The Climate Kerfuffle in Oregon

Big troubles in Oregon over the cap-and-trade bill in the Senate. Senate Republicans have fled the state to prevent a senate quorum. There's trouble busin' in from outta state, and the D.A. here can't get no relief. There are rumors of a rumble out on the promenade, and the gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth.

OK. It's true that enough Senate Republicans have fled the state, mostly to Idaho I read, to prevent a quorum in the Senate so there can be no vote on HB 2020, a cap-and-trade bill. The 2019 legislative sessions ends on June 30th, and they're trying to hide that out.

But Oregon's constitution allows the governor to call on the state police to roost them out and bodily bring them back to the state capital, which she has now done. As if that's not bad enough, one state senator is threatening to shoot them if they show up, saying they should be "single and well-armed."

I see two major issues behind all this. One is the unwillingness of Republicans to do anything about climate change. But the second issue is more in play at the moment: the strange political makeup of Oregon.

Oregon is the 9th largest state in the union, and it really should be broken up into two states, divided roughly by the Cascade mountains. Portland is (generalizing) very liberal and backs liberal causes like cap-and-trade. And the county it's in, Multnomah, has about 20% of the state's population. The Portland metropolitan area has over 65% the state's population, though that includes Vancouver, Washington and other nearby towns across the Columbia River. The Willamette Valley, entirely in Oregon, contains about 70% of the state population.

So Portland is the state behemoth. As a result, Democrats have a 3/5ths supermajority in the state legislature and senate, and the governor is a Democrat. So even though the vast majority of the area of the state is red, the blues have a large upper hand. The figure to the right shows the results of the 2018 gubernatorial race, by county, won by Kate Brown, the Democrat.

The state even divides up geographically, with the Williamette Valley being lush terrain from all the rain, and the east, in the Cascade mountain rain shadow, being brown and scrubby high desert.

East of the Cascades and south of Eugene -- so, anywhere outside the Willamette Valley -- is very conservative. But with the supermajority they feel Democrats are ramming through legislation. Which they are. If the situation were reversed, Republicans would, of course, be doing exactly same thing.

So you can see the need for the state to be divided into two, or there will be perpetual political unhappiness on the right. The Democrats have been in power here for decades, and that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon, and maybe never.

Republicans say the cap-and-trade bill is unfair, in part because rural people drive more, with all the farmers and long distances between towns. The cap-and-trade bill is estimated to increase the price of gasoline by up to $0.23/gallon, which works out to $25 per metric ton of CO2. Not a lot. The carbon cap would periodically be lowered as time goes on.

Well, if you drive more and emit more carbon, you should, in fairness, pay more. But of course a lot of people don't want to hear it's time to start paying for their pollution.

I suspect the cap-and-trade bill here will pass in some form, perhaps by giving tax credits to farms and businesses in the red counties (or even statewide), or other legislative goodies. It's already a long and complex bill -- a simple carbon tax being obviously too simple (and, moreso, transparent).

Hopefully no state troopers will be shot. (They have guns of their own, you know.)