Oregon Gov. Kotek calls herself a “climate champion,” a moniker her supporters also used during her campaign for governor.
During her time as speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, she said she helped pass significant legislation to fight climate change. She supported the state’s Clean Fuels Rule in 2017, and the state’s Clean Energy Jobs bill in 2020. In 2021, she helped pass legislation which requires electric utilities in the state to achieve net-neutral carbon emissions by 2040.
Governor Tina Kotek poses for a portrait in the State Library of Oregon, Salem, Ore., Jan. 29, 2025.
Anna Lueck for OPB / OPB
She said these policies were among the reasons why she ran for governor to “make sure we could fulfill all the things we’ve put into place.”
“It’s not enough to say you have a program, we have a target,” she told OPB. “You actually have to do it.”
But Kotek is now halfway through her term as the state’s top government official. Unlike her predecessor, former Gov. Kate Brown, who created the state’s Climate Protection Program via executive order, Kotek hasn’t made climate or environmental issues central to her agenda. In her first two years, Kotek’s top priorities have been housing and homelessness, behavioral health and education and early learning.
OPB asked Kotek to explain her record on climate and the environment — including some of the top issues shaping Oregonians lives today. Here’s what she told us about the state’s climate progress, how federal funding will affect Oregon’s goals, what climbing utility rates mean, what the state government can do, and more.
Some environmental and climate advocates told OPB climate change has not been one of Kotek’s top priorities, or a priority at all. Others – like the Oregon Environmental Council and Oregon League of Conservation voters – have publicly commended her 2025 proposed budget as a step in the right direction, but advocate for more funding for energy affordability, climate resilience and popular programs like electric vehicle rebates, that have run out of funding.
We asked Kotek to respond.
“I think they have the wrong impression of what my commitment is,” she told OPB. “I really believe that Oregon and the United States have to do more to fight climate change. For me it’s a personal faith issue that we have to be good stewards of the land and that is what has driven me over the years to say, ‘let’s set really ambitious targets, let’s put programs in place’.”
Kotek’s climate mantra: “We have to do all of it and if there’s a good idea out there, that’s something we need to pursue, I am open to it. And if something is proving not to be having as much success as we want, we need to change it to something else. I think we have to adapt.”
She also said her housing proposals — part of her core agenda — are also climate proposals. For example, she hopes to get people in homes closer to where they live to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But so far, Oregon has not reached any of its overall greenhouse gas reduction benchmark goals.
In 2023, the group now known as the Oregon Climate Action Commission, reported Oregon had fallen short of 2020 climate benchmarks by 13%. The report said the state was also on track to miss the 2021 target by 19%.
Despite that, Kotek is optimistic about Oregon’s goals.
“I believe that we are on track to reach our goals,” Kotek said. “We have to stay committed. We have to continue to not take our foot off the pedal at all and if we make progress year after year, we’ll hit those goals.”
“This is definitely the type of crisis that we can’t sit back and say, ‘Well, we have this thing, let’s hope it works’. Hope is not an option here. We have to be very specific on what we’re trying to achieve,” she said. “Oregon has been a leader. We are doing multiple things. My goal as governor is to make sure we can implement.”
But that could be more difficult now that Donald Trump is president.
Governor Tina Kotek sits for an interview with OPB reporter Monica Samayoa in the State Library of Oregon, Salem, Ore., Jan. 29, 2025.
Anna Lueck for OPB / OPB
The Inflation Reduction Act is a national landmark climate law that provided billions of dollars toward climate action aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions while increasing renewable energy. It has granted Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars to support climate change response. Last year, the state was awarded nearly $200 million through the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program. Oregon also was granted almost $87 million last year to increase solar adoption for low-income communities.
But on Jan. 20, the Trump administration issued an executive order freezing funds allocated through the Inflation Reduction Act as well as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
As of Monday, it’s unclear whether the funds from the Inflation Reduction Act are flowing into the state, according to Kotek’s staff.
FILE – The rooftop solar array on a south-facing roof, at a Portland, Ore., home on Dec. 1, 2022. The federal Inflation Reduction Act has promised Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars to support renewable energy projects and other climate programs, but the state of federal funding is unclear.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Kotek said those funds are obligated to Oregon, and many are under a reimbursement basis, which means the state expects to be paid back after it spends the promised funds. Until she hears otherwise, the state is continuing to move forward on climate action.
“What I’ve been telling folks is, ‘Let us stay the course on what we’re doing, wait till we get more guidance’, and really make the argument that Oregon’s taxpayers, who pay into the federal government, know how to manage what they need here,” she said. “Those dollars should flow to the state. … Oregon should be respected for what Oregonians want to do with their tax money, and I hope we can get support from the Trump administration to stay the course.”
If the Trump administration is successful at stopping those promised federal payments, Kotek said, “We’ll have to come back and recalibrate.”
That might mean cutting some programs, she said. That could also mean sending more state dollars into climate programs, if lawmakers agree.
“The good thing is we meet every year as a Legislature so people can come in and talk about additional resources,” she said. “There’s a strong foundation in my budget. There’s $25 million in my budget for the community renewable grants, where it helps communities really develop renewable energy sources as well as resiliency. So for example, homes, if they have solar on the roof, they can get an energy battery storage in their garage in case the grid goes down. We can do more of that.”
Many Oregonians have seen their electric and natural gas bills spike over the past five years.
Some utilities across Oregon have raised their energy rates by 50% since 2020.
The reasons include increases in the price of natural gas, the cost of transitioning to more renewable energy and company profits. But a boom in data centers across the state has also contributed to the rise in energy demand and costs – and its putting strain on an already vulnerable power grid.
Rate increases have sparked outcry from Oregonians who, year after year, are paying more to power their homes, while keeping up with the climbing costs of everyday living due to inflation. Environmental and climate justice groups say people have had to make difficult choices between paying their energy bills and buying groceries, transportation or even medication.
The yearly double digit increases also prompted nonprofit utility watchdog group Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board to propose a rate cap on increases.
“We have to manage for affordability,” she said.
Transmission towers at Bonneville Power Administration’s Earl D. Ostrander Substation near Eagle Creek, Jan. 5, 2023.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Kotek said the state can adopt policies to help with rising energy rates, especially with the increase in power demand from data centers.
A possible solution, Kotek said, would be requiring data centers to pay their fair share for the burden their electrical use puts on the grid. That’s something lawmakers may discuss during the legislative session this year.
“I’ve seen all the stories about, we have commercial users, mostly data centers, taking up a lot of energy and people feeling like the residential rate players are subsidizing the commercial rate payers,” she said. “I do think the bill that Rep. Pam Marsh and the Citizens Utility Board is working on is an important development that I’d like to see get all the way through — this idea that we can protect certain rate payers when other parts of the rate payer, the big commercial folks, pay their fair share.”
Kotek said she has talked to a lot of big data center companies who say “they’re very committed to reducing their carbon footprint, bringing in renewable energy. They just need to step it up and do even more.”
Oregon has many programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s biggest emitters, including the transportation and buildings sectors. But Kotek has her eyes set on other ways to reduce the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions — carbon storage or carbon sequestration.
Carbon sequestration is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it underground. Carbon storage has the same goal, but using trees or parts of a forest to store carbon as trees grow, and some would like to see that done at the Elliott State Research Forest.
“Elliott State Research Forest has been really important to me to make sure we can have carbon sequestration as part of the goals for the research forest, see how it’s actually working, get us onto the carbon credit market,” she said.
Coast Range fog settles on the Elliott State Forest near Coos Bay.
Jes Burns, OPB/EarthFix
The Elliott State Forest, an 82,000 acre forest dubbed a ‘world renowned research forest’ would provide the opportunity for scientific research to help inform better forest management practices, understand how climate change is impacting forests all while providing sustainable forest products, timber harvesting and allowing public access.
But the yearslong process to make the forest into a research forest has hit many snags along the way, including determining what type of research would happen in the forest, timber harvesting and funding.
The state is currently revising its plan for the forest.
Kotek said overall, the Elliott is an important part of reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
She’s also looking into direct carbon capture in Oregon’s basalt rocks.
“We have rock formations in the state of Oregon that really make us good candidates for taking carbon out of the air and storing it down on the rock,” she said. “We have to do testing, we have things to do, but I think that is really a strong future for Oregon in addition to all the other things we’re doing.”
For Oregon to meet its greenhouse gas emissions goals, the state needs other pathways to generate more renewable energy. Floating offshore wind could have been a solution.
But as a scheduled federal auction for two lease areas on the Southern Oregon coast was getting closer, things fell apart.
There was mounting local opposition from nearby city and county leaders, fisherman, environmental groups, residents and tribes — who all called for the federal government to provide more data on its environmental and economic impacts. Others said the process was moving too quickly and some said the floating technology was not advanced enough to withstand the ocean conditions. The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians also filed a lawsuit with the intent to delay the auction.
FILE – Coos Bay Harbor Entrance Viewpoint, near the Charleston Marina, on Dec. 7, 2023. A proposal to install turbines would be 18 or more miles offshore failed late last year. Gov. Tina Kotek says it will now likely be a decade before the technology has a chance of taking hold off the Oregon Coast.
Monica Samayoa / OPB
Kotek was among those also calling on the federal government to provide information. In late September, she sent a letter to the federal agency in charge requesting to terminate the auction. And ultimately, it did.
“I do think wind’s a viable way to go, but the community has to want it,” she said. “We have to understand what it means.”
Now, the state is working to create a roadmap to develop standards for how offshore wind should be approved and developed if a new lease opportunity arises. This work is moving ahead despite executive orders by the Trump administration that have halted offshore wind projects in other areas of the country.
Kotek said she’s hopeful the public process and the roadmap will answer a lot of questions and bring forth new questions to ask.
“We’ve also talked about building a West Coast procurement infrastructure so we can get the materials and things that actually go into making these windmills available,” she said.
But Kotek believes Oregon won’t benefit from floating offshore wind energy until at least 2035.
“This is probably a 10-year horizon,” she said. “We haven’t even had a lease, looking at what they’ve done in Europe and on the East coast but by 2035, we really could use that extra option for new renewable energy and I think we should continue to pursue it.”
Tags: Politics, Science & Environment, Climate Change
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