Oregon’s largest umbrella business group, Oregon Business & Industry, shows its anti-social colors

Little surprise that the major Oregon Polluters, as represented by Oregon Business and Industry, have filed a lawsuit against their and your children and grand-children to overturn the Governor’s Executive Order establishing an Oregon Climate Action Plan.  These are the entities that have consistently opposed meaningful action to reduce the state’s greenhouse has emissions and provide investments to help economically disadvantaged regions of the state (such as rural and coastal Oregon).  They continue to place our state, the nation, and the planet at risk from the global warming and climate chaos caused by unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the fact that the Order touches no Oregon statute, the suit – clearly nothing more than a delay tactic – frivolously claims, according to the organization’s President Sarah McDonough: “….the Governor exceeded her constitutional role by rewriting statute…”

Responding to the lawsuit, Tom Kelly, a Portland businessman and chair of a business group that supports the climate change policy, called the lawsuit “a dangerous delay tactic.” “These groups claim to be acting in the interest of Oregon’s businesses and industry, yet by standing in the way of climate action, they threaten Oregon’s economy, technological innovation, and job growth. We must take a lesson from COVID-19 and follow science to avoid a climate catastrophe. We are running up against the clock to flatten the climate curve.”

See:

Business groups sue to overturn Gov. Kate Brown’s executive order on climate change

and

Business groups sue Oregon Gov. Kate Brown over carbon-reduction policy