Oregon climate bill advances; GOP lawmakers threaten walkout

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Republican lawmakers on Monday threatened to walk out of the Oregon Legislature, as they did twice last year, in an effort to deny Democrats a quorum and doom a contentious climate change bill.

A legislative panel approved the legislation after a proposed GOP amendment that would put the issue on the ballot in November was rejected.

The so-called cap-and-trade bill calls for the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 45% below 1990 emissions levels by 2035 and to at least 80% below by 2050. The bill would force big greenhouse gas emitters to obtain credits for each metric ton of carbon dioxide they emit. Opponents say fossil fuel companies will wind up offloading increased costs to customers.

Republican lawmakers said a matter of this magnitude should be brought before voters to decide. Sen. Fred Girod, a Republican from Stayton, said before the vote that if the committee passed the amendment “we would stick around.”

“Just give them the right to vote,” Girod told fellow members of the Legislature's Joint Ways and Means Committee. So many people wanted to observe the proceedings that there was an overflow room where they could watch on a large TV screen.

At a recent public hearing on the bill, loggers expressed concern it would lead to increased costs and the demise of their business. Others said global warming was an emergency that was already affecting them and would affect their children and grandchildren even worse.

The bill next goes to the Senate for a second vote. There was no immediate indication of a Republican walkout.

NASA says that in the absence of major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by an average of 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius), citing the latest estimates.

“Because climate change is a truly global, complex problem with economic, social, political and moral ramifications, the solution will require both a globally-coordinated response (such as international policies and agreements between countries, a push to cleaner forms of energy) and local efforts on the city- and regional-level,” NASA says on its climate website.

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