The City of Eugene’s Climate Action is Off-Track – So What Now?
The City of Eugene’s Climate Recovery Ordinance (CRO) was passed almost 10 years ago – in 2016. Eugene is a city that cherishes the natural world and strives to leave a safe climate and healthy environment for generations to come. The CRO was an attempt to enshrine these values in the city’s governance, and contains some of the most ambitious climate targets of any city in the country.
Unfortunately, an October 15 presentation by Eugene City staff to Councilors confirmed what Breach and other members of the Fossil Free Eugene Coalition have been fearing: the City is failing to achieve these goals. Specifically:
Compared with the target of a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the City’s own operations below 2010 levels by 2030, the City has so far reduced emissions by only 24 percent; and
Compared with the target of a 50 percent reduction in community-wide GHG emissions by 2030 below 2010, the City has reduced emissions by only 11 percent.
This puts Eugene in the near-impossible position of needing to reduce GHG emissions from City operations by 26 percent, and community-wide emissions by 39 percent, over the next five years. That would be reductions of 5.2 percent and 7.8 percent per year, respectively. Given the lack of recent policy coming out of Eugene City Council, it is unlikely that the City will come even close to achieving the CRO goals it set in 2016.
How did we get here?
Eugene City Council has failed to stand up the fossil fuel industry and bring forward policies that would more rapidly curb Eugene’s GHG emissions. It wasn’t always this way. In February 2023, Eugene was celebrated for becoming the first Oregon municipality to pass an ordinance requiring electrification of new low-rise residential construction. This climate win came after years of relentless organizing by climate and environmental justice groups, including Breach Collective and the Fossil Free Eugene coalition, of which Breach is a key member. Almost immediately, NW Natural – backed by the Eugene Chamber of Commerce – poured close to $1 million into a campaign to undermine the policy. Just as our coalition was preparing to successfully defend it at the ballot, a decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals effectively required the ordinance’s repeal.
Eugene City Council vowed to revisit building electrification policy after a year-long community engagement process. In July 2024, City staff released the findings of this process, with strong community support for electrification incentives. Yet, despite ongoing strategic pressure from Breach and our local allies, not a single incentives-based policy has been brought forward by Council in the fifteen months since. Meanwhile, cities like Ashland, Bend, and Portland are advancing with their own policies and, in doing so, turning Eugene from a leader to a straggler.
An opportunity present itself
Throughout the United States, many communities are increasingly exploring public takeovers of investor-owned utilities as a way to lower energy bills, reduce emissions, and have more democratic control over an essential service. Eugene is fortunate to have had a public electric utility – currently Oregon’s largest – for over 100 years.
The Eugene Water and Electricity Board (EWEB) is hiring for a new general manager, and this position can and should bring fresh ideas to center the utility in anchoring Eugene’s energy transition. EWEB could do this by partnering with the City to identify ways to accelerate electrification and weatherization upgrades in low- and moderate-income households and other priority communities, through a mix of expanding existing EWEB incentives and creating new revenue streams to fund these upgrades. EWEB could also explore rate design innovations that incentivize heat pump adoption and shield ordinary ratepayers from large industrial energy demand. EWEB should also look for community-owned options to go from a 90 percent to a 100 percent emissions-free grid.
The time for Eugene to lead is now. Among other things, the Trump Administration is attacking any and all progress on a just transition away from fossil fuels. In the face of Federal rollbacks and State underinvestment in decarbonization programs, cities like Eugene and utilities like EWEB will increasingly be looked to as models for democratic, community-driven decarbonization. Right now, Eugene is not living up to these aspirations, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The City’s progress report should be a wake-up call, and an opportunity for community-wide recommitment to being a leader in driving local climate solutions.
Breach, along with other members of the Fossil Free Eugene Coalition, will continue to put pressure on both the City of Eugene and EWEB to find innovative policy solutions to achieving Eugene’s climate goals, while reducing household energy burdens and building a fairer, more just energy system.