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Climate Emergency

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June 8, 2021 - Week 21

Climate Emergency

Back to full Legislative Report

Priority Bills

Global/National/Federal Updates

Jordan Cove Energy Project

Clean Energy

Transportation

Our Children's Trust

Forestry

Jump to Past Reports 6/8/2021


By Claudia Keith Climate Emergency Coordinator and Climate Emergency portfolio team members: Julie Chapman, Shirley Weathers, Cathy Frischmann, Josie Koehne, Kathy Moyd, Robin Tokmakian and Greg Martin      


Climate Emergency Highlights & Priority Legislation (Claudia Keith)


ALERT:  


Just a few days left for policy bills to move. Please contact your Representative and Senator and ask them to support these four Climate Emergency Priorities and the OCAP Budget. (Find Your Legislators) Oregonian Editorial; Readers respond: Join climate justice campaign.

1)  HB 2021 B 100% Clean Energy, in Joint W&M as of 5/28, with a $50M fiscal. Recent League Testimony (more details in CLEAN Energy CE LR)


1)  HB 2842 A Healthy Homes passed out of the House policy committee to Joint W&M since 4/7; Fiscal $20M League Testimony

Shared Priorities with NR Team

2)  HB 2488 A addressing climate justice through land use planning; In Joint W&Ms. Fiscal $.8M

3)  SB 286 A Climate and Environmental Justice. In Joint W&Ms. Fiscal

$3.6M


CE Budget Priorities: Most of the OCAP Coalition budget items, which cover 10+ state agencies are HERE. Note, it’s unclear at this time if the Oregon Global Warming Commission will be funded. ($1.5-2.0M)

Thank your Legislators who voted in the affirmative:

HB 2475 Enrolled ‘The Oregon Energy Affordability Act’. On 5/24 Governor signed. LWVOR Testimony.


Coalition Work and OCAP Progress Report:

A formal OCAP (Oregon Climate Action Plan) Coalition Progress report was released March 29. This coalition was formed after Gov Brown‘s March 2020 Carbon Policy Executive Orders, more information at Renew Oregon and OCAP NPR update interview.

Mark your calendars:

Attend or view recorded Agency and Commission meetings including new reports and studies.



Global/National/Federal Updates (Claudia Keith)


Why climate change summits need more young people's voices |World Economic Forum. More than one-third of heat deaths blamed on climate change: Warming resulting from human activities accounts for a high percentage of heat-related deaths, especially in southern Asia and South America. June 2021 Nature|. Biden administration ramps up diplomacy to stem (climate) migration: Secretary of State Antony Blinken wraps a trip to Costa Rica, while VP Kamala Harris gears for a visit to Central America. Biden's clean energy plans: Revolution or red tape?

EENews|.


Deal near on forcing companies to disclose climate risks, says central bank chief …global framework could be agreed at November’s COP26. |Financial Times. Paris accord rules must be wrapped up this year: UN climate chief. Transcript: The Path to Net Zero with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) and IHS Markit Vice Chair Daniel Yergin - The Washington Post. Swiss Financial Watchdog Requires Insurers, Banks to Disclose Climate Change Risks. Toward Deep Decarbonization – Foreign Policy. Ride a Green Swan: central banks grapple with climate risk. U.S.

Treasury's Yellen tells G7 to keep spending, says inflation will pass |Reuters. Biden Budget Includes Plan to Help Poor Buy Flood Insurance -The money comes as FEMA looks to revamp its insurance program to better reflect flood risks.


Climate change: measuring transition risks from net zero global challenge, Global framework needed to appropriately measure climate risks, policymakers, central bankers at Green Swan Conference say - Stranded assets from transition may range from US $1 trillion to US $4 trillion, one study found. US economist Joseph Stiglitz warns carbon pricing mismatch may trigger next global financial crisis |South China Morning Post. China’s central bank chief Yi Gang says climate-related stress test results will be released |South China Morning Post. Germany backs carbon pricing in EU climate policy overhaul – document.


Decarbonization drive creates supply chain challenges for corporate Japan |The Japan Times. Progress Urged as May-June Climate Change Conference Opens in Preparation for COP26 |UNFCCC. Global energy investments set to recover in 2021 but remain far from a net zero pathway. Germany is becoming ground zero for the challenges of deep decarbonization. Best Solar Energy Companies: How China Beat U.S. to Become World's Champion – Bloomberg. Opinion |We need a package of climate policies — not just a carbon tax - The Washington Post. Never Have the Silos Been So Far Apart - Niskanen Center. Carbon Pricing is a great alternative to emissions command-and-control regulations - Niskanen Center. Biodiversity–productivity relationships are key to nature-based climate solutions. Nature |Investment incentives reduced by climate damages can be restored by optimal policy. How China used cheap coal and allegedly forced labour to dominate the world's solar market: But half the world's supply of polysilicon now comes from China's Xinjiang region, where an estimated 1 million ethnic minorities, including Muslim Uyghurs, have been detained. CBS: Sir David Attenborough to 60 Minutes on climate

change: "A crime has been committed": Nearly two decades after declining to take a hard stance in his first profile on 60 Minutes,SirDavid Attenborough warns about the dangers of climate change.


International - Climate Action Network Briefing: Virtual SB 2021- May 2021


Climate Action Network (CAN) is the world’s largest network of civil society organizations working together to promote government action to address the climate crisis, with more than 1500 members in over 130 countries. www.climatenetwork.org. Climate Defenders Threatened, Struggle to Make Their Voices Heard: Civil Society Participation Key to Success at UN Climate Talks.


Bill Gates' next generation nuclear reactor to be built in Wyoming. How An Old Power Plant Is Being Refitted For The Hydrogen Economy. Major project aims to clear clean energy hurdle. BBC |Floating Wind Good, Floating Wind + Green Hydrogen Better. (Cerulean Winds proposes a floating wind turbine plan that will bring the natural gas industry to its knees, eventually.) CLIMATE: Coastal Arctic Sea Ice Is Thinning Faster Than Previously Thought: Old maps of snow depth on the ice had led researchers to underestimate melting. ENERGY - Opinion: It’s Time for Congress to Support Fusion Energy. Fusion devices for clean, safe, and affordable electricity and industrial heat are making advances and need a push.


Methane Power Could Come from Lakes and Reservoirs -The gas is making climate change worse. Can we harness it instead? A Better Way to Cool Ourselves: A new technique doesn’t deprive us of fresh air. And because it uses less energy, it’s good for the climate as well. An enormous missing contribution to global warming may have been right under our feet: A new study finds a large, previously unknown contribution to climate change through human conversion of peatlands for agriculture. 117th Congressional Legislation Climate bills HERE.


Region and State:

Oregonian LIVE: Readers respond: Join climate justice campaign. When Rep. Cliff Bentz visited Klamath Falls Thursday, he brought promises of government aid for farmers who won't be getting irrigation water from the federal Klamath Project this season. And he urged irrigators to resist the temptation to take matters into their own hands. JPR/NPR. Record Heat Bakes Drought-Stricken West (Scientific American) “Blistering temperatures add to concerns of a potentially devastating wildfire season.” City of Portland - April 2021 Zenith energy oil terminal permits. California Assembly Passes Groundbreaking Deforestation Bill. New Survey Shows Water Infrastructures Across Oregon Need Billions Of Dollars Of Improvement: A recent report has found that water infrastructure across Oregon is becoming too expensive for local governments to afford. JPR/NPR. ‘Difficult Days Ahead For Oregonians,’ As Wildfire Season Bears Down JPR/NPR. Oregon's two U.S. senators say they're prioritizing getting their state the help it needs to deal with a looming, drought-fortified fire season. The West Can End the Water Wars Now: Far-right radicals in Southern Oregon are threatening to bust open an irrigation canal. Instead, the region could be a model for managing watersheds in a warmer world.


Via OSUToday: To help address the climate problem, universities must rethink the tenure and promotion system: the antiquated institution steers researchers away from work sorely needed by society, says H. Tuba Özkan-Haller of Oregon State University. Bill to expand Portland- area freeway capacity and implement tolling faces strong criticism. Transcript: The Path to Net Zero with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) and IHS Markit Vice Chair Daniel Yergin - The Washington Post.


Agency and Commissions:

Find updates across many agencies on the State of Oregon ‘Action on Climate Change’ topics HERE. Find weekly 2021 updates at Oregon Greenhouse Emissions Program web page HERE. DOE weekly blog updates HERE. New Oregon Dept of Energy (ODOE) Report HERE.


Jordan Cove Energy Project (JCEP) (Shirley Weathers)

Nothing new to report on JCEP this week.

SB 392A, Relating to fugitive emissions study (Shirley Weathers)

SB 392A remains in the Joint Committee on W&Ms due to its $300,000 fiscal impact statement. The LWVOR supports.


SCR 17, Establishing an environmental justice framework of principles for the State of Oregon (Shirley Weathers)

SCR 17 is scheduled for a Floor vote in the House on June 7. LWVOR supports.


Clean Energy and Other Topics (Kathy Moyd and Greg Martin)

Legislation

ALERT: Once HB 2021 A, 100% Clean Energy, a priority bill for LWVOR, is referred to a W&Ms subcommittee, we expect it to move quickly to the House and Senate for a final vote, so now is a good time to notify your Senators and Representatives of your support; talking points can be deduced from our previous testimony. The bill requires retail electricity providers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity sold to Oregon consumers to 80 percent below baseline emissions levels by 2030, to 90 percent by 2035, and to 100 percent by 2040. It permits an electric company, in coordination with a local government, to provide a program of rates or charges to serve retail electricity consumers that covers costs of electricity generated from renewable or nonemitting energy resources. It establishes contractor labor standards for construction of large-scale projects. It prohibits the issuing of a site certificate for a new or expanded facility that produces energy from fossil fuels unless it generates only nonemitting electricity. It creates a program to provide grants to public entities, consumer-owned utilities, and Indian tribes to plan or build community renewable energy projects, with special emphasis on resilience and environmental justice, and appropriates $50 million to a Community Renewables Investment Fund for purposes of a grant program for those projects.


HB 3375 A, relating to floating offshore wind energy, has been referred to the Senate floor with a do-pass recommendation, but no vote has been scheduled. The good news is that full reading of bills is no longer being required in the Senate. This bill, which LWVOR supported in

written testimony,would establish a goal of planningfordevelopment of up to 3 gigawatts of floating off shore wind energy projects within federal waters off the Oregon coast by 2030 and report to the appropriate interim committees by September 15, 2022.


SJM 5, support of the federal Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA), is still in House Rules with no public hearing scheduled. The EICDA has been reintroduced into this session of Congress as H.R. 2307. LWVOR has notified the Committee that we are interested in having a public hearing scheduled. Our previous testimony is still applicable.

All other bills still being followed have been referred to the Joint W&Ms Committee, but have not been referred to a subcommittee. All except one passed out of its policy committee with bipartisan support, so are expected to pass easily when reaching the floors of the House and Senate. We provided verbal and written testimony in support of HB 2479, which modifies the definition of "global warming" to include certain aerosol air contaminants, including black carbon (soot).


Agency Action

On May 25, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) conducted the fifth Rulemaking Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting for the Climate Protection Program (CCP), known as “cap and reduce” in Executive Order 20-04. It was the first one at which draft rules were presented, engendering more discussion than at previous meetings. Some DEQ “leanings”, which had been opposed by our OCAP coalition, ended up in the draft rules, and some new issues were raised. Detailed data from the modeling activity was finally made available after the meeting. It was difficult to wade through, and we just discovered the Excel sheet with the most useful data on June 5. We are in the process of generating LWVOR comments on both the draft rules and the modeling data by June 7.


Transportation (Julie Chapman)

The transportation policy committees have no further scheduled meetings to discuss bills. The House Energy and Environment (HEE) Committee had an informational session about Renewable Diesel (RD) -a low particulate product that can be used as a “drag-and-drop” fuel, either as the sole fuel for diesel vehicles (without modification) or it can be alternated withfossil dieselasneeded. The “feedstock” to produce RD are refined fats (tallow, plant oils) and woody residue. With the state incentives,itvariesbyapennyfromthecostoffossildiesel,runscleaner, and is particularly adaptable to fleets. Several bills of interest are in Jt W&Ms or in the Joint Committee On W&Ms Subcommittee On Transportation and Economic Development."


Our Children’s Trust (Claudia Keith)

PNW Sightline Institute: Climate Action in the Courts: June 3 2021, ”Along with warmer weather and increasingly relaxed COVID restrictions, spring has brought us news about two of the revolutionary climate lawsuits that Sightline has been following. In Juliana v. United States, the judge overseeing the “youth plaintiffs” litigation has ordered the parties to begin settlement talks, ignoring for now the federal government’s request to dismiss the case outright. And in Baltimore v. BP, the city’s lawsuit against more than two dozen of the world’s largest oil and gas…”

Forestry (Josie Koehne)

The OCAP rule-making team met June 3 and Lauren Anderson of Oregon Wild provided updates on the Global Warming Commission's positive receptivity to the OCAP's Working Lands Table's Forestry recommendation. The OGWC is making progress towards a final Climate Change plan, but the due date has been pushed out to late August, rather than June 30. One of the recommendations is to explore the use of carbon offsets only sparingly, as an incentive towards longer rotations and climate-smart practices, and only for small forestland owners. ODF is depending on the OGWC to take the lead. ODF has a Draft Climate Change and Carbon Plan released May 21. Read it here. LWVOR will be providing comments.


June 7 at 1 PM in House E&E: Informational Meeting


  • Invited testimony only

  • (1:05 pm) Agricultural Practices that Sequester Carbon: Jennifer M. Moore, Ph.D., Research Soil Scientist, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service

  • (1:20 pm) Product Stewardship: Carpets: Representative Marty Wilde, House District 11, Scott Cassel, Chief Executive Officer/Founder, Product Stewardship Institute, Carolyn Stein, Executive Director, BRING Recycling, David Bender, Chief Executive Officer, Circular Polymers,Franco Rossi, President, Aquafil USA,Jennifer Stowe, Vice President, Government Relations, Carpet and Rug Institute, and Robert Peoples, PhD., Executive Director, Carpet America Recovery Effort

  • (2:05pm)ConversationonInterimActivities