Hi everyone,
Next week, the Oregon State Legislature will begin their annual short session to vote on bills that could impact us for years to come. These bills could deliver emergency heat relief for renters (LC26 & LC144), protect Oregon workers from climate hazards (HCR 203), and increase energy efficiency in our buildings (SB 1518). With the Climate Crisis on our doorstep, it is critical our legislators vote for strong climate action and resiliency. That’s why state leaders need to hear from everyday Oregonians about why climate action is key for protecting our future. Read on for ways you can support key climate bills in this upcoming legislative session!
Take Action!
For quick actions like petitions, check out our Take Action Page. See here for our broader Volunteer Opportunities.
Join Divest Oregon* in telling your legislator to pass the Treasury Transparency Bill!
By holding onto fossil fuel investments, the Oregon State Treasury is making risky financial decisions and actively funding the Climate Crisis. We know our Treasury is putting us all at risk with these investments, but we have no way of knowing by how much. The Treasury Transparency Bill (HB 4115) would ensure the Treasury tells us how they’re investing $133 billion and how those choices affect the climate. We deserve transparency. We deserve this bill.
*Divest Oregon is a grassroots coalition of over 80 organizations, including 350PDX, fighting for our state to divest from fossil fuels and invest in our future. We are organizing to pass the Treasury Transparency Bill knowing it will help us take a huge step towards divesting Oregon from fossil fuels. Take action here.
Take Action to Uphold Judge’s Cancellation of Gulf Oil Leasing
Last night, a judge canceled oil and gas leases for more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico and ruled that the Biden administration must consider the climate impacts of oil drilling before awarding future leases. This was a BIG win for the climate justice movement, and a testament to the power of BIPOC and frontline-led community organizing! We need to make sure the Department of the Interior and Secretary Deb Haaland don’t appeal this court ruling.
Take action with the Indigenous Environmental Network: Call the Department of the Interior at 866-834-8040! Here’s a sample script. “My name is ___, I live in ___. I’m calling to urge Interior to not appeal the decision on lease sale 257 and stop all new Gulf oil leasing.” Take action here.
Tell your Legislators to Support the Reach Code bill!
The Reach Code bill (SB 1518) would allow Oregon cities to opt into stronger energy efficiency building standards within their jurisdictions. This bill would pave the way for climate action in the building sector, reducing climate and air pollution and increasing livability in cites that opt into the stronger standards. Take action here.
Make calls to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline once and for all!
We just saw a huge win in the fight against the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)! MVP lost a critical permit, causing significant construction delays. BIPOC and frontline groups have led the fight to #StopMVP for years, and this win is a testament to their organizing. Let’s keep up the pressure to stop MVP once and for all! Take action here.
Tell Oregon lawmakers farmworkers deserve fair pay!
Oregon farmworkers ensure our families are healthy and well-fed in every corner of the state. Their hard work supports our entire economy. They deserve to be paid for every hour of their essential, difficult, and often dangerous work. And yet, in 2020, while working through wildfires and ice storms, Oregon farmworkers made, on average, less than $20,000 a year. Take action here.
Keep up the heat on OPB! Our public radio shouldn’t air fossil fuel ads
Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is still running advertisement and sponsorship ads for NW Natural – a fossil fuel company trying to sell the public greenwashed fracked gas. When OPB promotes the use of fracked gas through ads that ignore harms to our communities, they lose our trust as listeners. OPB already refuses to air ads from tobacco and weapons companies — why are fossil fuels getting a free pass? Take action here.
Events & Opportunities
Another Portland Is Possible: Building A City Charter for All People
Sat Jan 29, 10:00am, virtual
Working Overtime: Environmental Racism and Oregon Farmworkers*
Mon Jan 31, 6:00pm-7:30pm, virtual
Farmworkers are critical members of Southern Oregon’s communities and economy, yet they have been excluded from minimum wage protections and overtime in Oregon for decades. You are invited to a virtual community forum to learn more about the Farmworker Overtime Bill that will be introduced in Oregon’s 2022 legislative session, how environmental racism impacts communities in Oregon, and how you can get involved in this important fight for farmworker rights. This event is organized by the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, Beyond Toxics, Rogue Climate, Adelante Mujeres, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon and PCUN. *Bilingual event (English & Spanish interpretation). Register here!
Portland Black Lives Matter Protests
Throughout the week @ across the city – details here
Join the 350PDX staff collective!
We’re hiring a Grants & Operations Manager and a Development Manager! Priority application deadline is Feb 1, 2022. Both positions are full time (all of our full-time positions are 30 hours/week) and salaried at $47,000-$49,000 per year (pending 2022 budget completion, although we have pay equity across all positions). 350PDX’s uses a a non-hierarchical staff collective model that aligns with our values of distributing power and sharing accountability. We are a relatively young, dynamic, volunteer-driven grassroots organization with thousands of supporters. We regularly engage hundreds of people to volunteer and take action for climate justice. Learn more and apply at 350pdx.org/job-opportunities!
News & Updates
350PDX Litigation Update from Brenna, our Forest Climate Manager
Remember the summer of 2020 when tear gas filled the skies? Remember when 350PDX filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding that the federal government comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and analyze the human and environmental health impacts of all that gas and other chemical munitions they released night after night?
Last fall, the Federal District court dismissed the case because, in short, the court decided that the Department of Homeland Security did not take a “final agency action” when it sent federal officers to Portland armed with chemical munitions, therefore the court did not have jurisdiction over the case. Earlier this week, 350 PDX joined our allies NW Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Neighbors for Clean Air, Willamette Riverkeeper, and Cascadia Wildlands and filed a brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting that the court overturn this opinion and reinstate this case.
I am very excited to join attorneys from the ACLU, Willamette Riverkeeper & Cascadia Wildlands on the legal team for this appeal (as I hatched the idea for the lawsuit after I got tear gassed by a tree outside of the federal courthouse in July 2020!). We’ll keep you posted on further case developments, and in the meantime, listen to this song that has been running through my head as I write this update.
Biden administration cancels leases for controversial copper-nickel mine near Boundary Waters
This past week the Department of the Interior canceled two leases for copper-nickel mining in Minnesota. Indigenous and environmental activists have fought the Twin Metals mining project for years, which would have leached toxins into critical water sheds. The project would have also threatened wild rice, a cultural resource important tot he Anishinaabe people. Read the full article from the Star Tribune.
Los Angeles city council votes to ban new urban oil and gas drilling in historic move
Los Angeles is historically one of the largest urban oilfields in the country, but this week marked the end of new oil and gas drilling in the city. The LA City Council voted to ban new drilling, and will pursue the closure of operating wells. “From Wilmington to the San Fernando Valley, gas, drilling and and oilwells have disproportionately affected the health of our working-class neighborhoods,” said the council president, Nury Martinez. “This is yet another example of how frontline communities disproportionately bear the impacts of pollution and climate change.” Read the full article from The Guardian
US Attorney Drops Charges Against Indigenous Water Protectors and Allies Who Occupied Bureau of Indian Affairs
“The United States Attorney’s office has decided to not charge 33 Indigenous water protectors and their allies who were arrested while peacefully occupying the Bureau of Indian Affairs lobby in the US Department of Affairs building on October 14th, 2021…Water protectors occupied the building demanding the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US government honor the treaties including the restoration of 110 million acres (450,000 km2) of land taken away from Native Nations, Indigenous children buried at residential schools be returned to their tribal nations, no new leases for oil and gas or extractive industry on public lands, the US government establish a policy of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, restoration of terminated rights.” – Read the full press release from the Indigenous Environmental Network
MORE HEADLINES:
- EPA acts to curb air, water pollution in poor communities
- Concrete Action Towards Worker Power
- Court Revokes Oil and Gas Leases, Citing Climate Change
- How the Pandemic Threw Fuel on a Growing Housing Movement
- Incarceration, Abolition, and Liberating the Food System
- Pramila Jayapal’s Bid to Change the Uneven Impact of Climate Change
- Over 400 Join Karankawa Kalda Youth Protesting Enbridge’s Terminal Expansion Outside Of Bank Of America’s Austin Location
- Portland City Council to hear public testimony on Joint Terrorism Task Force
Resources
Resources for learning and building people power to win a just and fossil free world.
A Union Toolkit for Cooperative Solutions
Record numbers of workers have been participating in strikes and walkouts these past few months, and even cooperating across industries in what is being called a General Strike. Check out this new report about how unions and co-ops can work in tandem to build worker power.
Fueling Climate Change: The Insurers Behind Brazil’s Offshore Oil Expansion
“The insurance industry’s support for oil and gas expansion plays a key role in driving climate destruction. Using internal documents that have never before been disclosed, this brief reveals the insurance companies underwriting deep sea oil and gas operations and expansion in fragile coastal ecosystems in Brazil.” Read the full report from Insure our Future.
California Burning: How Big Ag and Big Oil Are Fueling the Flame
“Dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would help curtail the intensifying climatic disasters in California — but to do this, a ban on all drilling and fracking and a transition to 100 percent renewable energy must happen now.” Read the new report from Food & Water Watch.
DOE Needs to Listen to the People
Frontline leaders sent a letter to the US Department of Energy calling for them to drop dirty energy subsidies and listen to Indigenous, Black, Brown, AAPI and working-class communities who are most impacted by the climate crisis and the legacy of dirty energy pollution. Read the full press release from the Indigenous Environmental Network.
In love and gratitude,
Brenna, Chris, Dineen, Indi, Julia – the 350PDX staff