Oregon's climate bill and the case of the disappearing Republicans

Democrats, who control the Oregon Senate as well as the House of Representatives, were preparing to vote on the measure last week when all 11 Republican senators disappeared. Without the votes to reject the bill, which would require businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Republicans denied the Democrats a needed quorum, blocking a vote from taking place in the Senate.

Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, has ordered the Oregon State Police to find the Senate Republicans and bring them back to the Capitol in Salem for a vote. As of Monday morning, none of the Republicans had been found. Some were said to have left the state. And there was no sign of a resolution.

What is this fight really about?

Oregon Democrats are trying to push through a bill that would significantly decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that businesses are legally allowed to emit. The Democrats say the bill is needed to reduce the effects of global warming.

Senate Republicans say the legislation would have a devastating effect on farmers, dairies and the state’s struggling logging industry, among others. More than that, Republicans say, the bill represents an existential threat to rural life, and they want the residents of Oregon to decide on the proposal, not the Democrats who control the state’s capital. Loggers have been protesting intermittently outside the Capitol for weeks, circling the building in their logging trucks on some days.

Democrats say the bill is critical to slowing the onset of climate change, which in Oregon has been blamed for drought and an extensive algae bloom off the coast in 2015 that devastated the shellfish industry from California to Alaska. Oregon Democrats want the legislation to be a model for other states.

What is in the bill?

The highly debated bill would make Oregon one of several states to impose an emissions-trading program, a market-based approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The bill would place limits on the amount of carbon dioxide that businesses could lawfully emit. By 2050, for instance, the bill would mandate an 80% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.

Some businesses would be required to buy credits for every ton of greenhouse gas they produce. Those credits would then be purchased at special auctions and traded among businesses. Over time, the state would make fewer credits available, ultimately forcing companies to pollute less. The plan, commonly known as cap and trade, is modeled after a 2016 California law.

How does Oregon’s bill compare to other state climate policies?

It is far more extensive than most. Oregon would become just the second state, after California, to require that businesses in every sector of the economy pay for the planet-warming greenhouse gases that they emit.

Economists have long favored so-called carbon pricing policies as a particularly cost-effective way of tackling climate change. By making it more expensive to burn fossil fuels, cap-and-trade programs or carbon taxes give companies an incentive to reduce their emissions and switch to cleaner alternatives.

But so far, these policies have been a tough sell politically. Voters in Washington state twice rejected ballot initiatives that would have imposed a carbon tax. While 10 states in the Northeast have set up their own regional cap-and-trade program, it only affects electric power plants, which are responsible for about one-quarter of the nation’s emissions. Most states have shied away from this approach and have instead focused on requiring utilities to use more power from wind or solar generation, which is broadly popular with voters.

Oregon’s bill would go much further, directly regulating emissions from industries like cement and paper manufacturing, while also taking aim at the natural gas used to heat homes and the gasoline and diesel fuels that power cars and trucks. While scientists say that all of those sectors will need to be overhauled in order to head off the worst effects of global warming, the wider approach also increases the likelihood of political conflict, since every corner of the economy will be affected.

Will the Republican walkout kill the climate change measure?

The end of the legislative session is only a few days away, on Sunday. But Brown has threatened to call a special session if the climate change bill and other Democratic priorities are not voted on in the regular session because the Republicans haven’t reappeared.

The walkout over the climate bill is the second time in six weeks that Oregon Republicans — who are outnumbered in both houses of the state Legislature — have been frustrated enough to flee the Capitol to delay a vote they opposed. In May, Republicans disappeared for four days to block a vote on a school funding tax plan. Oregon is by no means the first state where a party in the minority has resorted to the tactic.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.