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Collection: Carbon Pricing Introduction

https://www.sightline.org/series/carbon-pricing-introduction/

What is the Best Way to Ensure Climate Justice in Oregon?

Sightline is releasing a new report today—What Is the Best Way to Ensure Climate Justice in Oregon?—describing how a census tract-based approach to climate justice, like the one California uses, faces difficulties in Oregon due to quirks of Oregon’s constitution and demographics. The report then points the way towards a homegrown Oregon approach to climate … Read more

Where Are the Highly-Impacted Communities in Washington?

In Washington and across the United States, communities of color and low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be exposed to air pollution and toxic chemicals. People of color and people with low incomes will also be disproportionately impacted by climate change. Exacerbating their vulnerability to pollution, low-income households and communities of color often have fewer … Read more

Everything Oregon Legislators Need To Know About Stopping Climate Pollution

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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Myths and Facts about Capping Climate Change Pollution

Author’s note: Some folks in the Oregon legislature have been fretting about falsehoods lately. I wrote this up to help inform a hearing on climate bills in Salem on April 14th.

Oregonians are already paying for climate change, through damaged shellfish, lost snowpack, and increased wildfires. Climate models predict that, without urgent action, the Oregon drought could morph into something like the California mega-drought. It’s time to act. Don’t let false rumors—often circulated by entrenched fossil fuel interests trying to protect their profits—trip Oregon up on the path to clean energy. Get the facts.

MYTH: “Making polluters pay will wreck the economy.”

FACT: Portland State University’s modeling shows that holding polluters accountable and reinvesting the money in schools and roads will grow jobs and wages, particularly in rural Oregon.

It isn’t just economic modeling; years of real real-world experience show that economies survive and thrive when polluters pay. Nine northeast states, British Columbia, California, and Quebec have all been making polluters pay for years, and their economies have kept pace with other parts of the United States and Canada where polluters still spew for free. California has been growing jobs faster than other states. Europe has cut pollution for ten years while growing GDP. Here’s the evidence:

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