Oregon lawmakers look to reshape cap-and-trade program to pay for transportation needs
Traffic sometimes flows on Interstate 5 in Portland but is often bunched up around the Rose Quarter. (Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr)
This is a developing story and will be updated.
As Oregon lawmakers scrounge for ways to pay for hundreds of millions in transportation needs, they've dug up a new twist on an old plan: allowing polluters to buy and trade carbon credits.
In a memo to House and Senate caucus leaders on Thursday, transportation committee co-chairs Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale and Rep. Susan McLain, D-Forest Grove, said they were discussing replacing Oregon's Climate Protection Program with a new market-based emissions reduction program linked to other West Coast states.
Gorsek and McLain said in a statement that they were making 'significant progress' toward a plan to keep the state's roads and bridges safe.
'Members of both parties are working together to develop a proposal that will address the issues we have been focused on all along: safety, maintenance and long-term sustainability,' the statement continued. 'We've gotten to this point after years of hard work and engagement from hundreds of stakeholders and Oregonians from every corner of the state. Conversations are ongoing and we will have more details to release in the coming weeks.'
Their memo comes a day after most House and Senate Republicans announced their support for an opposing plan that would cut funding for bike and pedestrian safety and public transit to provide more funding for roads and bridges. Not included in the Republican plan were four Republicans who have worked with Democrats to hash out details: Reps. Jeff Helfrich of Hood River and Kevin Mannix of Salem, and Sens. Bruce Starr of Dundee and Suzanne Weber of Tillamook, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
Republican support, especially in the House, could be crucial to passing any transportation package this session. Democrats started the session with 36 House members, enough to hike taxes or pass new ones without Republican support, but they're temporarily down to 35 after Courtney Neron Misslin, D-Wilsonville, was appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy. Her replacement won't be selected until June 6. Another Democratic representative, Hòa Nguyễn of Portland, has been away from the Capitol since early February while undergoing treatment for stage 4 cancer.
Gorsek and McLain provided few details in their two-page memo to lawmakers, but draft language is expected in the coming days. The Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment, which they co-chair, will hold its first meeting on Tuesday.
The cap-and-trade portion of the plan is surprising in Oregon, where Republicans tanked similar proposals in 2019 and 2020 by walking out and denying quorum. Then-Gov. Kate Brown eventually issued an executive order launching the Climate Protection Program.
Lawmakers plan to establish a workgroup to create a new program that would eventually replace the Climate Protection Program. Gorsek and McLain's memo said they envision dedicating credits generated by gas and diesel polluters toward the state highway fund, with other credits used for wildfire mitigation, community-based nonprofits and transit programs.
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