Gov. Kate Brown has $5 million to launch a new regulatory plan for greenhouse gas emissions, after lawmakers signed off on emergency funding on Monday.

The governor is finalizing an order for regulations to reduce the state’s climate warming pollution after Republicans boycotted the last two weeks of the five-week legislative session that ended Thursday to kill a carbon cap-and-trade bill. Monday was the first day most Republicans and Democrats were back working together at the Capitol.

Richard Whitman, director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said it’s his understanding Brown’s executive order “is imminent.”

“It will be very soon,” Whitman told Republicans who questioned why the agency needed emergency funding. He said state workers will face an “aggressive” timeline to get regulations in place by 2022 as planned.

Roughly $1.25 million approved by the Legislative Emergency Board on Monday will pay for the Department of Environmental Quality to hire 10 staffers to write new carbon regulations and conduct the public process to adopt them. The new employees will also handle “other actions with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all emissions sources, including point sources, natural gas emissions and transportation fuels,” according to a legislative document.

The remaining money was approved for “services and supplies,” some of it for legal work by the Oregon Department of Justice “because there will be significant legal work on this,” Whitman said.

Republicans on the committee and Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scappoose all voted “no” but the remaining Democrats were still able to approve the spending. There are seven Republicans on the 20-member Legislative Emergency Board.

“I think this is going to get us in a lawsuit,” Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said. He pointed out the state is already accruing $262,000 a day in interest on a $1 billion judgement against it for failing to maximize timber harvests in rural counties.

No Democrats spoke about the purpose of the funding. Johnson asked Whitman whether the governor’s administration had researched the legal basis for the pending executive order and whether it would make that analysis public. Whitman said he plans to release any legal advice he receives from the Oregon Department of Justice on the matter.

— Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud

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