Oregon climate program faces new lawsuit
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Oregon's signature climate program faces a new lawsuit challenging the state's authority to impose financial penalties on carbon emitters.
Why it matters: The case again puts the Climate Protection Program's legal footing at risk just a year after regulators reinstated it.
State of play: The lawsuit — brought last week by dozens of plaintiffs, including gas utilities, trade associations and labor unions — alleges the program will drastically increase energy costs for businesses and consumers.
- A number of the same plaintiffs sued over an administrative error when the program went into effect in 2022, and an appeals court ruled the program void.
- The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the regulations, redid the administrative process and the program was reinstated in late 2024.
Context: Created by executive order under then-Gov. Kate Brown, the program aims to bring Oregon's emissions near net-zero by 2050 — a key threshold for limiting warming to 1.5°C.
- It sets a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions — enforceable through fines and penalties — with goals of reducing emissions by 50% by 2035 and by 90% by 2050.
- The state distributes allowances, called "compliance instruments" — with each one allowing for one ton of carbon dioxide emissions and the total being equal to the tons allowed under that year's cap — that decline over time.
- The program also allows for businesses to purchase credits that will offset some emissions and the proceeds from which will go toward communities facing the worst impacts of climate change.
What they're saying: The plaintiffs argue the program's emissions fines and penalties are too stiff and will result in dramatic price spikes for energy across Oregon.
- "Those costs are already being felt through increased utility bills, higher fuel prices, and reduced business operations in the fragile economies of communities across the State, and the fallout will only get worse as the caps ratchet down," they wrote in the lawsuit.
The other side: "This is yet another example of big corporations refusing to follow the rules," Lindsey Scholten, executive director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.
- "Instead, these corporations want to continue polluting freely and padding their profits — at the expense of the health and prosperity of everyday Oregonians."