Hmm... almost makes you wonder why he didn't stick his neck out on this one in an odd-numbered year... but really goes to bat on the issue in an even-numbered year.

It's almost as if... something happens every two years that actually gets him interested in running the state.

But politics aside -- however it happened, it's long overdue. Congratulations to the people who've been working hard on this. I really liked Mr. Bauman's last post on the subject, I hope he's getting a well-deserved pat on the back.

The Senate passed a DEQ budget that had a budget note in it supposedly prohibiting the DEQ (or, probably, EQC) from spending money to pass such administrative rules. The Governor line-item vetoed it. The pro-pollution folks (auto industry) sued, saying Ted couldn't line item veto. They lost their case.

read about it

The Democrat Senate was either (a) spineless; or (b) optomistic the courts would rule with Ted.

The Governor line-item vetoed it. The pro-pollution folks (auto industry) sued, saying Ted couldn't line item veto. They lost their case.

The most interesting thing about this, to me anyway, was that it was never clear before if the governor of Oregon had total line item veto or just the veto for certain things like emergency clause.

The folks who took it to court did us all a favor--we now have a court decision saying the Gov. has line item veto.

If Ted has really wanted to impress me with auto emissions, he could have backed the bill that would have made it a law, and not an administrative rule. (Senate Bill 344)

Yes, Ted did good in vetoing the line-item that came over from the House. He's a great defender.

So now the rule is sitting around waiting to be overturned at the drop of a hat when a Republican governor waltzes into office.

I like it that Ted is on this page, but his M.O. seems to be to do the easy (and legally temporary) version of everything: Auto emissions law? Nah -- administrative rule. Senate Bill 1000? Nah -- set up a task force to study the issue. Health care? Nah -- just tell an agency it's a priority. I just see this issue as more of the "Potempkin Policy."

Will it last?

BTW, Albert -- Ted is not to blame for the 2009 delay... Oregon is required to abide by California's standards, which take effect then. It's California's way or the Federal Government's way.

JHL makes some good points about Kulogonski's approach of governing through expediency that, regrettably, those of us who consider ourselves to be progressive Democrats would do well to think hard about in this election.

Perhaps someone could explain why a line-item veto, which increases the strength of the executive, is a good thing in a representative democracy or a populist state? While you're at it, you might reconcile that with the view in this state that folks believe judges, who actually should have some independence to stand against mob will, should instead be elected politicians.

Stronger executive, compliant courts, and weaker legislature. Sound familiar? Anyone who fancies themselves to be a political thinker here want to argue why Democrats should be supporting that?

<<if ted="" has="" really="" wanted="" to="" impress="" me="" with="" auto="" emissions,="" he="" could="" have="" backed="" the="" bill="" that="" would="" have="" made="" it="" a="" law,="" and="" not="" an="" administrative="" rule.="">> JHL--Kulongoski is not a legislator; he is the Governor. When the bill didn't pass the legislature (didn't even get out of the senate), he used his gubernatorial power to create a policy that has the same effect.

To clarify a couple of things--

1. It's true the rule is not as legally strong as a law, but still pretty damn good. In fact, Oregon's clean air laws are set up -- by the legislature -- such that DEQ & the EQC are given the authority to set specific emissions standards through the process the governor used. If a future governor wanted to repeal, s/he would have to go through a public comment period with public hearings, and with public comments 60-to-1 in favor of the clean cars program, anyone with half a brain would think twice before taking public comment on repealing it.

2. The legislature's backdoor effort to block the governor from enacting the clean cars program last summer was actual legislative language in the DEQ budget, not a budget note. Budget notes intimidate agencies, but don't carry the force of law. So if a court hadn't upheld Gov K's veto, it would have stopped this big victory against global warming.

3. The governor's line-item veto can only be used in budget bills, per the good ol OR constitution. (For legal wonks out there it's technically a "section-item veto" and says the Gov may veto "single items in appropriations bills"...the auto industry's lawyers had to stand in front of a judge and argue over the meaning of the word "item"...hilarious.) And it actually does have good populist origins. It was passed by voters in the early 1900s as part of a series of constitutional amendments to reform the legislative process. In particular they were trying to stop what they called "logrolling," and what usually gets called in Congress (where this behavior is an everyday occurrence) "budget riders." These are legislative measures that wouldn't survive a stand-along debate & vote, so their proponents get them attached to appropriations bills that have to pass. Exactly what the automakers' & auto dealers' lobbyists did in this case. One of the other constitutional amendments that Oregon voters passed at the same time expressly forbids putting what I think they called "unrelated items" in budget bills. So even if the line-item veto hadn't been upheld, the attempt to prohibit clean cars via the DEQ budget would very likely have been thrown out anyway.

4. This is all fascinating politics/policy wonk talk but don't lost sight of the big picture -- this victory means Oregon just enacted our first statewide limits on global warming pollution. It's the beginning of what promises to be a long and difficult effort to curb global warming pollution in the U.S., and Oregon's leadership will be crucial.

Next battle up: clean renewable energy -- let's get to 25% by 2025!

myranda -

JHL and most posters here clearly know that Kulongoski is the governor. His point that the governor should have led by building popular support for SB 344(?) is well taken. The question posed here are about the quality of his leadership. Are you smart enough to get that, or just intellectually incapable of addressing it?

Jeremiah Baumann -

Although the technical budget process you note has origins in the particular populist movement of early last century, that doesn't make it progressive, or good for representative government. The question was cognitive of all that history: Strong executives, (veering towards demagoguery) and populism goes hand-in-hand, as our current national populist environment that has given us our current corrupt Republican congress and the criminal-in-chief proves beyond any intelligent argument. And as does the very fact that Oregon populists enacted this provision and many other features of a strong executive.

Dealing with human-caused global warming -- which is a fact -- is going to require true leadership resulting in meaningful legislation. Interest groups, politically naive individuals, and pandering politicians who are incapable or uninterested in building consensus are not necessarily part of the solution, and can even be part of the problem. Measure 37 demonstrates that failure to engage the population in public policy in a mature way means that any apparent gains can be relatively short-lived. Clinton and that crop of Democratic political leaders, of which a poor leader like Kulongoski certainly appears to be a very unremarkable example, failed to build a genuine substantive political movement embracing the set of values most Democrats share. And just as the good things he did were easily undone in less the 5 years, another governor can easily go through a charade of public hearings and repeal this. This may even mean that industry will delay actually producing such vehicles until later than 2009 to whenever the politics and law are settled.

So I'll re-pose the question to anyone who might want to try again: Stronger executive, compliant courts, and weaker legislature. Sound familiar? Anyone who fancies themselves to be a political thinker here want to argue why Democrats should be supporting that?

and I want to ask: how much is a lung worth? Far too costly for whom? Damn them, both the Oregonian writer who says such a stupid thing and the auto industry for feeding them the line.

For what it's worth, I"m appalled that we still allow the beaters that run forever in this state to choke up our air, but we're going to make new cars $1200 more expensive to get just a little bit cleaner.

Malcom Gladwell, the New Yorker(?) columnist and Tipping Point author, has a great column about homelessness (bear with me, it's on point) that discusses power theory. Power theory holds that most of the distribution for some measurable outcomes occurs not in the middle (the bell curve), but at one end of the spectrum. In sales, 20% of the people account for 80% of the sales. In politics, 10% of the people make all of the decisions. In the homeless, 5% of the homeless cost exponentially more than your average down-on-your-luck homeless person.

In cars, it's the same thing. 5% of the cars cause 90% of the pollution. You see these cars every day. The old Buick with no tailpipe just smokescreening everyone behind it. The 1962 Beetle that gags and coughs everytime it putters from a stop. The 1985 Ford pickup that rattles and clacks so loud you think its wheels are coming off. If we had a program to upgrade those cars that fail, or buy them back, then we would do far more for our air than the CA regs will ever do.

Today's cars are darn clean. It's yesterday's cars that are the problem. Maybe we require these cars to be phased out after two registration renewals, giving the owner time to prepare for buyin a new car. I don't know. What I believe, though, is that the extra burden on new cars is misplaced. I'm no Detroit lackey and applaud any effort to keep our Portland air clean, I'm just mad that we don't go after the obvious problem children, but rather make it MORE expensive for people to buy these new cars. What gives?

Clearly we should be phasing out old cars, yes -- good point. But not to the exclusion of other work.

And as much as "todays cars are darn clean" making them darn cleaner will have a significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions, because most car owners will end up with one of these over the next 20 years. So they'll be the vast vast majority of the fleet, and if we can improve them, we'll have a big impact.

And I'd like to use the terms "statute" and "rule" as "law" is ambiguous. Rules have the force of law, even though they're less powerful than statutes. Which are less powerful than constitutions.

Kari -

His point that the governor should have led by building popular support for SB 344(?) is well taken.

Um, folks, maybe you missed it above in all the back-and-forth, but the Oregon House passed a line-item prohibiting the emissions rule. What about that sounds to you like they might have passed a law containing that emissions rule?

Of course, this comment just further highlights the little K's deficiencies as a leader. In our representative democracy, building popular support means leading an effort in which at least one chamber passes legislation responsive to the public will, making it politically untenable for a recalcitrant chamber to not pass the legislation, and finally seeing to it that popular pressure insures that the desired provisions make it through any reconciliation processes between the chambers.

Unfortunately for us Democrats, this doesn't sound much like the governing style of the little K in his first term, at least with regard to issues responsive to core Democratic values of civil rights, social equality and justice, and economic opportunity, does it?

I agree that it would have been more powerful to engage the public in a way that would have forced the Legislature to act on global warming pollution from cars and trucks.

But I disagree that using the administrative rulemaking process is somehow inherently flawed. First, because once the Legislature has made the political call that Oregon wants to limit air pollution to levels that protect public health and the environment, which it did in passing our clean air laws, it makes sense to pass specific questions about which standards for which pollutants to an administrative agency with expertise -- so long as (and ONLY as long as) the administrative process also involves public participations.

And second, because our administrative processes do engage the public. In fact, Gov K went beyond the requirements of our administrative process to get additional public input. A quirk of timing in our administrative process vis-a-vis requirements of the federal Clean Air Act meant that Oregon would have to put in place a temporary rule before taking public comment (which would then lead to a final rule). So Governor K convened his own task force, which took comment from about 1,200 Oregonians. Governor K received something like 6,000 of his own comments. And during the official comment period, DEQ received more than 5,000 more.

How many laws passed our Legislature last session that had more than 12,000 Oregonians commenting or otherwise participating in the process?

A couple of other things worth noting--

1. On the cost issue: don't let the auto industry or the Oregonian's headline fool you into thinking the Clean Cars program makes it harder for people to buy new cars. Even the auto industry's studies, which most experts think have overinflated the increased cost of a new car by a factor of at least three, show a net benefit to the consumer now that gas is at $3/gallon, because the cleaner cars get better gas mileage. And because more than 90% of Oregonians finance their cars, they see a financial benefit from day one of owning the car.

2. A good example of engaging the public and using small-d democracy to force action by a recalcitrant chamber of the legislature is the payday loans issue. When the House refused to act on the bill, OSPIRG and the payday loan reform coalition (Our Oregon, Food Bank, etc.) did exactly that. Our Oregon filed a ballot measure and OSPIRG (and others) went to city councils to get action. The ballot measure gained visibility, Portland passed an ordinance, then Gresham passed an ordinance. Suddenly when the Gov called a special session to deal with the budget, payday loan reform was on the Speaker's agenda. What a remarkable change of heart....

<h2>If the techknowlegy to reduce CO2 is already here, why don't they build it? Answer: customers don't want it. Do all of you people pushing for regulation own hybrids? Have you chosen a car with a lower HP enine to get one with better gas milage or did you chose the car with better exceleration? Case in point: A Doge Caliber has a 1.8 liter engine, has 148 horses, and gets 28/32 MPG. Sounds like an evirnonmental winner right? A Toyota Matrix which is basicly the same car has a 1.8 liter engine, has 126 horses and gets 30 to 36 MPG. If customers wanted the better milage dodge could get it out of their engine. Which car do you think will be more popular?</h2>