Matt Schulte — Candidate for City Council, District 4
Endorsed 350PDX CJ platform? No
Will you support PCEF? Yes
Candidate statement:
I have a climate initiative called the Grid-Connected Core that addresses the coming Building Performance Standard. Instead of leaving each building owner to comply ad hoc, I am proposing an aggregated approach to drive the costs down, but then turn those “buildings into batteries”, turning downtown into a part of the NW energy infrastructure. This is potentially years of union labor for PCEF priority communities. I look forward to discussing this with you in detail.
I am also proposing what I am calling a Load-Value Standard. A megawatt used by a data center produces far fewer jobs and community benefit than, say, a megawatt used by a research lab. I support a temporary ban on data centers until we can institute some sort of measure like this that makes clear what public investment is buying, or private investment is doing.
At both the CEI Hub and Ross Island, I feel a lack of urgency and leadership. There is already a solution to the Ross Island algae blooms as far as I can tell, that only seems to be held up by private commercial interests who should not be allowed (if this is the case) to stop the restoration of flow because they “don’t like the design” when this is causing dramatic harm to our river. I will also address the CEI Hub in the coming days, but I feel that connecting permitted capacity to demand needs to be addressed.
Overall, I support the objectives of your platform, though I will admit I have a lot to learn. Thank you for this opportunity!
