Posted on 06/28/2019 2:08:32 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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Oregon accounts for a tiny slice — 0.14 percent — of global emissions. A forecast from the state’s legislative revenue office predicted the measure would force a 23-cent-a-gallon hike by 2021 and more increases in the years that follow. By 2050, the forecast said, Oregon residents would be paying 3 additional dollars a gallon.
Oregon, like the rest of the nation, has long been divided along urban and rural lines. But those divisions have deepened significantly in recent decades. Portland and other metropolitan areas have expanded and their residents have become increasingly Democratic, while Oregon’s rural areas have struggled to retain residents and have become more Republican.
In the last half century, money, jobs and political power have flowed to the Portland area, which has grown to the point where it makes up 60 percent of the state’s population. At the same time, rural Oregon, centered around agriculture and timber cutting, has struggled.
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on Tuesday, with the Republicans still missing, Democratic leaders stunned many by announcing that they did not believe that their own party had the votes to pass the bill. Amid all the chaos, Democratic support had eroded, they indicated, urging the Republicans to come back and vote on other matters, like budget bills and a paid family leave measure.
Climate activists huddled in the Senate lobby, reeling from the news.
“My fear is that this isn’t just about climate change,” said Summer Dean, 22, a recent graduate from Portland State University, who had been lobbying for the bill for three years. “This is about a fault in our democracy that could spread in other states as well.”
State Representative Shelly Boshart Davis, a first-term Republican, said the walkout “truly was more than just cap-and-trade.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Love it everytime
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