Columbia Gorge News

Energy Politics

Oregon Apollo Pulls the Plug on Renewable Energy Initiative

By Dan Richardson, 4-24-06

Oregon Apollo, the renewable energy initiative, has thrown in the towel. For now, anyway.

Fronted by former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and state Sen. Ben Westlund (I-Tumalo), the initiative aimed to jump-start a statewide renewable energy industry.

Of course, that was bound to ruffle some feathers. You don’t think those guys selling gas for $3 a gallon were happy about the idea of a state-subsidized alternative energy industry, do you?

Blaming Big Oil for its court challenges, the Oregon Apollo team wrote last week that, "it appears most unlikely that we will have sufficient time to gather the necessary signatures to place this measure before the voters in November 2006. 

For this reason, we believe that the best course of action is to transfer our time and energy from the 2006 initiative to a multi-year effort to solidify and align the various groups committed to advancing renewable energy development and use here in Oregon and across the region."

My initial read was that the Oregon Apollo initiative was reasonably thoughtful and, strangely for this state, sought to bring people together for some common and necessary goals. It was both idealistic and market-oriented.

So, news that the initiative has failed is disappointing — but hardly surprising. It enjoyed very few words from the print media, and few entries in the blogosphere; and the two big names behind it, one former governor and one would-be governor, are both involved in health care reform movements (Westlund’s here, and Kitzhaber’s here) that take time and attention.

The group said it was court challenges that snuffed out the Oregon Apollo initiative. While that was proximate, it strikes me that the initiative simply never caught fire in the public imagination. It suffered a death by inattention.

The towel-throwing note from Oregon Apollo might not be the final word, though: Kitzhaber, Westlund and comrades suggest that they may revive the renewable energy effort through a series of town hall meetings over the next couple of years to persuade legislators to act. That, or perhaps "filing a measure for 2008 to finish the job."

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