PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

At the risk of going overboard on this subject – the tactic by Senate Republicans to walkout of the recently-completed session of the Oregon Legislature — I am posting two a “point-counterpoint” description of the action.

Don’t worry. Overboard is what I do when it comes to politics because, other than golf, which is more important, I have nothing else to do in retirement.

One summary is from Senator Cliff Bentz, the Republican from Ontario, who, before he and other Republicans left town, was the chief R negotiator on the controversial “cap-and-trade” carbon reduction bill.

The second summary is from Senator Michael Dembrow, a Democrat from Portland, who says he played a key role in developing the basic bill, which eventually died, either because of the walkout or because three of Dembrow’s colleagues among the Ds couldn’t vote for the bill.

As I have said previously, the walkout was a legal maneuver, one various legislators on both sides of the aisle have used in the past. This time, the tactic tended to gain more notoriety, if only because of the prevalence of social media.

Was it worth it?

Rural Republicans would probably answer “yes” for some of the reasons cited by Bentz.

Urban Democrats would probably answer “no” for some of the reasons cited by Dembrow.

From Senator Bentz:

In a democracy, the majority rules. But when the Democratic majority decided to trade Oregon’s economic free-market system for one of central government control – while ignoring our constitution and making a shambles of Oregon’s rural and low-income economies – we walked.

These parts of House Bill 2020, which would have imposed greenhouse gas-emissions limits on businesses and forced them to buy allowances whose cost, (set by the state), would get passed on to consumers, were particularly egregious.

The bill’s regulatory cart is way out in front of the technology horse. The bill forces drivers to pay ever higher fuel prices years before the development of electric trucks and before installation of the infrastructure needed to allow meaningful use of electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles. Likewise, there’s a constitutional problem. The billions that Oregonians would be forced to pay in carbon taxes couldn’t be used to construct such infrastructure because that money is constitutionally restricted.

HB 2020 would increase the cost of fuel by 22 cents a gallon on Jan. 1, 2021, without regard to significant increases in the cost of fuel already in the pipeline. Those include Oregon’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (now five cents a gallon and on its way to 25 cents over the next few years); the 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax authorized by HB 2017; the international ban on bunker fuel for sea transport, estimated to increase the cost of diesel by 20 to 30 percenteffective January 2020; and the recently enacted Corporate Activities Tax which exempts fuel sales, but does not exempt other costs of fuel such as freight. HB 2020 callously stacks its 22 cents per gallon on top of these increases.

Democrats tried to design HB 2020 so that its 22-cent-per-gallon cost would not be considered a tax, even though you have no choice but to pay and the government gets to spend it. This unconstitutional approach kept the verboten word “tax” out of the bill, side-stepped the three-fifths legislative vote requirement and flouted the prohibition against use of an “emergency clause” in a tax bill. (Emergency clauses are often used to prevent referral of legislation to the people).

Finally, the Democrats silently changed how to measure Oregon’s carbon reduction. Instead of factoring in the amount of carbon sequestered by Oregon’s forests and sea, the bill tallies only emissions reductions. This seems innocuous, but the result skyrockets the cost of the scheme and ignores Oregon’s natural carbon sinks which, if used appropriately, could help Oregon become a major global player in the sequestration of carbon.

Yes, Oregon’s Republican senators walked and yes, HB 2020 is dead. But it will be back. Maybe the demonstrations against the bill, the three brave Democratic senators who also opposed the bill, the Senate walkouts, and the thousands upon thousands of emails supporting the death of 2020 will prompt the majority to actually address the many and damaging shortcomings of cap and trade. And maybe this time they will have the courage to let Oregonians vote on it.

From Senator Dembrow:

HB 2020B, the Clean Energy Jobs bill that would have created the Oregon Climate Action Program, was at long last ready to go – after years of work, hundreds of hours of public hearings and debate, thousands of pages of public testimony.

We had made the necessary design decisions that balanced out the needs of environmentalists and industry, urban and rural.  We had secured the support of the utilities, the construction trade unions, the tribes, large forest landowners and all the major environmental organizations, and Oregon Business and Industries had taken a neutral position on the bill.  We had the votes to pass it in both chambers.

And then, for a variety of reasons—political, ideological, irresponsible lobbying, inadequate communication, misleading communication, timing, bad faith, and, ultimately, threats of violence and the involvement of dark, anti-government elements—the effort stalled and nearly took with it the entire remainder of the session.

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There is room for both views. For my part, I tend to head toward Bentz because he makes a solid case about the damage the cap-and-trade bill would have done to rural Oregon, an area which is often left out of legislative decisions biased toward urban Oregon.