OSPIRG's Maureen Kirk

This summer, state policymakers crossed a critical milestone for Oregon’s environmental movement. The Environmental Quality Commission voted to make the Clean Cars program permanent, creating Oregon’s first state-wide limits on global warming pollution.

The victory came after a hard-fought year-long campaign. After Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced his support for the Clean Cars program, the automakers’ lobbyists in Salem started working to derail the program, but my staff worked with the Clean Cars for Oregon coalition to build statewide support and make sure that policymakers acted in the public interest.

Our citizen outreach staff knocked on doors, our advocates produced research documenting the benefits of the program for curbing global warming, and our field staff worked to recruit supporters from business, religious and academic communities.

The timing couldn’t have been better. The record-breaking heat in the summer of 2006 (remember those 104-degree days?) reminded us that global warming is here; but it also opened a window of opportunity for us to make major strides in the fight against global warming.

The window opened because of a critical shift in national media coverage on global warming. A year ago, most media coverage on global warming questioned whether or not it existed, even though there had been scientific consensus on global warming for a decade.

But in the summer of 2006, that changed. The cover of TIME magazine said global warming is “already damaging the planet at an alarming rate.” Within a few weeks, global warming was on the cover of Vanity Fair and featured on the national news morning and night for a week.

Oregonians were ready to have the national media confirm what they already knew; when Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” opened in Portland, attendance was so strong, they added extra shows and cities, and opened in scheduled cities earlier than anticipated.

OSPIRG is ready to maximize this opportunity. Our top environmental priority for the next legislative session in Salem is a bill to require that 25 percent of Oregon’s electricity come from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2025. Out of nearly 50 actions identified by the governor’s Advisory Group on Global Warming, a 25 percent Renewable Energy Standard would have the single biggest impact on curbing global warming.

Of course, we need to do even more. We need to reduce global warming emissions across our state’s economy. And scientists say we need a federal policy to slow, stop and reverse global warming pollution in the next five to 10 years to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

So this summer, our Washington, D.C., office worked with members of Congress, including Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, to introduce a science-based bill. The Safe Climate Act will reduce global warming pollution 15 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

Our staff are under no illusions: a bill this strong is unlikely to pass under the current leadership in Washington. But its introduction is a critical part of laying the groundwork to pass appropriate global warming solutions at the federal level.

The other critical component of our plan is for states like Oregon to continue to take the lead. That means our state’s leaders have to build on the Clean Cars victory by enacting the Renewable Energy Standard.

If we seize the current opportunity and keep Oregon on a leadership track, we can translate that leadership into national momentum, and move down a path toward global warming solutions.

Maureen Kirk
Executive Director