Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide
One of my favorite parts of my job is seeing the tangible results of a team effort. I was recently in Klamath Falls at Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) to join Rep. Bill Garrard in announcing a half million dollar award through Clean Energy Works Oregon (CEWO) for residential retrofits in Klamath County (I co-chair the board of CEWO with Mayor Sam Adams). This award is a portion of the $20 million award from U.S. Department of Energy to take Clean Energy Works Portland statewide as CEWO. The $20 million award and the CEWO structure were made possible in part by HB 2626, the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act (EEAST), which I championed with Reps. Tobias Read and Tim Freeman, and Senator Chris Edwards. The award to Klamath County will put boots on the ground to create good jobs this summer.
EEAST was born out of a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to focus on jobs and the economy, and the intersection with clean energy. When I was in Klamath Falls, I read a story on the front page of the local paper about the views of local leaders on the health, economy, and spirit of Klamath Falls. These leaders described a community undergoing painful change and difficult economic conditions, but one that is resilient, proud, and ready to work. I was reminded of knocking on doors in my district - one that is about as far from Klamath Falls, geographically and politically, as one can get. And yet the stories were similar: people looking for work, families struggling with health care costs, concerns about the future of education for their children, and a hope that economic recovery is just over the horizon. After we made the CEWO announcement, we took the opportunity to hear directly from stakeholders and leaders in Klamath County about their "Vision 2020," a plan for the county that includes keeping investment and tax dollars local, creating access to capital, building urban bike and pedestrian trails, and expanding access to health care information. All of these ideas are ones that resonate with many in the Metro area. The final piece of Vision 2020 was a plan for leaders in Klamath to come to Portland more regularly to build partnerships, such as speaking at City Club. I whole-heartedly agreed, and pledged we would reciprocate.
We have far more in common than I think we sometimes realize. This investment from CEWO is just the beginning of expanded partnership that crosses the urban-rural divide. In fact, on this same trip, I toured a potential site for a $2 billion investment in pump-storage to store renewable energy in Klamath County - an investment put together by Symbiotics, a company located right here in District 42 and staffed by constituents. I also had a chance to tour the campus with a student, Andy, who is part of the Renewable Energy Program at OIT. Andy is from Chicago and read about the first-in-the-nation renewable energy degree at OIT in the Chicago Tribune and decided to move to Oregon for school. Andy showed us the student projects: work on pump storage, geothermal heating and power, solar innovation, biomass energy, wind turbines, fuel from waste vegetable oil, and electric cars. He told us how Klamath Falls heats part of downtown with district geothermal energy and uses geothermal heat to melt snow and ice on sidewalks in the winter. The innovation and potential for new industries, and new forms of energy, was palpable.
This is what the clean energy economy is about for me: jobs and innovation that attract people like Andy to come to Oregon, that invest in companies like Symbiotics, that support a robust research and eduction system like OIT, that build on our abundant renewable resources in rural Oregon, and that provide for comfortable, more affordable homes in Klamath Falls and Portland, and everywhere in between. The CEWO award is just a first step to get there, but with continued partnership, we can work together for a better Oregon.
There are a lot of people who deserve credit for the award to Klamath County. The event was organized by Trey Senn, Executive Director of the Klamath County Economic Development Association, who was an early champion for EEAST. Klamath County Commissioner John Elliott and the rest of the Klamath County Commission provided key support for funding for EEAST as Rep. Garrard helped shepherd the bill through the budget process. Betty Riley, Executive Director of the South Central Oregon Economic Development District worked with Oregon Department of Energy to make Klamath County one of the pilots for EEAST and CEWO. And of course, we wouldn't have the Federal award without the help of our Federal delegation, especially Senators Wyden and Merkley. It was a remarkable coalition of people, and it is just the beginning.
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