Voices of 100%: Will Portland Voters Opt for New Equitable Clean Energy Fund? — Episode 63 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

This week our host John Farrell talks with Alan Hipólito at Verde, a tax-exempt nonprofit in the Cully neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, about a powerful initiative on the city’s November 6th ballot, to guide Portland toward meeting its 100% Renewable Energy commitment.

There were really three commitments that we moved forward in the resolutions. The first was working with rate payer advocates to protect low income rate payers from price impacts during these transitions. The second, was, advancing workforce and contracting diversity goals. So, that workers and business from all communities have the opportunity to participate in the development and construction of our renewable energy infrastructure. But, then there was a third commitment, that, we think is especially connected to the Portland Clean Energy Initiative.

As, I mentioned we did some pretty good work on advancing workforce and contracting equity commitments in the resolutions. But, a lot of these projects that will be done will be very big scale projects. So, it will be done by, big contractors, big companies working at big institutions. And, there’s a lot of reasons why that make sense. But, that’s a difficult level for frontline communities to compete. So, we wanted to open up a new playing field for low income people and people of color and their community serving institutions to be a part of our transition 100% renewables. And, we called that “community-based renewable energy infrastructure.”

So, each resolution recognizes that that’s a model to ensure that the benefits of our transition are made available to low income people and people of color communities. Then each sets standards for what percentage of community-wide energy will come from community-based renewable energy infrastructure. Each of them says that by 2035, two percent of all the energy in the city of Portland — so, not just things that are owned by the city out right or city building — but, every unit of energy that’s consumed within the city, that two percent of all of that will come from this kind of infrastructure. And, then the city goes even further and says by 2050, 10 percent. So, one out of every ten units of energy in the city will be created by community-based renewable energy infrastructure. This is a massive transfer of generative capacity to the community level. The Portland Clean Energy Initiative is really of one of our first efforts to increase the toolkit. Both, in terms of funding, as well as policy, to give communities the opportunity to respond to that challenge.

So, my response would be, it’s not either-or, and we need to recognize that local communities have capacity challenges to engage at these broader scales. We’ll be there one day, and this is part of a broader strategy to build power. But, also, we understand our communities best at the local level and can design responsive solutions at that level.

But, what I think that 100% Renewable advocates, energy transition advocates, fail to recognize, often, is that the demographics of our country and our cities are changing. And, the 20th century model of moving environmental policy isn’t going to work anymore. Because, we just don’t have the numbers. And, I say this as someone who has worked on protecting the environment and serving community, my whole adult life. We don’t have the numbers. We can’t get… couldn’t get climate legislation through a Democratic House and Senate and a Democratic President under the Obama Administration. So, if we don’t bring new communities to the table and don’t serve those communities — one, we won’t win the policy battles. And, second, we’ll be leaving a whole segment of the marketplace unserved, and therefore leaving out all of the greenhouse gas emission reduction and renewable energy growth that could take place in those excluded communities.

What I found amazing about this initiative for Portland was two pieces to it. One was the deliberate focus on a particular part of the population and in the shape of how the revenue is raised. And, another one is the magnitude. I would start with the magnitude, first, that this intended to raise like 30 million dollars a year. That’s something like ten times more than what these other cities have been pouring into climate work. So, I just wanted to note first of all the, the scale is impressive.

And, the second one is, could you tell me a little bit more about why, you know, the ballot measures is funded by a one percent tax on local gross receipts of retailers with national sales over a billion, if they do at least a half million in sales in Portland. So, you’re talking about big retailers that you’re targeting. Why did you pick that as part of the initiative? What’s the strategy there? And, what are the implications then, in terms of your political battle, to get this initiative passed come November 6th?

Thirdly, Oregon is actually a very business-friendly place. Seven out of every ten tax dollar in Oregon comes from individual taxes, not from corporate revenue. So, they have the resources to contribute, to pay their share, in what is clearly a society-wide, civilization-wide challenge.

And then, of course, in addition to that favorable treatment, they just received a roughly 40 percent tax cut from the federal government and the Trump Administration. So, they have the resources available to lean into the solution with us. And we’re not asking for a lot. One percent on their general revenues within the city of Portland for … If that company has $500,000 in local revenues, in addition, of course, to meeting the $1 billion national box they have to check as well, that’s just $5,000 on that $500,000, so we’re not … It’s a very targeted, very narrow, and devoted to very specific purposes, from companies that can afford it and that have climate impacts.

So the genesis, the origin of the idea and how it’s been brought before voters, brought before the public, is very different. I would also say that the, in part, because of where we came from and how we built this, and because, frankly, there’s a great hunger, I think, in our communities for climate solutions that also address poverty and meet the growing income disparities that we see in our communities. We’ve seen tremendous support all the way across the board, from other mainstream environmental organizations, from labor — and that’s both service unions, public employee unions, and building trades —, housing organizations — so groups that advocate or provide affordable housing —, advocates for the homeless, faith communities, neighborhood associations. All the way across the board. We submitted 307 endorsement statements to the voters’ pamphlet, and the voter’s pamphlet deadline was September 10th, that’s the most that they’ve ever received before.

Now that doesn’t mean we don’t have opposition. We do. Our primary opposition is what I would call an “astroturf” group, or a front group called “Keep Portland Affordable.” And they are associated with the Portland Business Alliance, which is kind of like our Chamber of Commerce. And they’ve begun to receive contributions. We’ve just entered into the seven-day reporting period, where campaigns have to report contributions with seven days. And we’re starting to see donations from groups like Amazon, US Bank, WalMart, Comcast. So the opposition is showing up and they’re going to come after us, particularly, we think, in large media buys. Their ground game is not the same as ours, of course, because we’re community-based. So, we can’t beat them at their game, but we can beat them at our game, which is community-based, grassroots, networks.

And so, for your listeners who want to find out more and want to support us they can certainly go to our website portlandcleanenergyinitiative.com. But also, it’s important that they follow us on their social media of choice, whether they’re Instagram folks or Facebook people or Twitter. To follow us, to re-tweet, or to post to their friends and followers that they’re following us, because that’s how we’re gonna amplify and get our message out as we compete for voter’s attention moving towards November 6th.

I’m curious about some of the incumbent large businesses, and I’m thinking about the utility companies, whether it’s a gas utility or an electric utility. I know there’s been some discussion and contention with them about how far they’re going around renewable energy. I think I read something about the electric company saying, “Oh, we’re going to close the coal plant, but then we want to build a gas plant.” Are they much involved in this and has there been a lot of work related to this initiative or to your work on the 100% renewables with regard to the utility companies, and where are they positioned?

Do you know of any folks we should interview about 100% renewable energy commitments in their community? If so, send us an email at Voicesof100@ilsr.org. That’s voices – of – 1 – 0 – 0 – at ilsr.org. Stay tuned for the rest of this episode after a short message from our Energy Democracy Initiative Director, John Farrell.

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Thanks again for listening, now, back to the program.

Roughly 10 percent of all of the residents in Cully live in those six mobile home parks. And we, together with groups like St. Charles Church, St. Vincent de Paul, do a lot of organizing and service work in those mobile home parks. We’re finding folks there paying 200 [dollars] a month to heat their homes in the winter. So, we are very conscious of wanting to reduce expenses for low-income households because, especially for low income to the very lowest income people, even a 20, 30, 40 dollar savings a month — to say nothing of how much you could reduce a $200 a month heating bill — makes a tremendous difference in their lives.

So narrowly within the context of the Portland Clean Energy Initiative, I would say we’re mostly concerned about prices to those who are carrying high energy burdens. Writ large, in the broader 100 percent renewable, we are concerned with the cost that low-income rate payers are paying, and we did work very diligently with the CAP agencies, the advocates for low-income rate payers, for low-income weatherization programs, to insert those commitments, to hold low-income rate payers harmless in this transition. So, I would say those concerns are there, and they just have a different level of focus, depending on the scale that we’re at.

And I would urge folks to check out the literature. Check out the polling, because poll after poll — whether it’s state polls in California, national polls, or even polls that the Portland Business Alliance did here in the City of Portland — show that communities of color support environmental regulations and policies at higher levels than the general population, including their willingness to see government pay for those policies and solutions. So, this is the future. Get on board.

And I would say that environmentalists do need to be conscious of their political power, their access, their privilege. For example, they have relationships with elected officials, policymakers, funders, that can be brought to bear to meet the needs and serve low-income and people of color communities. And, so, what we always say is the best thing is for mainstream environmental organizations to do the hard work of building relationships with organizations on the ground serving communities of color. And that relationship might bear very little in what you would consider externally measurable fruit. It’s not going to be something you can put an output in your grant chart, your grant flowchart, that you have to turn into your funder.

It’s the slow organic work of saying, “Hey. This is who we are,” in a sort of a perspective of deference and respect that we always encourage organizations to reach out to the frontline community-serving organization. We’re in every city, doing important work every day, and say, “Hey. I work for this group. We’re good at some things, like we know a lot about …” — I don’t know — “… air quality, water quality, energy policy. We’ve got good relationships with these elected officials, or this agency, or these funders, but we really want to be of service to your community. And so I’m here wanting to start a relationship with you in hopes that, over time, we can figure out the way that the work that I do, in my organization, can be of service to the work that you do in your organization.” And then, “I understand it’s going to take time and trust, and I know lots of people come through that door and say, ‘Hey. I’m from so-and-so, and I’m here to help.’ And I just want to make a commitment and ask for the opportunity to prove that we’re serious about helping.”

And then see what happens.

For more information on cities that have committed to 100% renewable energy, check out the other episodes in this series and explore ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map, which is available at ILSR.org. While you’re on our website, you can also find more than 50 past episodes of the Local Energy Rules podcast. You can sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on social media.

Tune back into the program in three weeks for our next episode in this series, where we’ll be featuring Abita Springs, Louisiana, and hearing about their promise to transform the city’s local energy system.

Until next time, keep your energy local, and thanks for listening.