windmills.JPG
Wind turbines, power lines and towers sit on lands above Arlington and the Columbia River as seen from Rhea Road at Shepherds Flat wind farm in 2011.
(Randy Rasmussen/Staff)
With strengthened Democratic majorities in both chambers and a new and compliant Democratic governor, the 2015 Legislature was unusually welcoming to climate-change activists and allied interest groups. Even so, some global-warming proposals were too far out even for the lawmakers who supported Oregon's low-carbon fuel standard, which is effectively a gas tax that will do nothing for either the environment or the state's roads. Among these proposals was Senate Bill 477, the so-called "coal to clean" bill.
The bill would have prohibited electric companies from providing coal-generated power to Oregonians by 2025. That doesn't mean coal-fired plants would be shut down, as utilities could have dispatched that electricity elsewhere, as Ted Sickinger of The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote at the time. But it would have cut Oregon out of the coal mix, and additional demand here would have been met using super-clean alternatives, aka renewables. So costly, complex and unloved was this proposal that it received one hearing and promptly fizzled. Not even an enthusiastic letter signed by Portland's five commissioners could save it.
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Rather than giving up, supporters of the concept returned to the policy laboratory, did a little rearranging, and, this week, filed two very similar ballot measures. The group behind the effort, Renew Oregon, has made a splash recently with ubiquitous ads defending the low-carbon fuel standard, which voters may have an opportunity to repeal next year. Expensive energy seems to have found its voice.
The no-coal date included in the two initiatives, 2030, is five years later than that contained in the "coal to clean" bill. The initiatives would boost the state's spending on renewable energy by supercharging Oregon's existing renewable portfolio standard, which requires a certain percentage of electricity to come from clean sources. One of the two initiatives, meanwhile, includes a provision that would cap the salaries of utility executives in the case of noncompliance. By and large, though, the proposals are an attempt to serve up to voters a concept supporters couldn't sell even to a generally friendly Legislature. Red flags ahoy.
When you're proposing to change the rules for utilities that provide electricity throughout the state, it pays to be careful. Very careful. Both of the state's dominant investor-owned utilities, Pacific Power and Portland General Electric, rely upon coal-fired facilities to produce a significant share of the electricity distributed in Oregon. In total, about 33 percent of the electricity used here comes from coal, most of it burned in facilities located in other states. While it's generally accepted that coal's days are numbered as a source of power in the United States, walling off Oregon abruptly from "coal by wire," as opponents like to call it, inevitably would have consequences for state ratepayers. Many of them are less able to absorb higher power costs than, say, Portland city commissioners.
One of the state's greatest business attractions, meanwhile, is its relatively inexpensive power. Is Oregon such a job-creation juggernaut that it can afford to experiment recklessly with something so important? Yes, that question was rhetorical.
The complexity of these initiatives and their likely consequences (intended and otherwise) better suit them to careful legislative deliberation than to the initiative process. Why, then, rush to the ballot? Because, says petitioner Nik Blosser, "The public is really ahead of elected officials in some cases on this. The public needs to decide: Do they want the state to go off coal or not?"
Assuming one of the two initiatives makes it to next year's ballot - far from a certainty - even many voters who don't like coal should exercise caution before voting "yes." Why should they support a climate-change concept so extreme even this year's Legislature wouldn't pass it? And if what Renew Oregon proposes really is a significant improvement upon the flawed and expensive SB477, why not send it back to the Legislature, where costs and benefits can be considered with more care than a heated election campaign would allow?
Renew Oregon's two initiatives may fizzle as quickly as SB477 did earlier this year. If nothing else, however, the effort should tell Oregonians a couple of things about the organization, which also is beating the drums in support of the low-carbon fuel standard, a mandate that could boost fuel costs by as much as 19 cents per gallon.
First, Renew Oregon doesn't appear particularly interested in carefully considered public policy. If it was, it would press "coal to clean" in the Legislature rather than taking it to the ballot.
Second, Renew Oregon doesn't seem particularly concerned about the burden costly environmental mandates will place on low- and middle-income Oregonians. Sure, they're happy to take a swipe at the compensation of utility executives, a chunk of anti-corporate red meat if ever there was one. But the gesture would be more credible if Renew Oregon weren't competing with corporate giant DuPont to be the loudest cheerleader of the low-carbon fuel standard. The chemical company would like Oregon drivers, rich and poor alike, to subsidize its new cellulosic ethanol plant in Iowa.