25 June 2019 / REPUBLICANS ON THE RUN
[THEME]
SEAN RAMESWARAM (Host): Lauren Dake, you cover politics for Oregon Public Broadcasting. Something very strange is happening in your state capital right now. Could you tell us what exactly that is?
LAUREN DAKE (Reporter): Yeah. So the Oregon Senate Republicans here have actually fled our state and are apparently in Idaho or Montana or other states in order to avoid a vote on a pretty sweeping climate change bill; it's a cap-and-trade bill. The Republicans here are in the super minority, and it's really one of the only maneuvers that they have to gain leverage over the majority party. The state constitution here requires that 20 members be present to have a quorum on the Senate floor in order for them to do business. There are 18 Democrats so they need two Republican members to show up in order to vote on bills. This bill has long been a big Democratic priority. Republicans have voiced concerns about it for a long time. They felt like negotiations were not going well. So rather than vote on it they have fled the state.
SEAN: Wow. Republicans on the run.
LAUREN: Yeah <laughs>
SCORING <ALL IN ORDER>
<CLIP> OREGON GOP STATE SENATOR DENNIS LINTHICUM: We have avoided being within the state boundaries where the governor can exercise her prerogative the state troopers did call us back to the state Capitol.
<CLIP> NEWSCASTER: Meanwhile Oregon's Democratic Governor Kate Brown has authorized Oregon State Police troopers to search for those now missing Republicans and bring them back.
<CLIP> OREGON GOVERNOR KATE BROWN: We negotiated in good faith to bring Senate Republicans back and it was my expectation that they keep their word. I'm keeping mine.
SCORING OUT
SEAN: All right. Let's walk through the chronology here. How the heck did this happen? When did this fight over a cap-and-trade bill that resulted in Republicans literally fleeing the state of Oregon get started?
LAUREN: This has been a big Democratic priority for a long time. A lot of Democrats campaigned on getting this done. Then they had a supermajority in both chambers so they thought, you know, it was definitely going to happen.
<CLIP> OREGON GOVERNOR KATE BROWN: Future generations will judge us not on the fact of global climate change, but what we’ve done to tackle it. And literally, these young peoples’ futures hang in the balance. It’s critically important that we take action and that we take action now.
LAUREN: Republicans have been trying to make changes to the cap-and-trade bill from really the start of the legislative session, really before the session started. Fundamentally though they just do not want this bill to pass.
<CLIP> OREGON GOP STATE SENATOR TIM KNOPP: This is a carbon tax and it's the most inefficient, complicated, and expensive way to address reduction in carbon dioxide emissions…
LAUREN: So the bill made it to the House floor earlier this month and then as it moved through the Senate, got closer to the Senate floor, negotiations broke down over there and the Republicans fled for Idaho.
SOUND OF ROADRUNNER CARTOON RUNNING
SCORING <ALL IN ORDER>
SEAN: What's the plan with fleeing the state? I mean that can't really be like a long term plan, can it?
LAUREN: No, I mean I think the idea is that they are outside of the Oregon State Troopers jurisdiction so they can't be as easily compelled to come back to the state Senate.
SEAN: Has anyone heard from these Republicans since they left town last week?
LAUREN: Yes, they are talking.
<CLIP> OREGON GOP SENATOR DENNIS LINTHICUM: I am doing the work of my constituents by avoiding saddling all Oregonians with this horrid piece of legislation.
LAUREN: One Senate Republican sent me a photo of a sunset over a lake from his cabin in Idaho.
SEAN: What?! Why?
LAUREN: Just to show that you know they're in no hurry. They're in this lovely spot. There was a great Wall Street Journal story that came out yesterday talking about how they've bought burner phones because they think that the Oregon state police could track them using their cell phones. They are texting. They're actually all over. I mean the Senate Republican who's in the cabin sending pictures of the nice lake that he's looking at a bunch of different people, he was on Fox and Friends.
<CLIP>
FOX’S STEVE DOOCEY: Okay, so you're you're on the run right now, kind of…
OREGON REPUBLICAN SENATOR TIM KNOPP: Well, kinda hiding in plain sight.
DOOCEY: Right. People know what state you're in for the most part. But how long do you have to stay out of the state?
KNOPP Well, the session constitutionally ends June 30th at midnight.
DOOCEY: OK.
KNOPP: And so unless we can have an agreement that's how long we'll be out.
LAUREN: So yeah. They are getting a lot of attention. And the Senate Republican leader didn't want to give one reporter he spoke to his location. But his the battery on his cell phone died. So he called using another Senate Republican’s phone, but everybody knew where that Senate Republican was. So he sort of unwittingly gave away his location. So they're just really trying to figure out how to be on the run.
SCORING OUT
SEAN: Is it legal what they're doing. I mean they're abdicating their responsibilities and they're getting paid to do it?
LAUREN: The Senate Democrats are fining them $500 a day for every day that they're out of state and they're trying to also ensure that they don't get paid.
SEAN: And in the meantime what does that mean nothing can happen in Oregon legislatively?
LAUREN: Yeah, you go to the Senate floor in the mornings. Every morning they're gaveling in the Senate Democrats are gaveling in to a half empty room.
<CLIP> OREGON SENATE DEMOCRAT: Because we have 18. Everybody knows we need two more. And uh… I don't think there's two more in the building.
SEAN: How do people in Oregon feel about this? It's got to be kind of weird... is this a first?
LAUREN: Actually, Republicans walked out earlier in May—they staged a four-day walkout. Before that was very unusual that Republicans would walk out or that any party would walk out before that.
<CLIP> NEWSCASTER: In June 2001, House Democrats including Kate Brown staged a five-day walkout over a redistricting measure.
LAUREN: Democrats were in the minority and they walked out for about a week. But yes it's an unusual tactic. Oregonians are very split, like the state in general. We have a real urban rural divide here. There are a lot of rural Oregonians who are supporting this.
<CLIP> NEWSCASTER: Protesters gathered outside the state capitol again Sunday, opposing a sweeping cap-and-trade bill while supporting Senate Republicans on day four of the walkout
<CLIP> OREGON PROTESTER #1: Rip this bill up and throw it away, ‘cause it’s useless.
<CLIP> OREGON PROTESTER #2: It's just real people, real families, just people that work hard every day and try and support their community and their families and we just want to show our support.
LAUREN: They're worried that it would raise fuel prices, they’re worried that they would have to upgrade equipment that would cost a lot of money, and they're just worried that it will put them out of work.
SEAN: Have things gotten sort of testy there? I mean if Republicans would rather flee the state than actually talk to their Democratic peers and come to some sort of consensus, I wonder how how volatile the politics have become.
LAUREN: Yeah the rhetoric has really changed, we've seen recently.
<CLIP> OREGON REPUBLICAN SENATOR BRIAN BOQUIST: Well, I'm quotable. This is what I told the superintendent: Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple.
LAUREN: And this Saturday there was actually a credible threat from the militia and the Oregon state police recommended that the Capitol be closed down.
SEAN: What's the militia? What do they want?
LAUREN: They're called the Three Percenters. And there's several chapters of them. They were involved in the Malheur Refuge standoff in Oregon that made national headlines a couple of years ago where the Bundys and militia members took over a wildlife refuge out here in really rural Oregon. So the militia when they heard about this they offered to guard and protect the Oregon Senate Republicans as they left the state. They have said that they are in contact and working with the Senate Republicans. the Senate Republicans however have said that they're actually not working with them.
SCORING <BUILDING BLOCKS>
SEAN: Okay. Democrats win a supermajority. They’ve got a democratic governor. They’re cleared for takeoff on this cap and trade dream of theirs. Republicans flee the state rather than stay and vote against it knowing they’ll lose. They’re currently in Idaho and elsewhere taking pictures of the sunset. Some militia guys are trying to get involved. Where does this leave the cap-and-trade bill?
LAUREN: The cap-and-trade bill right now is certainly on shaky ground. There is talk in the Senate about killing it just to get the Republicans to come back. They're just essentially running out the clock to the end of the legislative session because we are supposed to be adjourning at the end of this week. But if it fails it would be a defeat for the Democrats here because they made passing the cap and trade program a central goal of the 2019 session. But the negotiations are ongoing and they are changing, you know, every hour.
SEAN: Lauren was right about things changing every hour or so. We spoke this morning and since then, the Senate president in Oregon, a guy named Peter Courtney, came out and said that this cap-and-trade bill won’t pass.
SEAN: And that just created more confusion!
SEAN: No one seems completely sure if this is a maneuver to get Republicans back to the Senate to vote on stuff before the legislative session ends on Sunday. Or if the state’s democrats are actually giving up on cap and trade for now.
SEAN: What’s clear is that Republicans want nothing to do with it.
SEAN: Which is funny, because it was a Republican who introduced cap and trade to the United States.
I’m Sean Rameswaram.
That’s next on Today, Explained.
[MIDROLL]
SEAN: Umair Irfan, you write about energy and the environment here at Vox. How would Oregon's proposed cap-and-trade bill work. What would it do?
UMAIR IRFAN (Vox Reporter): Well, it would set effectively the second state wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the country set in law.
SEAN: Ever.
UMAIR: Ever. Yes. The first was just last week which was New York.
<CLIP> NEWSCASTER: The NY Legislature has passed a sweeping bill that calls for the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions in the next 30 years.
<CLIP> NEW YORK SENATE MAJORITY LEADER ANDREA STEWART-COUSINS: This is not only a first step, but it is a giant step. It’s a national step.
UMAIR: But California also had a mandate that was implemented via an executive order well ahead of both of those states.
SEAN: Hmm.
UMAIR: But that wasn't settled law New York was settled law and if Oregon gets this passed they'll be the second state to do it by law.
SEAN: OK.
UMAIR: So in a system like this essentially we set a cap, a finite amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are allowed to be emitted. Now if you exceed that cap you have to buy a credit. So if you're a coal power plant and you can't quite turn down enough you can basically talk to your friend the hydroelectric power generator and say if you're producing some extra credits could we buy some of those and sort of offset what we're doing. And the idea is that over time those credits are going to get more and more expensive and so you can only buy our way out of the problem for so long. Eventually, you're going to have to make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases. But by doing this cap and trade scheme it's designed to give a little bit of flexibility to some folks that are having a harder time than others in reducing their emissions.
SEAN: And in the fight to combat climate change how important a tool is cap and trade?
UMAIR: A lot of economists would say that one of the primary things, the sine qua non of fighting climate change is pricing greenhouse gas emissions.
SCORING <BASS OFF>
UMAIR: We have to create some sort of disincentive financially to pumping out carbon dioxide into the air. Cap and Trade is one way of doing that. Another way of doing that is taxing carbon dioxide directly. But by attaching a price tag you show the entire industry and the whole world that there is a negative externality that's being built into the price of the activity that you're undertaking whether that's you know burning coal for electricity or burning gasoline to drive your car. Now it's necessary but it's not sufficient. You would still need other kinds of policies to say boost renewable energy and other kinds of social policies to help people that might lose their jobs if you know the price of fossil fuel goes up and coal miners are no longer financially viable.
SCORING BUMP
UMAIR: But definitely foundational to all of that is a price on carbon dioxide emissions whether that's through a tax or a cap and trade scheme.
SEAN: Where did this idea even come from I remember like starting to hear about this during the Obama years a lot, but is it older than that?
UMAIR: Oh yeah. This is a market-based way of controlling pollution and that's your kind of hint that the fact that this is something supported by free marketers people like Republicans.
<CLIP> PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH: We’ve set an ambition, an ambitious reduction target, and applying market forces will be the fastest, most cost effective ways to achieve it.
UMAIR: One of the first implementations of cap and trade was actually with sulfur dioxide in the early ’90s under the George Herbert Walker Bush administration.
SEAN: Wow!
UMAIR: This was something arm to control sulfur dioxide pollution which was a main ingredient in acid rain, huh.
<CLIP> PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH: So we’re allowing utilities to take, to trade credits among themselves for reductions they make to let them decide how to bring aggregate emissions down as cost-effectively as possible.
UMAIR: And it actually turned out to be very effective.
SCORING BUMP
UMAIR: In pricing carbon dioxide, what we're doing is we're pushing the cost of climate change back onto the people that caused it in the first place and are best positioned to get rid of it.
SCORING OUT
SEAN: How much of a game changer would this be for Oregon?
UMAIR: Oregon is about 50/50 in terms of power generation - clean energy and fossil fuels It gets the majority of its electricity from hydroelectric power. And then on the clean energy side that's a lot of wind and nuclear energy. But on the dirty side or on the fossil fuel heavy side you know that gets about 31 percent of its electricity from coal and about 16 percent from natural gas and so on balance there's still a lot of fossil fuels that are out there that need to be curbed and a lot of that could see price increases under a cap-and-trade scheme.
SEAN: Hmm.
UMAIR: And so the people that are dependent on fossil fuels or you know the fossil fuel generators, those utilities are less than pleased about this, as well as some of the folks who live in rural areas and depend more on things like trucking and diesel fuel and what not in order to do their work or to generate heat and power for their facilities.
SEAN: So there’s potential this bill really hurts people living out in the sticks?
UMAIR: Well, the bill, as structured, has a lot of carve-outs to try to mitigate the impact on individuals, specifically you know low-income people to make sure that you know their electricity rates are heating rates don't go up too much. And on balance you won't see too much of an increase in terms of things like, you know, gasoline prices and what not. The people that are going to be hit are going to be the bigger you know industrial polluters, the big companies, the steel mills, the manufacturing plants and the power plants and eventually, those costs are going to be passed out through the economy. That's the fear is that ultimately the consumer will end up paying for it somehow.
SEAN: What’s popular support like on this in Oregon?
UMAIR: It's been fairly high. I mean remember Democrats won the last election they some of them campaigned on this issue and they won supermajorities. Democrats say that they're confident that if this bill were put on a ballot -- if this was made a ballot measure -- that they would still win.
SEAN: Hmm.
UMAIR: It's just that they want to get it through the legislature because they have a lot of momentum and they think that climate change is an urgent issue that demands action more quickly rather than slowly.
SEAN: So if this goes well in Oregon and in New York, which just passed this, what, last week you said?
UMAIR: Yeah.
SEAN: Is there a chance that more states will reconsider cap and trade?
UMAIR: Yeah, I mean Oregon is kind of an interesting case because you know it's not New York and California. New York and California are very big states with large populations and huge economies. Oregon ranks twenty seventh in population, it's 38th in greenhouse gas emissions. So if they can come up with a business case that sort of makes sense for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that affects you know a smaller state then a bunch of other smaller states could also see a viable business case they could be laying the groundwork for states like Washington for Idaho for them for their neighbors but also other states in the middle of the country as well.
SEAN: How long before a state like Texas does something like this?
UMAIR: Texas does have a lot of momentum. They are the largest wind energy producer in the United States.
SEAN: What????
SONG: <Deep in the Heart of Texas>
UMAIR: Yeah. The wind at night blows strong at height.
SONG: “Deep in the heart of Texas”
SEAN: <laughs> I had no idea. The Windy State.
UMAIR: Yeah, definitely.
SEAN: Sorry, Chicago!
UMAIR: Yeah. That's unfortunate for them. But Texas also has a very large oil and gas sector and they're pressing hard on both of those levers at the same time so they need to deploy clean energy and they're happy to do it but they're not really ready to pump the brakes on fossil fuels just yet. And there's a lot of political support behind them. It's a powerful and very wealthy industry in the state.
SEAN: Which do you think comes first in a state like Texas -- passing cap and trade? Or the federal government doing it for the whole country?
UMAIR: That's a really interesting question. At the federal level there's some momentum that's building we saw here in Congress we heard about the Green New Deal….
SEAN: Sure.
UMAIR: ...being sort of this set of principles that now every presidential candidate has to kind of answer for whether they agree with it or not.
SEAN: Yeah.
UMAIR: So certainly there's a lot of national momentum building and we've seen this happen with other policies as well where the federal policy kind of outpaces what happens at the states.
SCORING <BASS OFF>
UMAIR: So I do think that that's probably the likelier scenario that the country as a whole in aggregate builds more momentum towards fighting climate change than some of the more fossil heavy and fossil dependent states. And they may end up pulling them along with perhaps something like a national cap on greenhouse gases some kind of national carbon tax or other kind of mechanism that forces them to reckon with their greenhouse gas emissions.
SCORING UP AND OUT