Alan Journet, RV-Times online, September 1, 2024
Oregonians feeling the pain and frustration of increasing summer temperatures, heatwaves, drought, wildfire risk and rising sea levels have an opportunity to speak out for a strong Climate Protection Program in Oregon.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has developed a revised CPP for the state. This proposal is available for public review and public comment until 4 p.m. Sept. 27. There will also be a virtual public hearing on Sept. 26. For more information, see https://socan.eco/cpp-2/.
Concerned Oregonians can send comments to DEQ at cpp.2024@deq.oregon.gov stating how important a strong CPP is to each of us. Writers can also state the importance of an effective Community Climate Investment component, of maintaining a science-based declining emissions cap, and holding industrial polluters accountable for reducing emissions with mandatory declining emissions.
Avoiding the RV-Times paywall:
Oregon has been seeking meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions for well over 15 years. Now, by supporting the DEQ CPP effort, we have a chance to achieve this goal.
In 2007 the Oregon Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a bill that placed Oregon at the forefront among states seeking to reduce emissions of the gases that cause global warming and drive climate change. The goal was a reduction of 75% below 1990 emissions statewide by 2050. Regrettably, because the program designed to achieve this reduction was purely voluntary, it failed to reach interim targets. The fossil fuel distributors, utilities, and industries responsible for Oregon’s emissions simply refused to reduce emissions sufficiently.
As a result, for many years climate activists and concerned legislators promoted meaningful greenhouse gas emissions legislation through a cap and reduce program. To thwart passage of any legislation, by 2020, Republicans were simply walking out of the chambers to break the quorum. They shirked their elective responsibilities and prevented climate and all other legislative business from being conducted.
Because of this behavior, Governor Kate Brown’s office developed, and she signed, in early 2020, Executive Order 20-04 directing state agencies to develop programs within their authority to reduce emissions and promote carbon sequestration. The main component among such programs was the Climate Protection Program (CPP) developed by the state Department of Environmental Quality and approved by the Environmental Quality Commission in December 2021.
Amid essential COVID epidemic restrictions, the CPP was developed with input from a Rulemaking Advisory Committee on which representatives of fossil fuel corporations, utilities and Oregon businesses and industries served. When the CPP was approved and became state law, these same representatives of fossil fuel corporations, utilities and Oregon businesses and industries filed suit to block enforcement of the provisions of the CPP. Of course, these were the same entities that declined to abide by the voluntary targets of the 2007 legislation and thus led to the need for Executive Order 20-04 and the CPP. Regrettably, that suit was upheld by the second highest court in the state. This ruling was based on a trivial technicality rather than a finding of any problem with the provisions of the program.
Rather than appeal that ruling to the state Supreme Court, a process that could take years and set back emissions reduction efforts similarly, DEQ decided to establish a new Rulemaking Advisory Committee and develop a replacement CPP based on the original.
This has now been produced and is open for Public Comment. The same fossil fuel distributors, utilities, and industries are now pushing back against the program as developed. It is critical that those of us concerned that Oregonians do our share to reduce emissions should contact DEQ during this public comment period and argue for a strong CPP with a steep downward trajectory for statewide greenhouse gas emissions.
We know Oregon alone cannot solve the climate crisis, but if we fail to do what we can do, we lose any credibility or authority to ask other states and nations to act – and the warming, heatwaves, wildfire risk and smoke will worsen.
