Oregon Public Broadcasting

A few days ago -- with remarkably little fanfare -- the Department of Environmental Quality started requiring Oregon’s biggest businesses to report their carbon dioxide emissions.

Reporting emissions is very different from reducing them. But the move does mark the start of a whole new local ‘cap-and-trade’ system.

As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, so far businesses have played along with the idea, but many observers predict trouble ahead.

Governor Ted Kulongoski's ambitious goal: reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by the year 2020.  
But before you can do that, you have to know how much you're emitting in the first place.

John Ledger is a vice president with the business group Associated Oregon Industries. He says most businesses have no problem with the reporting requirement.

John Ledger: “Because no one’s really seen the specifics. It’s sort of like a health plan, where everybody agrees that everybody should have good healthcare, but the devil is in the details on how it is applied. How does it work?”

Ledger says another reason industry hasn’t protested the new rules, is that businesses will probably benefit from reporting the full scale of their carbon footprint.

In other words, the higher your reported emissions, the more you'll be allowed to emit.

Alex Schay is with Carbon Solutions Northwest, a business that specializes in helping reduce carbon footprints. He says cutting emissions is a long way from reporting them.

Alex Schay: “Very few companies are become early adopters of greenhouse gas reduction strategies and that’s because they don’t want to move their baseline down lower, if that baseline is then going to become the baseline from which future emissions reductions will be calculated right. So they don’t want to bring the ceiling down on top of their head, artificially.”

So, despite the seemingly calm acceptance of a new cap and trade system, it’s early days.  And there’s a lot at stake.

The names of the companies affected by the new carbon rules reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of corporate Oregon: Blue Heron Paper; Georgia-Pacific; Legacy Hospital.

Coal power plants are the world’s biggest producers of CO2, but cement companies aren’t far behind.

Curtis Leslie, of Ash Grove Cement, says there’s no way a cap and trade system is going to be introduced without a major upheaval.

Curtis Leslie: “Any economy wide cap and trade system on carbon would have dramatic effects on the entire economy, that’s the point.”

But not everyone sees it that way. The Governor’s office recently estimated a cap and trade system would cost the state less than $10 million. California doesn’t think it’ll cost anything.

Here’s Governor Ted Kulongoski on implementing a cap and trade system by 2012.

Ted Kulongoski: “I believe this is the best direction for Oregon. That said, I want everyone to know that I would not move a policy forward that would have a negative effect on Oregon companies or our economy.”

He believes that if done right, a cap and trade system could help Oregon’s economy. He says it would force companies to adopt more energy efficient practices; and encourage new businesses that specialize in carbon reduction technologies.