Dear John,

The Oregon Legislative ended on Thursday, March 7th. With your help, we had some major wins that are worth celebrating! Both Right to Repair (SB 1596) and Marine Reserves (HB 4132) passed with strong bipartisan support! This means that:

• Because of the Right to Repair bill, Oregonians will be able to repair their devices and cut down on e-waste, pollution, and help reduce the digital divide.
• With the Marine Reserves program fully resourced thanks to HB 4132, the program will have the capacity to better engage coastal communities and the Tribes in their work, as well as increase monitoring to help improve its efforts to protect and preserve Oregon’s five Marine Reserves into the future. 
• The Healthy Homes grant program received the full $15 million of funding we requested as part of our Climate Budget Priority. The funding was provided as part of the Senate Housing bill, SB 1530, that bill passed both chambers with bipartisan support. This victory means that low-income Oregonians will have better access to resources to weatherize their homes with better insulation, windows, and air filtration, which will improve their indoor air quality during extreme smoke from wildfires, and help lower their energy bills. These improvements will also help their homes stay warmer longer if the power goes out during an ice storm––like happened earlier this year. 

These are all great wins for the environment and would not have been possible without your support and advocacy! Thank you for all that you do for our work––will you take a moment to let your lawmakers know you appreciate what they accomplished this year, and how you hope for more climate action moving forward?

Our overarching Natural Resources and Environment Budget Priority ended the session with mixed outcomes. Our natural resources state agencies got a lot of really important funding to do crucial work protecting Oregon’s water, air, wildlands, and wildlife. But the policies we’d fought to get funding for this year were largely left untouched. 

Another priority area where we were unfortunately less successful, was our climate budget priority. We did not get as robust of a climate budget that we were hoping for, with our Charge Ahead EV Rebates program for low-income Oregonians not receiving any funding. That wildly popular program ran out of money and will remain unfunded into 2025. While we are grateful for our wins, we do want to make sure that our leaders take stronger action on climate moving forward.

We worked hard with our partners to make sure the governor’s housing bill (SB 1537) was as strong as possible. We were disappointed that the bill still included a large urban growth boundary expansion, but we are grateful for the improvements to the bill and will continue to engage in making sure future housing policy upholds Oregon’s land use and environmental laws. 

Overall, passing every priority bill this session, stopping almost all bad environmental bills from passing (and there were so many), and getting $15 million for the Healthy Homes Grant Program are all important accomplishments to celebrate and express gratitude for. Which is why we hope you will take a moment to let your lawmakers know what they got right this session and that you hope to see more climate action moving forward.

Sincerely,

Julia DeGraw

Coalition Director, OLCV