Legislators are taking a sector-by-sector approach this session, but is it enough?
O ver three decades after the Oregon Legislature set its first target to address global warming, the state has failed to put a dent in its greenhouse gas emissions.
Creeping deadlines for atmospheric tipping points may be fresh on the minds of state lawmakers who have seen their districts decimated by wildfires, flooding and a historic winter storm over the past 12 months.
But during a legislative session where most lobbying is happening in kitchens and virtual conference rooms, a global pandemic and crescendo of civil unrest over police violence are also competing for oxygen in Salem.
Coming off of two sessions where Republican walkouts stopped cap-and-trade policy attempts dead in their tracks, lawmakers have pivoted their approach to addressing the climate crisis.
In a memo sent to the Oregon Global Warming Commission last month, the Oregon Department of Energy highlighted more than 70 “climate-related” bills making their way through the Legislature.
As of April 13, fewer than half of those bills had survived.
Most surviving bills are attempting to modify or update public processes that have neglected climate considerations and historically excluded many of the groups bearing the brunt of that neglect.
“This year, what you’re seeing is a pivot to a climate and clean energy agenda that looks sector by sector: How do we clean up climate pollution in buildings, transportation and our energy systems?” said Meredith Connolly, Oregon director for Climate Solutions. “And how do we do so in a way that helps us rebuild and recover from all the crises that hit Oregon in the last year in a way that’s more equitable, creates good jobs and is sustainable for the long haul?”
Bills targeting emissions reductions directly cover everything from carbon-free electricity policy to proposed studies on seaweed-based feed additives that make livestock flatulence more climate-friendly.
“The best time to begin reducing (greenhouse gases) would have been 30 years ago; the second-best time is now,” said Angus Duncan, who previously served as Oregon Global Warming Commission chair for more than a decade.
Just over a year ago, Gov. Kate Brown addressed repeated failures to pass ambitious climate legislation by issuing an executive order pressing state agencies to move toward new 2035 and 2050 emission reduction goals.
Brown’s move preceded a report from the Oregon Global Warming Commission stating that Oregon missed its 2020 emissions reduction target and is currently on track to miss 2035 and 2050 goals by significant margins.
Here’s a look at the key legislation trying to bridge the gap.
Energy The biggest push to decrease emissions is targeting decarbonization of Oregon’s electric grid. Energy use is the second-largest source of statewide greenhouse gas emissions, behind transportation.
Energy policy is notoriously complex. In her 2020 book, “Short Circuiting Policy,” Leah Stokes described a nationwide study she conducted involving interviews with state-level politicians and their aides.
Despite affirming expertise in certain areas of policy, “only 20% of respondents believed they could be very certain of a bill’s impacts in the policy domain they knew the most about,” she wrote .
But the ramifications of this session’s energy legislation could be great, so it’s worth a closer look.
Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality is finalizing a system that would essentially impose a declining carbon cap on sectors across the state, but that program excludes electric utilities.
In February, DEQ Director Richard Whitman requested guidance from the Legislature on the best path toward 100% clean energy for Oregon — House Bill 2021 has emerged as the main vehicle for Salem’s response.
It proposes to transform the state’s energy sector by requiring utilities to provide regulators with “clean energy plans” that result in carbon-free power for utility customers by 2040.
Those customers, mostly served by Portland General Electric and Pacific Power, represent about 70% of electricity end-users in the state.
Consumer-owned utilities, which serve the second-largest share of customers in the state and get most of their power from hydroelectric dams, are exempt from the bill’s requirements.
The bill does not contain any enforcement provisions to guarantee those targets are met, but utilities could face difficulty obtaining financing for their operations if the Portland Utility Commission refuses to sign off on Integrated Resource Plans that must be submitted to it at regular intervals.
“Oftentimes, in these types of big policies, there’s a decision to, frankly, roll one of the parties,” said Samuel Pastrick, advocacy manager for the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board.
“Like, ‘we’ve got to move forward and this stakeholder just isn’t going to get what they want,’” Pastrick said. “That just isn’t the case this time around.”
Early opponents of the bill pushed for an alternative proposal that would utilize increases in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to move toward a decarbonized energy sector. The bill would have required half of utility investments in clean energy transition, such as renewable energy projects including solar and wind farms, to remain in-state.
Its sponsor, Rep. Ken Helm (D-Beaverton), withdrew the legislation after H.B. 2021’s emissions-based approach received endorsements from a broad, frontline community-led coalition that included labor, ratepayer advocates, environmental justice organizations and the utilities themselves.
Amendments to H.B. 2021 include $50 million for community renewable energy projects and requirements for contractors to adhere to wage agreements and participate in apprenticeship programs.
“Workers are a critical infrastructure to meeting our future energy needs and decarbonizing,” said Ranfis Villatoro, Oregon policy coordinator for BlueGreen Alliance.
During a hearing on H.B. 2021, Villatoro described older immigrant day laborers pointing him to buildings they’ve helped construct, “only to see that they have no path to retirement and their bodies really can no longer support their work in the future.”
About 4% of solar industry workers and 6% of wind workers are unionized, according to the 2020 U.S. Energy and Employment Report .
From 2015 through 2020, renewable energy companies received over $158 million in tax breaks from the state through 15-year property tax exemptions for certain projects — the Oregon Strategic Investment Program.
Oregon is already about halfway to a carbon-free energy grid, but it’s unlikely the state will be able to meet its energy needs through a homegrown renewable energy sector alone. That’s because regional climate differences and the logic of energy markets make it more cost-effective for the state to export excess sunshine and import electricity from elsewhere when the wind isn’t blowing.
According to Oregon’s Eenergy Department, over two-thirds of the state’s wind generation was sold to customers outside the state in 2018 — it was the same for 38% of its hydropower and 12% of its solar power.
During an informational meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment on Feb. 11, a panel of experts and the state’s top utility regulator gave a presentation on the obstacles to ensuring adequate energy is available over the next decade.
Jordan White, deputy counsel for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, told committee members that shifting climates and energy markets make it necessary for regional planning, visibility and availability.
“When it’s scorching hot everywhere, there’s no excess megawatts to share and customers’ lights may go out,” White explained.
Committee members had no questions following the panel’s presentation.
Committee Chair Sen. Lee Beyer (D-Springfield), a former chair of the Oregon Public Utility Commission, joked about being “totally overwhelmed” by the information presented.
“I don’t see any questions,” Beyer said. “You guys did a good job … I think.”
Land use Every one of Oregon’s 36 counties and 241 cities has a comprehensive plan and set of zoning ordinances that address statewide planning goals overseen by the state’s Department of Land Conservation and Development.
Addressing the impacts of a warming climate is not among the 19 goals that guide local land-use planning processes.
House Bill 2488 originally sought to change that, but after pushback from cities over implementation costs, a new version of the bill emerged, focused on equity and public participation in land-use planning processes.
While allocating $800,000 to the Department of Land Conservation and Development to facilitate improved accessibility and outreach, the new bill does not provide any additional funding to local governments to implement changes to their land-use planning processes or comprehensive plans.
During a work session for the bill on April 12, the department’s senior policy adviser, Palmer Mason, said he could not provide an estimate on how much it would cost to implement the requirements in the bill, but noted that jurisdictions with insufficient funding could postpone their compliance indefinitely.
Even with those allowances, Rep. David Brock Smith (R-Port Orford) said he was concerned about the legislation creating an unfunded mandate that furthered urban-rural divides.
“We don’t have the resources that (Portland) metro does,” Brock Smith said. “I’ve got a half-time planner for the city of Port Orford. She’s also the building clerk.
“So Port Orford will keep on kicking the can down the road after 2026 and 2027 and 2028 potentially, and then come 2030, there’s a new law that comes in and goes, ‘Now you’re going to be penalized’ or ‘Now you’re not going to have the resources to do X, Y, and Z because you never updated your code.’”
Construction In its 2021 Oregon Climate Assessment , the legislatively mandated Oregon Climate Change Research Institute found “the built environment is both the dominant contributor to Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions … and an essential bulwark protecting people against the worst effects of climate change.”
Perhaps the bill with the clearest impact on both emissions reduction and environmental justice goals is House Bill 2062 , which would improve statewide standards for energy efficiency in appliances.
According to an analysis from Oregon Department of Energy and Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance , the bill “will potentially save Oregonians near $37 million annually on utility bills by 2025, increasing to $109 million by 2035.”
“These cost savings will benefit all consumers in Oregon,” wrote the alliance’s Senior Code Manager, Bing Liu. “No matter their geographic location or economic status.”
The same analysis also estimated the new standards would avoid 124,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2035.
To continue chipping away at Oregon’s remaining gap of 40 million tons of CO2 emissions, an additional proposal on the table, House Bill 2398 , would enable local jurisdictions to mandate more energy-efficient building codes.
It would allow cities that want to push ahead on their climate goals to up the minimum building requirements in their local jurisdiction, while giving cities and counties the option to stick with the state’s statewide minimum standard if they so choose.
The state’s influential homebuilders lobby has strongly opposed the bill, arguing that improved construction standards will price out entry-level homeowners from the market.
David Heslam, executive director for Earth Advantage, said that an analysis provided during the Building Code Division’s most recent REACH code development process showed energy efficiency improvements would pay off their upfront costs in fewer than 10 years.
“ZERO produced a cost effective analysis that showed that the incremental cost for a single-family new home — about 2,200 square feet — would be $790 a year using the least-cost pathway,” Heslam said. “This was supplied in a public process, in writing with time for review, comment and discussion — there was no one who refuted those figures.”
Rep. Helm, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation, said he has a hard time understanding the arguments on the other side. “If your community doesn’t want to do this, you don’t have to,” he said.
Secretly recorded conversations obtained by Street Roots last year revealed how the powerful homebuilders lobby packed state advisory boards and stymied regulations that would make homes safer, more resilient and affordable.
Mark Long, who ran the state’s Buildings Codes Division for decades before becoming a lobbyist for the Oregon Home Builders Association last year, is also working to sink H.B. 2398 while leaving space for a potential carve-out that would reduce builder liability for shoddy construction.
Long submitted a letter to the construction industry coalition formed by Oregon Home Builders Association last year, in which attorney Aaron Landau raised concerns over “a wide variety of statutory conflicts” with H.B. 2398.
The letter also implied improved energy efficiency standards would increase the risk for construction defects, justifying an amendment that shortened the statute of limitations for homeowners to sue for construction problems.
The bill moved forward after addressing additional legal concerns outlined in a letter to lawmakers from the Oregon Department of Justice.
Landau works for the law firm started by Long’s father , Stan Long, who previously served as deputy attorney general for Oregon in the 1980s.
Landau also represented Long in his successful defense against charges that he was involved in a scandal that eventually toppled former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
Transportation Transportation is the largest contributor to global warming in Oregon, making up about 40% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2010, the Legislature directed the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop a strategy to meet emissions reductions targets established in 2007. Since that plan was completed, emissions numbers have gone in the wrong direction.
There is minimal legislation addressing the transportation sector this session. A bill introduced by the governor’s office, House Bill 2165 , would extend rebates for purchases of electric vehicles, or EVs, doubling the benefit to $5,000 for those who meet low or medium-income thresholds.
The bill would also facilitate utility investment in EV infrastructure by giving the Public Utility Commission authority to let utilities raise rates to recoup investments in projects that meet predetermined criteria for “prudent infrastructure measures to support transportation electrification.”
Another bill directs the state’s Building Codes Division to require 20% of parking spaces in new residential, commercial and multi-family developments include EV charging infrastructure.
In March 2020, ODOT created a new climate office tasked with the mission to “address how greenhouse gas emissions and a changing climate affect our state’s transportation system, its communities, and economy.”
“Our goal is to select a suite of projects that do not continue to lead to more pollution, but instead, start to cut emissions long term,” wrote Climate Office Director Amanda Pietz last July.
Joe Cortright, an economist and one of ODOT’s most vocal critics, has previously characterized the agency’s climate plan as a “ carefully rehearsed list of excuses for failure .”
“It’s a laundry list of largely speculative actions,” Cortright wrote in February of last year , “all of which would be needed to be implemented by someone, but with no timetable or accountability for their actual implementation.”
Lindsay Barker, ODOT’s assistant director of government and external relations, said the agency currently lacks the funding needed to implement its vision, known as the State Transportation Strategy , or STS.
“If we go off the vision in the STS, the gap is in the several-hundred-billion-dollar range,” Baker said in an email. “While ODOT and the Oregon Transportation Commission have a significant role in the policy-setting, planning, and partnership to achieve the state’s emission reduction goals, action is needed not just by ODOT but by cities, counties, transit districts, private industry and individual Oregonians.”
Kicking the can Starting in 1989, Oregon governors have tapped task forces, commissions, working groups and committees to address both climate change and environmental justice.
In the state’s latest plan for equitably confronting climate impacts, 24 state agencies affirmed their responsibility to address a crisis that has significantly worsened since then.
“State government has a duty to our communities, businesses, and future generations not only to reduce emission of Green House Gases (GHGs), the primary cause of climate and ocean change, but to take action to address the impacts of change across all sectors,” stated the 2021 State Agency Climate Change Adaptation Framework .
The same report also points out that “more attention needs to be paid to funding and accountability.”
Oregon’s accountability track record on tackling the climate crisis is “downright appallingly bad,” said Duncan, formerly of the Oregon Global Warming Commission.
“They set up a global warming commission but gave it no authority, no budget, a piecemeal staff, and asked us to make recommendations to the Legislature and the governor for what things needed to be done,” Duncan said. “And so we kept on making lists — we make our Saturday household chores list every two years and sent it over to the Legislature and then to the governor.”
While testifying in support of legislation that would provide the state’s Environmental Justice Task Force with additional resources and support from a new home at DEQ, sustainability professionals called out agencies that have shirked the state’s environmental justice laws.
“Oregon’s 2008 environmental justice law, SB 420 codified as ORS 182.538 et seq., established the Environmental Justice Task Force but also mandated that state natural resources agencies address environmental justice issues as part of standard operations,” wrote the director of Multnomah County’s Office of Sustainability, John Wasiutynski. “All of the State’s natural resource agencies have fallen short of implementing this law, with some completely ignoring the law in its entirety.”
During a public hearing for Senate Bill 286 , the governor’s Natural Resources Policy Director Jason Miner said the bill does not include a mandate that agencies include environmental justice in rulemaking, nor is it meant to create new standards for rulemaking.
As of press time, Brown’s office did not respond to questions about what accountability or enforcement mechanisms are in place to ensure the state meets future emissions reduction goals and environmental justice obligations.
Among the bills left behind this session is a proposed joint resolution filed by Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland) that would have asked Oregonians whether the Oregon Constitution should be amended to establish a “right to clean and healthy environment and to preservation of natural, cultural, scenic, recreational and healthful qualities of environment.”
In the last decade, state and the federal governments have faced a wave of lawsuits arguing that they have betrayed their duty to stop climate change.
Kelsey Juliana, the lead youth plaintiff in a landmark climate lawsuit against the federal government, also sued former Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2011.
The fate of the federal Juliana case is in jeopardy after the Biden administration refused multiple requests from lead plaintiff attorney Julia Olsen to meet and discuss options for moving forward.
Last October, Oregon’s Supreme Court rejected the suit’s argument that state officials have a legal duty to protect natural resources like land, water and the atmosphere for current and future generations.
In a divided opinion, the court extended narrow legal protections to certain waterways while declining to “impose broad fiduciary duties on the state … that would require the state to protect public trust resources from effects of greenhouse gas emissions and consequent climate change.”
WATCH LIST: Other environmental bills we’re tracking in the Legislature
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