Release: Councilor Novick's Letter to Mayor Wilson About PCEF

Dear Mayor Wilson: 

As you prepare to draft a budget proposal, I wish to emphasize in writing a request I have made in our conversations. 

Don’t propose raiding the Portland Clean Energy Fund to balance the budget. 

Climate change is the defining issue, not just “of our time,” but of all human history. Humans have lived through plagues, wars, and dictatorships. We have not lived in the world we are creating by burning fossil fuels. A world in which New York, Boston, Venice, Bangkok, and many other world cities will be underwater. A world where salmon – which need cool water - will disappear from Oregon. A world where millions every year will die in heat waves and choke on smoke from wildfires. 

Do you remember the fires of 2020, and the smoke that blanketed Portland? If we do not stop burning fossil fuels, we will see that again and again, and worse and worse. You are of my generation; did you read The Lord of the Rings? We will see, in real life, the end that Denethor predicted: The West has failed. It shall all go up in a great fire, and all shall be ended. Ash! Ash and smoke blown away on the wind!

The voters of Portland created the Clean Energy Fund to help us do our part to avoid this future, to help shield vulnerable populations from the worst Impacts of climate change, and to help those same populations share in the benefits of the hoped-for new, clean energy future. Originally the 1% tax on large retailers was projected to raise $30 million a year, which would have been a pitifully small amount compared to the scale of the challenge. Instead, it is raising $200 million a year. That’s real money. As you know, the biggest source of carbon emissions in Portland is transportation, largely emissions from gasoline-powered cars. With $200 million a year we could make real investments in mass transit, in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, in electric vehicle charging stations. And we can focus many such investments in low-income and diverse neighborhoods. PCEF recently approved a substantial grant to help fund bus rapid transit on 82d Avenue; that is exactly the kind of thing PCEF should be doubling down on. 

Some of my colleagues have suggested that PCEF be used for daily maintenance of our outdoor parks. I feel passionately about maintaining our outdoor parks, and, in the committee Councilor Morillo and I co-chair, have highlighted the tragic consequences that will follow if we allow our parks to go to seed. But keeping our parks clean, maintaining the trails, making sure the playground equipment is safe for children – all of those things are important, but none of these things reduce carbon emissions. No climate scientist is going to tell you, “if a city wants to do its part to fight climate change, it should focus on basic parks maintenance.” 

Besides, PCEF is already being used for parks projects. Seven million dollars a year is going to maintain Parks trees. PCEF dollars have been used for HVAC work and lighting at four community centers: Mt. Scott, Charles Jordan, East Portland and Peninsula Park. These things should be funded as part of a basic city parks budget – not by a fund created specifically to combat climate change. 

And the City has raided PCEF for other purposes as well. At a cost of $65 million over five years, PCEF will now take over from homeowners the cost of maintaining street trees – including in wealthy areas like Eastmoreland, Irvington, Laurelhurst, and the West Hills. PCEF is paying the $29.2 million cost of electrifying the city fleet. (That will reduce carbon emissions, but buying an equivalent number of cars for low-income people, as trade-ins for gas-guzzling clunkers, would have both reduced emissions and advanced equity goals.) And PCEF is sending BES $15 million a year for work in natural areas. 

It is true that nothing Portland alone can do will stop climate change. But that is not a good argument for inaction. It is just another version of the argument that climate do-nothingists make at the national level: “the United States generates less than 15% of world carbon emissions, so why bother.” For that matter, anyone who truly believes that “if your efforts alone can’t change the outcome, you shouldn’t act” should never vote, because hardly any elections are ever decided by one vote. 

So, no – Portland alone cannot stop climate change. But the Clean Energy Fund makes it possible for us to be a leader and an example. If we decide to continually raid the Clean Energy Fund, we will be another kind of example: A city that says it cares about climate change, and whose voters established a fund to fight climate change, but whose elected leaders proved that, in the end, we don’t really care about climate change any more than Donald Trump does. 

Sincerely,

Steve Novick

City Councilor – District 3