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Collection: Cascadia Climate Action

Where Do Canadians Stand on Climate?

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Editor’s Note October 3, 2016: Did you hear the news? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today that every Canadian province will have until 2018 to adopt a carbon pricing plan. To celebrate this key step forward in climate action, we are reviving this piece from earlier this year on Canadian perceptions of climate change. Now let’s hope that the United States … Read more

Why Oregon Needs the Healthy Climate Act

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Author’s note: Originally, the pie charts in this article included industrial electricity and natural gas use under the industrial sector. I have since updated the emissions and estimated allowance value pie charts to instead categorize emissions (and resulting allowance value) from industrial use of electricity and natural gas under the electricity and natural gas sectors.  In the … Read more

8 Takeaways from Oregon’s Global Warming Commission’s Report

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In its 2015 report, the Oregon Global Warming Commission offers the Oregon legislature a path towards transforming the state’s economy and meeting its statutory global warming pollution limits. Its scenario for meeting the state’s emissions limits looks like Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixin’s: a price on pollution, plus a package of complementary clean energy, energy efficiency, … Read more

Event: It’s Time to Put a Price on Pollution

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Join Sightline senior researcher Kristin Eberhard to learn what carbon pricing would mean for Washington and beyond. Washington has an opportunity to be a leader on carbon pricing and to create an effective model for other states to follow. Kristin will moderate the evening, with speakers from Climate Solutions, Carbon WA, and the Washington State Governor’s Office. Find out what it takes to move Washington towards a clean energy future.

This is part of a three-part series on climate risks sponsored by the City of Tacoma’s Office of Environmental Policy and Sustainability. The series focuses on what we can do to reduce our climate pollution and improve our local environment while preparing for change. Find out about the other events here.

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Five Things Northwest States Should Know about the Federal Clean Power Plan

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Last fall I described how President Obama’s draft federal Clean Power Plan (CPP) gave Oregon and Washington a chance to leap into a clean energy future. The final federal rule is out, and it clears and fortifies the path for states. The CPP is a carbon-pricing powerhouse: it gives Oregon and Washington’s governors the opportunity to use a price on carbon pollution—either alone or in combination with other states—to comply with the federal law.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan is the progeny of the US Supreme Court’s 2007 holding that the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gas emissions. The Clean Air Act uses a “cooperative federalism” approach; EPA sets goals for each state. It then lets the states write their own implementation plans for reaching their goal. States must submit plans by September 2016 and comply with the final goal by 2030. Last year’s draft plan aimed to cut nationwide power sector emissions about 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but the final plan estimates it will get down to 32 percent below 2005 levels. While cutting global warming pollution, the CPP will also avoid 90,000 asthma attacks and 3,600 premature deaths.

[prettyquote align=”right”].@BarackObama’s #CPP: Emissions down 32%, 90K fewer asthma attacks.[/prettyquote]

1. The CPP encourages state and regional cap-and-trade programs.

The CPP is more than 1,500 pages long, but the bottom line is: it steers states towards creating interoperable cap-and-trade programs.

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3 Possible Outcomes of Governor Inslee’s Carbon Order

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Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee, stymied by Republican opposition to putting a price on carbon, is flexing his executive power. Like President Obama using his Clean Air Act authority to order the Environmental Protection Agency to formulate the federal Clean Power Plan, Governor Inslee has invoked his authority under existing pollution laws. Last year, a group of Washington young people petitioned the Department of Ecology to use its existing authority to take action on climate change.

In July, Governor Inslee ordered the Washington Department of Ecology to make a plan that will cut climate pollution down to the limits in state law.

Ecology’s rulemaking could:

1. Create a plan and some policies to start Washington down the right path until the legislature takes action.

By using his executive authority, Governor Inslee might be able to keep Washington on track, despite this year’s legislative gridlock.

Comprehensive climate action requires comprehensive public process. California took two years of public rulemaking to develop its “Scoping Plan”—the blueprint for the state’s climate action. Governor Inslee directed Ecology to conduct a one-year rulemaking where “all stakeholders will have ample opportunity to express their ideas, options and concerns as the rule development process unfolds.” Ecology will “assess which sectors and facilities should be covered” and will offer a “variety of compliance options” for those facilities and sectors.

This rulemaking could result in a sweeping state plan describing policies aimed at overcoming market barriers to cutting pollution, policies aimed at sectors that would not likely be included in a cap-and-trade program, and policies aimed at achieving additional benefits, beyond reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

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Where Do Pollution, Poverty, and Race Come Together?

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If Washington finally stops giving fossil fuel polluters a free pass and starts making them pay for their pollution, the state will have some money to spend. Nothing makes friends like money to spend, so legislators will undoubtedly hear all about how schools, highway builders, and others would like to spend the money.

Yet some people in Washington will have a particularly strong claim to that revenue. They’ve already paid a high price for pollution in terms of their health, access to opportunities, and overall quality of life. Members of these communities often have darker skin and lower incomes than other neighborhoods. More pollution, more people of color, and less money add up to a need for investments to help these communities thrive.

But first we have to find them.

That might sound silly—it’s not like these communities are hiding. Community organizations know exactly where people are suffering. Or for a more scientific approach, we could look at census and pollution data and pinpoint the communities with more pollution, more poverty, and more people of color than other parts of the state.

Actually, we need to do both.

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Everything Oregon Legislators Need To Know About Stopping Climate Pollution

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Quick! You have seven minutes to tell Oregon legislators everything they need to know about stopping climate pollution. . .  GO! That was my task last week when testifying at an Oregon Senate informational hearing about two bills that would stop the free lunch for climate polluters in Oregon—see the video of my testimony below.

Senate Bill 965 is a cap-and-dividend bill that would give all the revenue back to Oregon taxpayers, and House Bill 3470 is a cap-and-delegate bill that would put the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in charge of limiting pollution. There was a full panel of testimony, including Julia Olsen from Our Children’s Trust making a compelling case for Oregon to act on climate now, and Phil Harding from Oregon State University giving an inspiring perspective on technological innovation. I used my time to make the following points:

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Three Things to Know About CarbonWA’s Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax

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Washington House Democrats recently threw a ball by failing to include badly needed carbon revenue in their proposed budget. There may still be time to get carbon revenue back on the table, but a relief pitcher is warming up, just in case. In March, CarbonWA, a grassroots group, filed ballot language with the Secretary of State, and now supporters are out gathering signatures and raising money to put it on the 2016 ballot.

CarbonWA’s Initiative 732 is modeled after British Columbia’s successful carbon tax: it would tax pollution and use all the revenue to cut other state taxes. The CarbonWA tax would start at $15 per ton, rise to $25 per ton in year two, and then slowly and steadily increase by inflation plus 3.5 percent each year. The roughly $1.7 billion in annual revenue would:

  • Reduce the state sales tax from 6.5 percent to 5.5 percent.
  • Eliminate the business and occupation (B&O) tax for manufacturers.
  • Fund the Working Families Rebate to provide up to $1,500 a year for 400,000 low-income working households.

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Listen In: Oregon’s Proposed Polluters-Pay Bills

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No time to sit down and read our Cashing In Our Carbon series? That’s okay! I recently gave some radio interviews to help make sense of the carbon pricing bills wending their way through the Oregon legislature. So if you’re curious, maybe you can squeeze in a listen. The recent Oregon legislative hearing about carbon … Read more

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