So close, yet so far.
Bend Bulletin (6/30/19) reports: "The failure of Democrats’ high-priority climate policy last week was a gut punch that left supporters disbelieving and bitter, denouncing Oregon’s runaway Republican senators for sabotaging 'the Oregon Way' and the arrival of Trumpian, anything-goes politics in Salem.The reaction was hardly surprising, given backers’ decadelong, Sisyphean struggle to push this policy up the hill, only to see it roll back down at the end of every legislative session...Environmental groups are ladling the blame on Republicans, a corporate misinformation campaign funded by the Koch brothers and climate deniers, and, increasingly, on [Senate President] Courtney. Beyond the recriminations, however, it’s clear lawmakers and advocacy groups made their own tactical missteps along the way. In a session packed with high-priority bills, House Bill 2020 — the most complicated and controversial of them all — didn’t rise to the top. It was left until the eleventh hour, handing Republicans the perfect opportunity to block it. In the end, they failed to write a bill enough Senate Democrats would support — a fundamental failure after years of working to get the policy this far."
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"Once conservatives have endorsed a carbon tax, they will have no principled answer to the endless pressures for more government intervention. Conservatives cannot defeat climate alarmism and the fundamental threat to freedom that it represents unless we defend first principles."
– Benjamin Zycher, American Enterprise Institute
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