Springfield and Eugene Chambers Issue Joint Statement to Eugene City Council on Potential New Construction Natural Gas Limitations

Eugene Mayor and City Council, 

The IPCC is clear, our global climate is warming and as a country and society we must take action to slow the impacts of climate change. Locally, we implore you to consider and implement policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that does not compromise the delicate ecosystem on which we’ve built our society – a local economy that provides jobs which pay for housing, food, clothing, and other necessities; a local economy that funds the infrastructure we rely on such as public education, roads, sewers, and even climate policy implementation. 

We believe that any energy policy from a local government should center on keeping energy affordable, resilient, and reliable. The current lack of local analysis of data has us questioning whether the cost of these regulations will achieve enough benefit in emissions reductions to make these sudden sacrifices worth it. There are too many critical, unanswered questions. Questions we are considering that we invite you to answer to before making decisions: 

• What GHG reductions will we see as a result of removing GHG’s from buildings entirely? The CAP2.0 does not illustrate this or point to this as a strategy.
• Are the benefits of these reductions worth the costs that will be incurred by those in our community paying taxes, buying from local businesses, supporting local governments?
• Do we need to expend precious personal and political energy on this specific policy? Why not use regulatory options to support transportation incentives, options, and expectations – where there are millions of dollars federally supporting new programs and which account for over ½ of our local emissions?
• Have you pulled industry leaders in our community together to ask them: how might this affect you? How can we make changes in a way that supports you? How can we work together to reduce our use of fossil fuels? 

At a recent Chamber meeting, which 350Eugene attended, business leaders representing various industries in the Eugene area asked these and similar questions. They had a lot to share, and a lot of common goals in mind. We should set an example for other communities to follow by working together to identify policies that support our climate and economic goals- not those that continue to divide us. 
As you, our local elected officials, consider one policy mechanism to address climate change on a global scale, we ask you to keep in mind two key questions: 

• What data is available to suggest that this is the most marginally beneficial means to reduce GHG’s? 
• What public involvement process is expected to inform policies that don’t undermine our local economy? 

We must keep in mind the impact our local policies on our local economy. We support climate-friendly strategies but cannot do so blindly on the backs of our local business owners, renters, and landowners without any kind of assurance that it will make a measurable difference, keep us resilient to certain climate changes, and help us continue to grow jobs and wages for our community members.