We Had Better Move Ahead Without Bush

It's a good thing no one in Oregon is waiting for President George W. Bush to save us from global warming. President Bush spoke Wednesday about his plan to reduce greenhouse gases which cause global warming, starting in 2025, allowing a peak in usage 17 years from now. This statement contrasts with leading scientists' estimate that by 2025, we need to have already made emissions reductions in the 20-30% range if we are to avoid the direst consequences of our fossil fuel usage. Some of those consequences are expected to include increased severe weather events (drought, fires, hurricanes, flooding, etc.), as well as decreased snowpack and water supply, disruption of food supply, and rise in sea levels.

The Climate Institute offers the following explanation of a rise in sea levels: "The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects an increase of temperature ranging between 1.1 and 6.40 C over the next century, necessarily entailing a reduction of the amount of ice. As a result, sea levels could rise 10 to 23 inches by 2100... In addition, the IPCC suggests that by 2080, sea level rise could convert as much as 33 percent of the world's coastal wetlands to open water (IPCC 2007)." Because many of the world's largest cities, including American cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Boston, and even Portland, are either directly on the coastline or connected via river channel, a significant sea level change would indicate large population dislocation.

Whether such impacts and dislocations occur depends greatly on what we do in the next 2 decades, the very years the Bush Administration would like to allow business as usual, with climbing emissions: "Unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt... Early mitigation actions would avoid further locking in carbon intensive infrastructure and reduce climate change and associated adaptation needs... Many impacts can be reduced, delayed or avoided by mitigation. Mitigation efforts and investments over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels. Delayed emission reductions significantly constrain the opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels and increase the risk of more severe climate change impacts." ( IPCC 2007, p. 19.)

Offering no specific policies or regulatory regimes leading to greenhouse gas emissions, and instead speaking of "accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies," Bush's speech comes just weeks before Congress expects to debate climate change legislation which would introduce real mandatory emissions reductions. While we found Bush's lack of action regarding global warming extremely disappointing, we find this charade meant to resemble genuine action even more so. Perhaps we are supposed to take heart that the President finally sees climate change as a problem; however, it is discouraging that having recognized the problem, the President doesn't actually want to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, back in Oregon, utilities are working hard to incorporate carbon-neutral power sources such as wind and solar so that they can meet the Renewable Energy Standard passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2007. Under the RES, 25% of Oregon's electricity will come from new renewable sources by the year 2025, the same year Bush would only begin to make a reduction in emissions. In addition, Oregon has the highest percentage nationwide of voluntary participants in the renewable energy programs offered to residential customers by Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp. Not to mention the fact that Oregon's Public Utility Commission has rejected the last several utility requests to build new coal plants (the highest-emissions electrical power source), rejections for which CUB led the charge.

CUB continues to advocate for actions and policies which would mitigate the worst effects of climate change in Oregon. We are working with the Western Climate Initiative to craft a realistic and meaningful limit on carbon emissions, a so-called "cap-and-trade regime." (Another member of the WCI, British Columbia, has already instituted a carbon tax to reduce its own emissions.) It is clear to us, as it does not seem to be clear to the Bush Administration, that an earlier start on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not only helpful, it is essential.

Posted by Oregon CUB on April 17, 2008. Permanent link to this article. | Comments (0)

Qwest Proposes to Deregulate and Raise Phone Rates

Oregon's largest phone company, Qwest, has proposed a radical plan to immediately raise rates and deregulate phone services over the next three years. Once rates are fully deregulated the phone company would be able to add additional rate hikes. Of course, the company pretends that their proposal does not deregulate rates, but that is nonsense. Under Qwest's plan, the Public Utility Commission of Oregon would no longer have the power to establish rates that are "just and reasonable," which has been the basis for establishing regulated utility rates for decades.

Under Qwest's proposal, rates for basic local phone service would be allowed to increase immediately by $2/month or 15.6%. Rates for Extended Area Service would remain where they are and all other retail services would be deregulated, allowing unlimited rate increases.

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Posted by Oregon CUB on April 14, 2008. Permanent link to this article. | Comments (0)

A Specific Response to Global Warming: Let's Take a Look at Cap-and-Trade

The environmental community may have its differences, but one thing that is gaining universal agreement is that we need to reduce our carbon emissions to address the rising waters and rising threats of global warming. So how do we do this? Three commonly discussed mechanisms include a cap-and-trade regime, a straight carbon tax, or direct carbon regulation (without the ability to trade emissions credits). Of these three, the one being discussed by the Western Climate Initiative -- and the one which has gained the most political traction -- is the cap-and-trade option. So next question: what is it?

The purpose of cap-and-trade is to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, the most common pollutant being carbon dioxide. And although carbon emissions do occur in nature, human emissions of carbon dioxide have increased astronomically in the past 150 years, due to fossil fuel use in our vehicles, our businesses, and our homes. A cap-and-trade would put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that result from the burning of fossil fuels, at some agreed-upon level, and then gradually reduce that cap until we reach a sustainable level of carbon emissions that does not endanger the ecosystems we rely on. The State of Oregon has set a goal for itself of reducing carbon emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by the year 2050. As of yet, this goal has no teeth. But the legal enforcement of some carbon reduction goal cannot be far off, if the message of scientists, the interest of political leaders, and the level of general public awareness, are all taken as indications.

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Posted by Oregon CUB on March 12, 2008. Permanent link to this article. | Comments (4)

CUB 2008 Legislative Report

The Oregon legislature completed its supplemental session to test drive going to annual sessions. It was scheduled to go from Feb. 4th through Feb. 29th but legislators managed to end a week early on Feb. 22nd.

The number of bills that were allowed to be introduced was limited so CUB had a very narrow agenda. There was opportunity to work on a global warming bill, an energy efficiency bill and we monitored the bill to give OMSI money and a bill to upgrade the business energy tax credit. Here's what passed and what went by the wayside:

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Posted by Oregon CUB on March 06, 2008. Permanent link to this article. | Comments (0)

PGE's Management Cannot Control Costs So They Want to Raise Rates

Yesterday Portland General Electric Co. filed a general rate case, its last one having closed all of 2 weeks ago. Among their requests of the Public Utility Commission is an increase in their profit margin, from 10.1 to 10.75%, which could earn shareholders tens of millions more annually; and a sizable increase for general Operations & Maintenance and Administration & General costs. Altogether, residential customers' rates would jump 9.5% if PGE's request is granted.

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Posted by Oregon CUB on February 28, 2008. Permanent link to this article. | Comments (0)