OTA Dispatch Issue 2 2020

www.ortrucking.org 7 Issue 2 | 2020 this type of executive order without a lengthy, time-consuming rulemaking process. The Low Carbon Fuel Standard, however, is online and active today, allowing for an immediate path to increase the cost of motor fuels on an aggressive timeline. At the same time, the executive order sets in motion Oregon’s administrative agency machinery, directing organizations like the Oregon Department of Transportation to adopt greenhouse gas reduction rules that will ripple through a wide range of decisions and activities. It will formalize policies like the Statewide Transportation Strategy—a set of principles that places roadway capacity expansion and new travel lanes as an absolute last priority. So not only will costs increase, in the long term the trucking industry will get less infrastructure as a return on their collective investment. Lastly, protracted timelines, rulemaking complexity, and the sheer breadth of agency activity will mean tracking and responding to these new cap and trade regulations will become a war of attrition. It will mean unelected bureaucrats will pull the levers to impact fuel prices, with essentially no accountability. The public, for their part, will pay little attention to the obscure rulemaking process as it evolves, grows, and bloats the public employee system with additional staff to “fight the carbon fight.” Years from now, agencies like DEQ can and will point to EO 20-04 as justification for new carbon markets, new permits, and new cost-raising regulations—and the Highway Trust Fund will not even cross their minds. On carbon regulation, lawmakers have stretched the bounds of logic and reason to their limits. They have reached maximum levels of mental gymnastics and circular reasoning in order to avoid the giant elephant in the room—that voters have consistently upheld Oregon’s constitutional dedication of revenues from fuel and vehicles to pay for our state’s highways, roads, and bridges. As the most expensive state in the nation in which to operate a heavy truck, it is time for Oregon to get our priorities straight. The trucking industry can pay for our fair share of damage to the transportation system. But we cannot afford to foot the bill for roads while paying for every molecule of carbon to enter the atmosphere, too. This is true under the best of circumstances, and even more so if we expect this critical industry to thrive and provide a lifeline to Oregonians today—when they need trucking more than ever. OTA has not changed our staunch opposition to cap and trade, and we will continue fighting costly environmental regulations no matter what form they take.