Clean Energy Jobs Bill and Whistlers Bend County Park

Conservation Today

Stuart Leibowitz speaks about the Clean Energy Jobs Bill in the first half our show. Later we talk about the logging at Whistlers Bend Park currently ongoing. Stuart encourages us to join the Lobby Day in Salem on February 6 to help pass Oregon's Clean Energy Jobs Bill (sometimes known as a Cap and Pay bill). Stuart explains the concept behind the bill: 25,000 metric tons of carbon pollution allowed, and then the polluter has to pay for more. Stuart talks about how this would apply to the Jordan Cove project where the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Coos Bay would emit 1.8 million metric tons of carbon. The passing of this bill will make it expensive for a high-polluter to operate in Oregon. Stuart explains where the money the polluters pay will go, why the .16 increase at the gas tank is a false fear, and in what ways industry is trying to water down the bill. To carpool to Lobby Day, call Stuart at 51-672-9819, and meet at the Library parking lot at 7:15, February 6. In the second half of the show, people talk about the Whistlers Bend County Park logging, and why the Disk Golf community is very upset. We found that none of the trees to be cut were marked by the county. Instead, they let the logger decide what to cut. The County failed to submit the required Notice of Operations to the state, further hiding the logging. When they filed the notice, late, after we complained, the county refused to comply with the 15-day waiting period. Then ODF told the county they had to do a written plan for the trees on the banks of the North Umpqua River and an Osprey nest in the area. But the logger had already cut down some of the trees this applied to. We complain about these, and other problems with the unannounced logging of a beloved park and a world-renounced disk-golf course.