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Energy & Politics

Oregon-Wide Renewable Energy Industry Proposed

By Dan Richardson, 2-02-06

Oregonians have hopes to placemore than 100 proposed ballot initiatives up for a vote this year, and many of them are either silly, unrealistic or pet causes run amok. Most won't gather enough signatures, thankfully. There's one, though, that really ought to generate some heat, in a positive sense: The renewable energy and new jobs initiative, otherwise known as Oregon Apollo.

The Oregon Apollo initiative would create up to seven "centers of excellence" around the state to encourage "research and development and training of an educated workforce for the clean and renewable energy industry." The idea is to jump-start a statewide renewable energy industry, along with the jobs that would create.

Why? Because, as backers say: "With oil supplies shrinking and oil at over $60 a barrel, we'd be smart to pioneer a clean energy technology industry and make Oregon — not California or China — the green tech capital of the Pacific."

The initiative would also set biofuel standards and enact tax credits for production of raw material for biofuel.

It's an ambitious idea, one worthy of study, debate and, one hopes, support. The idea is not native to the Beaver State: It's an Oregon take from something proposed by former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach, who angered the environmental establishment by telling them environmentalism was dead. It's time to think beyond the shopworn set of Green ideas, said Werbach. He co-founded and popularized the idea of a national renewable energy effort called the Apollo Project, which was inspired by the Kennedy-era Apollo space program. If we can man on the moon in less than a decade, goes the thinking, we as a nation can unplug ourselves from smoggy, politically volatile oil.

Werbach and others launched on the idea as a way to reenergize liberal (er, progressive) politics in an era of Republican electoral triumph. The notion caught fire and, fortunately, seems to have emerged as a pan-American idea to get the nation free from foreign oil and energize new technology and job-creation. It's an idea, in other words, that's too big and too important for any one slate of political candidates.

The Apollo project has gone national, as an alliance of environmental and labor organizations who see the Apollo project as a way to fuel their own particular missions. And perhaps the Oregonians behind the ballot initiative do, too. The initiative's chief petitioners are former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) and State Senator Ben Westlund (R-Bend) (who's often mentioned as a possible independent candidate for governor).

But regardless of some supporters' motivations, the Apollo idea — disentangle us from Middle Eastern oil, jump-start innovative new technology industries, creating new categories of well-paying jobs — is one that will become central to American politics in years to come. Either sooner, at our behest, or later, when global oil supplies fall and we get squeezed between the Muslims and the Chinese.

There hasn't been much analysis of the Oregon Apollo initiative yet. For one thing, they need to collect signatures to make the November ballot. The brewing governor's race plus Portland's aerial tram and education travails are sucking up all the oxygen of the major media's attention.

Here's my thumbnail reaction of the Oregon Apollo initiative:

1. The goals are worthy; indeed, getting America off its IV-feed of Middle Eastern oil is geopolitically, environmentally and economically critical. We need to do this. Absent significant national leadership (I'm talking to you, Mr. Prez and 535 Congressmen), state efforts are the way to go. Oregon shouldbe at the forefront.

2. The initiative wisely seeks to harness the entire state, mandating that the "centers of excellence" be spread around — at least two must be east of the Cascades — and setting as one of their purposes the tracking of effects of renewable energy development and job creation on rural Oregon.

3. From a Columbia Gorge point of view, it strikes me as wise if local government officials were to get on board and begin lobbying hard for the initiative, and for a Gorge center of excellence. And one potential vehicle would be an alliance of tech businesses and Columbia Gorge Community College, which serves both Hood River and The Dalles.

4. Setting biofuel standards will legitimize and encourage wider use of cleaner-burning automotive biofuel — and also give fuel distributors and auto manufacturers motivation (shortsighted though it will be) to oppose the initiative. They'll scare people with tales of skyrocketing gasoline prices... Wait, both sides will do that.

5. Tax credits for growing the raw material for biofuel will likewise encourage and spread acceptance of everyday biofuel use. Those credits will also get a certain percentage of Oregon’s farmers to actively support the initiative.

In sum, we know that the oil-based economy causes environmental damage and keeps us dependent on Iran and the Saudis, and that we'll need a huge technological project to engineer our way past these problems. The Oregon Apollo ballot initiative won't get us there, but it will get us started.

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By Dan Richardson, 2-02-06 | comments (4) | email story | print story

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