Today the Oregonian, the largest regional paper in Oregon, ran a guest opinion piece arguing that ratepayer money shouldn’t be used to prolong the life of an aging, dirty coal plant. The piece was co-authored by youth climate organizers Jenny Bedell-Stiles, Katie Taylor, Sarah Westover, and myself: we argue keeping Oregon’s Boardman Coal Plant open isn’t just bad for Oregon’s environment, but for ratepayers as well. Regional decision makers like the Oregon Public Utilities Commission should require PGE, the plant’s utility operator, to replace Boardman with cleaner fuel sources by 2014 or earlier.
As described in our column, ten student governments in Oregon have passed resolutions urging the quick closure of Boardman. Almost all single out 2014 as the date that makes most sense; collectively, these ten student governments represent a constituency of well over 100,000 students. Youth in Oregon are organizing for a coal-free future, and today’s Oregonian column will help our movement reach a new and wider audience. Below is an excerpt from our column. Click the “more” tab for the whole thing.
Don’t let PGE hand its pollution costs to ratepayers
After seeing unfettered speculation on Wall Street lead to financial meltdown and the oil industry’s lackadaisical attitude toward safety produce the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, you’d be right to question the wisdom of letting corporations regulate themselves. Yet most Oregonians would be surprised to realize this is just the approach that’s been taken for too long when it comes to the biggest polluter in this state: the Boardman coal-fired power plant.
The Boardman plant, operated by Portland General Electric, is the largest stationary source of greenhouse gases in Oregon. It’s by far the state’s largest mercury emitter and the biggest contributor to haze, smog and acid rain in the Columbia River Gorge. This year PGE is asking the Oregon Public Utilities Commission to approve a plan to keep Boardman running until 2020 or much longer.
But relying on PGE to tell us when is the best time to close Boardman would be like counting on Wall Street to regulate itself, or looking to BP and ExxonMobil to prevent oil spills. Indeed the analysis PGE uses contains flawed assumptions. The PUC should protect ratepayers from being saddled with the costs of prolonging Boardman’s life and reject PGE’s plan.
