By Pam Marsh and Karin Power

Marsh, D-Ashland, represents House District 5 in the Oregon Legislature. Power, D-Milwaukie, represents House District 41 in the Oregon Legislature. Both serve on the Joint Carbon Reduction Committee.

Climate change is the greatest crisis of our lifetime and has understandably created immense fear across our state.

We represent communities hundreds of miles apart, both rural and urban, and have heard this fear firsthand. Supporters of reducing our state’s greenhouse gas emissions fear that delay has already put us too far behind in the fight against climate change. Opponents fear the reality of having to pay for their pollution. Rural Oregonians fear the consequences of all these changes on their way of life.

But we must move forward.

House Bill 2020, which would have forced big polluters to pay for their emissions and used proceeds to fight the effects of climate change, passed the Oregon House last session but never came up for a Senate vote in the face of a Republican walkout.

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Now we must cool down the partisan rhetoric and talk about why we need this strong climate legislation. We’d like to explain why Oregon’s legislative leadership is still committed to action and why a cap-and-invest system is the best path forward for the entire state.

Climate change is already limiting our options in rural Oregon. Temperatures are warmer than ever, and agricultural patterns are shifting. Fire season is more than 60 days longer than it was in the early 1970’s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[1] Drought threatens our irrigation systems as well as the groundwater supply. Our forests are suffering from opportunistic pests and disease made bold by hotter temperatures and the absence of moisture.

Our resource-dependent rural areas have the most to lose as the climate disintegrates. These are also the communities that have the most to gain from the kind of thoughtful, adaptive policies that were put forward in House Bill 2020 and its companion bill, Senate Bill 1051. Those policies – which can be expected to anchor new legislation – included:

Fuel rebates to low-income drivers, calculated to compensate for additional miles driven by residents in our more rural parts of the state.

Protection from cost-increases for low-income households that rely on electricity or natural gas, and fuel rebates for diesel use by those who work in the agriculture and forestry sectors.

A free ride for forestry and agriculture. Neither industry was regulated in the bill. That's consistent with practice in California, and we've adopted that approach.

Financial incentives for the forestry industry and small forest landowners to voluntarily adopt long-term forest sustainability practices.

Investing money collected from polluters in forest restoration and wildfire protection. That's a win for everyone who works in the woods and everyone who cares about the long-term viability of our forestland.

Giving credit to industries that are sensitive to price changes who have already reduced pollution by using the best available technology. This will protect jobs and incentivize cleaner operations.

During the 2019 legislative session, the Joint Committee on Carbon Reduction held more than 20 hearings and work sessions. We spent dozens of hours listening to public testimony. Key themes emerged. People want a climate action program that works and does not disproportionately impact low-income, fixed-income, and rural Oregonians.

Changes were made to respond to concerns from natural resource industries and other business sectors, resulting in a more achievable timeline and ultimately winning the support of members of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, the Oregon Building and Construction Trades Council, and Oregon Business for Climate.

Economic incentives were defined for rural and coastal communities. Money collected from polluters through the program would be used for workforce readiness, coastal emergency infrastructure, forest health projects, wildfire resilience, pressurized irrigation and other water projects, along with investments to counter the effects of ocean acidification.

There was nothing to require that rural Oregonians give up any truck or other piece of equipment. A different bill was narrowed to regulate diesel engines only in the Portland metro area, and rural communities were unaffected.

A broad coalition of labor, energy, business, tribal, farmworker and environmental organizations and companies worked through their differences to agree on a climate action program that balances environmental needs with economic realities.

In the end, we crafted a program that includes benefits and protections while staying true to our needed carbon reduction goals.

That historic accomplishment deserves completion. Oregon still has the opportunity to show the rest of the country what’s possible.