UPDATE: Oregon Democrats will slow down cap-and-trade bill, seek more Republican input

SALEM — Oregon lawmakers kicked off what promises to be a tense and potentially dramatic week in the Capitol with Senate Republicans warning their Democratic colleagues against passing a controversial cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature have expressed their willingness to flee the Capitol and deny Democrats the two-thirds quorum necessary to conduct business. Stress and acrimony have been building in recent weeks, with political insiders predicting Republicans could walk out later this week as Senate Bill 1530 advances.

The cap-and-trade proposal, which is largely the same as a plan that Senate Republicans helped kill by boycotting the Capitol last year, is scheduled for a work session at the Joint Subcommittee On Natural Resources at 4:45 p.m. today. In the end, Senate Democrats also lacked the votes to pass the 2019 bill but this year, they are expected to muster the necessary support.

The bill was also scheduled for a possible vote at the full Joint Committee on Ways and Means at 11 a.m. Tuesday. That prompted Sen. Dallas Heard, R-Roseburg, to caution Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, against a maneuver Courtney used in 2019 to get the last cap-and-trade plan out of the budget committee: commandeering the seat of Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a committed opponent of the plan.

“That’s called rigging the vote,” Heard said during a floor speech Monday morning, during which he also acknowledged Senate rules are on Courtney’s side. “It’s immoral, it’s unethical. And the people of Oregon are not going to stand for it anymore.”

Heard said the bill is “too contentious” to be decided by the Legislature and should be referred to voters. If it were amended to allow that, Heard said he would vote “yes” on it.

“If you do not do that, I don’t understand it,” Heard said, shaking his finger at Courtney. “Don’t rig the vote.”

Early Monday afternoon, the Tuesday Ways and Means work session on the bill was canceled.

Courtney returned briefly to the Senate Monday but has been absent from most floor sessions so far as he recovers from an infection in his replacement hip.

With three weeks left in the short legislative session, the pace of bill passing is just beginning to pick up and many priorities — such as legislation to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to child welfare programs, the state psychiatric hospital, forestry department, parole and probation, homelessness services and affordable housing — have yet to pass.

In a letter to Courtney on Monday, Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. of Grants Pass appeared to anticipate criticism that his caucus would likely face if they stall or kill those other priorities by walking out to halt the climate bill.

“I propose that we focus on the true intent of the short session and work on the budgets, emergencies, and fixes to other legislation,” Baertschiger wrote. “We need to live up to the intent of the short session that Oregonians voted for. When we have completed the intent of the short session, then we could move on to other more controversial legislation, that we may or may not come to an agreement on, but at least we would have finished the people’s business.”

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

Visit oregonlive.com/newsletters to get our 2020 Oregon Legislature newsletter delivered to your email inbox.