BY SARAH ROSS
SALEM- A Tuesday morning meeting at the Oregon State Library postponed to a future date a decision on expanding which gases can be included in the Oregon Carbon Dioxide Standard.
This meeting, the first to be held by the newly formed Energy Facility Siting Council’s Advisory Committee on Carbon Dioxide Equivalent Offsets, convened to address adding greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide to the Oregon Carbon Dioxide Standard.
After presentations from the Department of Energy, the Climate Trust of Oregon, and the Energy Trust of Oregon, the committee decided to hold off on a decision and to continue discussions until another meeting to be held later this fall.
Allowing other gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, to be included in the standard would allow state-funded groups like the Climate Trust, the Energy Trust, and the Department of Energy to support projects involving these gases, rather than only projects reducing carbon dioxide.
Committee members discussed concerns about unforeseen consequences when one member of the public brought up regulations already coming from other agencies regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
Shanna Brownstein of the Climate Trust, who requested that this change be considered, told the committee that the Climate Trust does its best to take into consideration future regulations and legislation.
There is a very serious issue here. Not only are millions being wasted through The Climate Trust’s operations on a non-attainable standard but opening the doors to allow all GHGs creates a few problems.
First is the problem of additionality which is the crux of carbon offsets. The Climate Trust is horrible at proving additionality and with so many overlapping mandates by the state government to promote renewable energy there will undoubtedly be additionality problems negating any possible claimed “benefits” from The Climate Trust’s projects.
Second is that The Climate Trust has been a dismal failure at everything they do. I would hate to allow them to artificially proclaim more success by allowing them to reduce other GHGs as well.
Third is that this was not the original intent of the CO2 standard.
The bill was written to reduce CO2 only. That is all. The Climate Trust has tried to change the original law in a couple of ways to benefit their organization. Last year they tried to increase the TAX by 293%. That failed. This year they are trying to include other GHGs to appear more “effective” at essentially wasting ratepayer dollars.
For an objective audit on The Climate Trust’s failure click here: http://www.cascadepolicy.org/pdf/env/Climate_Trust_Audit_021009.pdf
Oh just google Climate Trust Scam…..
The Climate Trust may preach all day about how they are doing great things to save us from a fictitious problem but they are truly just wasting millions of dollars.
That audit above is compelling but the shorter version is even better.
http://www.cascadepolicy.org/2009/02/03/oregons-carbon-offset-scam/
“$106,000 of Climate Trust funds went to the Lummi Indian tribe for an annual Canoe Journey and an Indian college fund called the Northwest Indian College Billie Frank Endowment.”
Oh man!