Dear John,

The 2022 Oregon legislative session is officially over and, with your help, we accomplished a lot for the climate, for environmental justice, and for Oregon’s forests. 

Thanks to your advocacy, all of our environmental priorities passed this session, in one form or another–

• ✅ Elliott State Forest: SB 1546 will create a new entity to protect the Elliott State Forest, one of the last stretches of old-growth forest in the Coast Range, and decouple it from the Common School Fund.
• ✅ Emergency Heat Relief: Led by Verde and the Community Alliance of Tenants, SB 1536 will protect community members during the next climate-crisis-induced heatwave by providing emergency heat relief for low-income communities, renters, and communities of color, and help Oregonians transition to clean, energy-efficient electric heating and cooling in their homes.
• ✅ REBuilding Task Force: SB 1518 (formerly the Reach Codes bill) will create a task force that will come up with recommendations for transformative decarbonization policy for buildings (Oregon’s second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions), so legislators are set up to take strong climate action in the 2023 legislative session. 
• ✅ Environmental Justice Council: Led by Unite Oregon and the Just Transition Alliance, HB 4077 will give much-needed resources and funding to the Environmental Justice Council and provide funding for an important mapping tool.
• ✅ Farmworker Overtime Pay: Led by PCUN, HB 4002 will ensure that Oregon’s farmworkers are paid for overtime hours worked, undoing a racist law dating back to 1938.

Your advocacy also helped kill bad bills like ❌ HB 4127, which would’ve put wolves at risk by adding $1 million to the highly problematic Wolf Compensation Fund. 

Let’s take a minute to soak this in. We got an incredible number of pro-environment bills over the finish line this session! And you helped make that happen. This was an exciting and productive session, thanks to you and to all the organizations, advocates, and legislators who championed these bills. 

Although Reach Codes didn't pass in its original form, and the legislature ultimately didn't take immediate action to address climate change in the short session, we did get a commitment for strong, comprehensive legislation in 2023. Will you take action to ask your lawmakers to pass strong climate action in 2023? 

Thank you for all your hard work!

Julia DeGraw
Coalition Director, OLCV