri-
vate company, that benefits
monetarily from the efforts
to declare eminent domain,
has to first have the ap-
proval of the state, county,
city and/or municipality
for that to happen. OPUC,
as a regulatory agency, is
supposed to represent the
public’s good, NOT serving
a utility’s convenience for
the reason that this process
“takes too long.” What’s
with that kind of thinking?
Due process does take time.
There is no valid reason
to abandon or override ex-
isting regulations govern-
ing eminent domain. If so,
this decision belongs in the
legislature, not in an agen-
cy’s rulemaking authority.
The Orlando Sentinel
just published its investiga-
tion exploring the influence
utility companies have over
our state politics, journal-
ism, and environmental
policy.
“Utilities are power-
ful political players and,
apparently, they have no
qualms about engaging in
deceptive practices, uneth-
ical practices, and, in other
cases, in illegal practices,”
said Ari Peskoe, the direc-
tor of the Harvard Electric-
ity Law Initiative at Har-
vard Law School.
With that said, you must
be wondering what busi-
ness would spend over
$200 million for an as-
sured profit of $80 mil-
lion? Idaho Power would
be that business as the $200
million will be charged to
Oregon and Idaho ratepay-
ers, while the $80 million
profit will benefit Idaho
Power administrators
and shareholders. Taking
land through eminent do-
main must be the last re-
sort – the last step in any
development project. We,
as Oregonians, should not
be faced with extensive le-
gal fees to defend our land
and homes, when monop-
oly utilities, such as Idaho
Power Company, have end-
less resources (most often
paid by ratepayers).
Get your priorities
straight and follow Oregon
law and regulations!
JoAnn Marlette
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
Congress needs to fix the Electoral Count Act
EDITORIAL FROM BLOOMBERG OPINION:
As former President Donald
Trump desperately clung to power last
year, and his agitated supporters vio-
lently invaded the Capitol, a number
of flaws in the U.S. election system be-
came all too clear. Thankfully, one of
them may soon be fixed.
After months of negotiations, a
bipartisan group of senators has re-
leased a set of reforms to the Electoral
Count Act of 1887. In conjunction
with the 12th Amendment, the act es-
tablishes a framework for casting and
counting electoral votes in a presiden-
tial election and provides a process for
adjudicating disputes.
Notoriously, the law’s wording is in-
artful in crucial respects. It allows for
just one legislator in both chambers
to object to a state’s electors if their
votes were not “lawfully certified” or
“regularly given,” for instance, but
it doesn’t clearly define those terms.
Similarly, while the text spells out the
vice president’s duties in this process,
and implies that this role is purely cer-
emonial, it fails to explicitly rule out
any more substantive decision-mak-
ing powers.
Trump’s multi-tiered plot to stay in
power hinged on exploiting precisely
such ambiguities. After Joe Biden’s
victory in November, one of Trump’s
lawyers drafted a six-page memo out-
lining how Vice President Mike Pence
might be prevailed upon to reject le-
gitimate votes during the certification
process. Trump’s campaign assem-
bled fake slates of electors from seven
states Biden had won, with the hope
that Pence would recognize them in-
stead of the real electors — or, alter-
natively, declare the votes from those
states in “dispute” and toss them out
— thereby throwing the election to
Trump. Pence insisted, correctly, that
he had no authority to do any such
thing.
It bears repeating that those ad-
vancing this plot were not exactly
rocket scientists and that no relevant
legal authority would ever have gone
along with it. Yet it was damaging all
the same. It lent a veneer of plausi-
bility to Trump’s claims, emboldened
his loyalists to storm the Capitol,
and undermined faith in the broader
electoral process. When Trump de-
nounced Pence for refusing to go
along with the scheme, the assembled
mob called for his head.
If passed, the bill proposed by
the Senate group would go a long
way toward preventing a repeat of
this fiasco. (Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer has said the Senate will vote
on the legislation after the August re-
cess; the House still needs to take up
its own version.) It clarifies that the
vice president’s role in counting votes
is “solely ministerial.” It also would
require one-fifth of the members in
each chamber to object to an electoral
slate — making it more difficult for
partisans to grandstand and obstruct
the process.
Prudently, the legislation also stipu-
lates that governors (or other officials
as determined by state law) have sole
authority for certifying and submit-
ting election slates to Congress. This
should head off any harebrained at-
tempts by state legislators to submit
dueling electors. If legitimate con-
troversies arise over how a state con-
ducted its election, an “aggrieved”
presidential candidate can petition a
three-judge federal panel to hear his
or her complaint, and, if necessary,
escalate the dispute to the Supreme
Court.
For too long, the tragicomic she-
nanigans of the late-stage Trump ad-
ministration have threatened to ob-
scure significant defects in America’s
electoral machinery. Fixing the Elec-
toral Count Act is step one toward re-
pairing them.
COLUMN
Prepare to pay more under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act
BY KATIE TUBB
Here’s the best possible spin on
the staggering $369 billion in en-
ergy and climate handouts included
in the Inflation “Reduction” Act:
It’s not as bad as last year’s draft.
There’s nothing to reduce gaso-
line and electricity bills. Nothing to
increase American energy produc-
tion. Nothing to spur innovation.
Instead, it will increase taxes on av-
erage Americans, exacerbate infla-
tion, hike prescription drug prices
and swell federal debts.
Why? Here’s a sampling of what’s
in that $369 billion:
• $500 million condoning Pres-
ident Joe Biden’s abuse of the De-
fense Production Act to purchase
things like heat pumps that people
don’t want.
• $750 million to hire more bu-
reaucrats for the Departments of
Interior and Energy.
• $9 billion apiece for climate ag-
ricultural programs (read: diets to
reduce bloating in cows) and home
electrification (because regulators
are making it harder for homes to
have natural gas heating and appli-
ances).
• $27 billion for state and local
governments to procure zero-emis-
sions technology.
• $60 billion for “environmen-
tal justice,” which means anything
from electric Post Office trucks to
whatever “educational program” a
climate extremist can imagine.
The act also continues to push
energy policy through the tax code
by extending and expanding favors
for wind and solar energy, electric
vehicles and energy-efficient hous-
ing materials.
It even subsidizes nuclear power
plants again, despite a similar sub-
sidy being included in last year’s
trillion-dollar Infrastructure In-
vestment and Jobs Act.
What isn’t officially accounted
for in the price tag are budget gim-
micks to hide even more taxpayer
liability, including $85 billion for
the Energy Department’s exist-
ing green-energy loan programs
and $250 billion for a new energy
loan-guarantee program.
The last time Congress did some-
thing like this, taxpayers got Solyn-
dra – the solar panel company that
went bankrupt, forcing taxpayers to
cover its $535 million loan guaran-
tee made under the Obama Recov-
ery Act meant to pull America out
of the 2008 recession.
According to an inspector gen-
eral’s Solyndra “lessons learned”
report, the huge influx of federal
spending and intense political
pressure to make renewables suc-
ceed and to show that the Obama
Recovery Act was working led to
“due diligence efforts [that] were
less than fully effective.” (Only in
Washington could losing $535 mil-
lion be labeled “less than fully ef-
fective.”)
Have the lessons been learned?
The Obama Recovery Act spent $90
billion in energy and climate pro-
grams. The Inflation “Reduction”
Act would spend $369 billion.
In addition to what it spends,
consider what it taxes. The act
would tax petroleum imports, in-
crease fees and rates for oil and gas
production on federal lands and
waters, and tax energy production
everywhere with a new methane
fee. Shockingly, it also negotiates
down to get the Biden administra-
tion to follow existing law for en-
ergy production on federal lands
and waters. The tail is wagging the
dog.
Of course, all these new costs will
be passed on to anyone who pays an
electric bill and fills a vehicle with
gasoline or diesel.
What do American taxpayers
get for this “investment”? First, the
act does nothing to fix root pol-
icy problems exacerbating the high
energy prices that American indi-
viduals, families and businesses are
suffering. More spending won’t de-
crease energy costs, as the act’s pro-
ponents claim, it only shifts higher
costs to taxpayers (at best).
Second, the act is being dubbed
the largest down payment on cli-
mate policy in U.S. history — one
that we’re told will reduce green-
house gas emissions by 40 per-
cent. How Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer arrived at that number
nobody knows.
He surely made all kinds of un-
realistic assumptions that electric
vehicle sales will skyrocket (though
they only account for 1 percent of
vehicles on the road today); that
the already-fragile electric grid can
handle more intermittent renew-
ables; and that energy infrastruc-
ture can be built in fewer than eight
years.
Schumer may as well have picked
any number, though, regardless of
one’s stance on global warming.
If the U.S. could immediately re-
duce greenhouse gas emissions 100
percent, it would still only impact
global temperatures, at the most, by
two-tenths of a degree Celsius by
the end of the century.
The Inflation “Reduction” Act
makes the disturbing assumption
that the only way to reduce energy
prices, increase energy production
and spur innovation is for Wash-
ington to do it. This displays blind
overconfidence in politicians and
bureaucrats – and a profound lack
of confidence in the American peo-
ple.
Katie Tubb is a research fellow in The
Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy,
Climate and Environment.