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Collection: Cashing In Our Carbon

Governor Inslee’s Executive Carbon Pollution Cap, Explained

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Sometimes the term “cap-and-trade” evokes images of traders run amok and Enron-style meltdowns. “Why can’t we just use the good part (the cap that makes polluters stop polluting) without the questionable part (trading that enables Wall Street antics)?” concerned citizens sometimes wonder. Why not just a cap? Washington state, using the authority of the state Clean Air Act, … Read more

The Oil Industry’s California Playbook

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Editor’s note: A version of this article originally appeared on Oil Check Northwest.

Last week, after intense lobbying from the oil industry, California legislators killed part of a bill that would have set a landmark goal of decreasing statewide petroleum use by 50 percent by 2030. After millions of dollars of furious Big Oil lobbying, legislators dropped the petroleum requirement from the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act (SB 350). While the bill’s other monumental goals of increasing building efficiency by 50 percent and increasing renewables’ share of the state’s energy to 50 percent remain intact, the oil lobby won this battle.

However, Governor Jerry Brown insists the war is not over: “I am more determined than ever,” he stated in a press conference announcing the bill’s changes. He plans to spend his remaining three years in office making meaningful progress on climate change. Under his leadership, California has been a model for the rest of the world on climate legislation and has even led other subnational provinces and states to join its carbon trading market.

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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

Myths and Facts about Capping Climate Change Pollution

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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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Oregon has a climate law implementation question. HB 3470 has an answer.

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Most parents are familiar with the slight panic of not knowing if you really have a way to enforce a rule you made for your kids. You’ve been clear that it is not OK to chew gum at the dinner table, but now what? Reach in his mouth and pull the gum out? Carry him to his room? Stop dinner until he complies?

Oregon is facing a similar dilemma: the Beaver state has had climate change pollution goals in law for eight years, but doesn’t have a mechanism to meet the legal pollution limits. Oregon House Bill 3470—the Climate Stability & Justice Act of 2015—would create the framework to fairly and cost-effectively phase out fossil fuels. Here’s why HB 3470 is the bill Oregon has been waiting for:

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